Sermon on Psalm 119:33-40 – How To Delight in God’s Word

1. Consider the imperative requests the Psalmists makes to God.

1) Verse 33 “Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end.”

2) Verse 34 “Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.”

3) Verse 35 “Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight.”

4) Teach me! Give me! Make me!

5) There is a progression here from a learner to a receiver to a server.

6) The Psalmist is demanding from God that God set his ways aright.

7) He shows an intense DESIRE in the word of God.

2. His desire is for God’s word.

1) He calls God’s word several things here:

a. Statutes.

b. Law

c. Commandments

2) He wants to know God’s way, God’s path, so that he can walk in it.

a. To keep it unto the end of his life.

b. To observe it with his whole heart.

c. To rejoice in it each day of his life.

3) What a tremendous attitude toward the word of God.

3. Why do we desire God’s word?

1) Do we desire it?

2) Perhaps we do so because of family.

3) Perhaps we do so because of peer pressure.

4) Perhaps we do so because of social life.

5) The Psalmist desired it so that his life would be ordered correctly.

6) He desired God’s word for the kind of life that following it produced.

7) That is why we ought to desire and live by God’s word.

8) Psalm 119:105 “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

9) Proverbs 6:23 “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:”

10) Proverbs 10:17 “He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction: but he that refuseth reproof erreth.”

4. We desire to delight in God’s word because of the beautiful outcome of obedience to God’s word.

1. The Psalmist expresses disdain for devilish things.

1) He prefers God’s testimonies to the attitude of covetousness.

2) He wants God to turn his eyes away from vanity or emptiness and be made alive in God’s way.

3) Covetousness and vanity go hand in hand.

4) Covetousness is inordinate desire for things that are not in our care and keeping.

a. One may covet property.

b. One may covet another’s wife.

c. One may even covet a certain kind of life.

d. Covetousness is the result of misplaced priorities in one’s life.

5) Vanity is emptiness; it is the absence of things that have true value.

a. Things that dissipate are vain and empty.

b. Things that become useless are vain and empty.

c. Things that are have no intrinsic worth are vain and empty.

d. Vanity is the ultimate result of wickedness.

e. Proverbs 22:8 “He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity…”

2. The Psalmists desire is to replace his desire for the devilish with God’s ways.

1) To incline his heart to God’s testimonies.

2) To be made alive in God’s way.

3) We must have something positive to replace negative things that we wish to expunge from our life.

4) Consider Matthew 12:43-44 in this regard: “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.”

3. Consider also Romans 12:21 “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

4. We disdain wickedness by filling our lives with goodness and things that have real value.

5. The Psalmist understood that if he wanted to delight in God’s word he needed to have disdain for the devilish.

1. The Psalmist next expresses his devotion to God’s Divine Decree.

1) By requesting to be established in God’s word.

2) By praising God’s judgments.

3) By longing for God’s precepts.

2. He does these things expecting certain consequences.

1) That he would have reverent respect for God.

2) That his reproaches would be disregarded.

3) That he would be made alive in God’s righteousness.

3. The Psalmist expresses a high level of devotion to God’s word.

1) He recognizes that the attitudes he has toward God’s word result in consequences in his life.

2) So he seeks to be devoted to God’s word so that there may be beautiful consequences.

3) He recognizes that his level of devotion to God is proportionate to those consequences.

4. What is our level of devotion to the divine decree?

1) Do we just dabble in God’s word like a child in a puddle?

2) Do we treat God’s word as a hobby? It’s there when we need a distraction?

3) Do we see God’s word as vocation? Something that will pay out in the long run?

4) Do we see God’s word as the very foundation of our existence?

5) The Psalmist saw God’s word as the fabric in which to thread his life.

6) This is devotion.

7) John 8:12 “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

5. The Psalmist understood that if he wanted to delight in God’s word he needed to be devoted to the divine decree.