Your Word is Settled in Heaven Forever

Well, good morning. It's good to have all of you with us. We are going to continue in Psalm 119. This morning we're in Lambda, which is verses 89 through 96. God's good to us in how he orchestrates things. The fact that we read Ecclesiastes chapter 9 is a very good introduction to this section of Psalm 119. It flows well. There's this contrast. So in Ecclesiastes 9, the preacher is reminding us how fickle life can seem, how topsy-turvy, the wisdom, everyone dies. Throughout life, the things that you would predict don't always happen, right? The fast runners don't always win the race. Bread is not to the wise, wealth to the discerning, right? All these different things. He's saying life is not that stable. It's not as predictable as what we think. And that's a good thing for us to think about. How many of you think right now that your life is stable and in order? How many of you feel that life's tumultuous?

that it's disordered. There's so much chaos going on, whether that's politically or whether that's in your day-to-day life. Our passage this morning reminds us that there is one sure and true foundation for us, one thing that's settled that we can anchor into that can bring stability amidst the chaos, and that's the Word of God. Now, please stand for the reading of God's word. This is Psalm 119, 89 through 96. Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations. You establish the earth and it stands. They stand this day according to your ordinances. For all things are your servants. If your law had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction.

I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have revived me. I am yours. Save me, for I have sought your precepts. The wicked wait for me to destroy me. I shall diligently consider your testimonies. I have seen a limit to all perfection. Your commandment is exceedingly broad. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Well, why might your lives feel unstable? Why might things seem like they're out of control? There's a plethora of reasons, right? You think about our culture and how quickly things have shifted. You think about the fact that President Trump has to specify that there are, well, he said two genders, but there's two sexes, right? How long ago would that have been an incomprehensible thing to specify? Divorce is ubiquitous.

Sex outside of marriage is not even shameful anymore. Abortion's rampant. There's social media trends that glorify stealing your employer's time, quiet quitting, you know, things like this. Like, you just go throughout our culture and think how many issues that, like, how right and wrong seems to just be shifting to and fro. And there seems no stability in our morals. We can look at politics and not just the right-left dichotomy, but within, right? Like even within the right. Some people are conservative, but they're not conservative enough. And so we can just hone in and get really specific. And so people that you would think might be friends or political allies are not. There's wars and there's rumors of wars all over the place.

And then also we think about technology, right? Technology is just changing and changing and changing. We now have this thing called AI, and we're trying to figure out what that means for our jobs and what that means for our day-to-day interactions. What does that mean for teaching and school? And now we have AI chatbots who are replacing real friendships. Lovers and all sorts of perverted things. And so like our culture is just turmoil, change, you name it. But those are sort of like big societal things, right? But how many, I mean, we can just move on down. Let's forget about the society. What about in your own life? What about your job? What about your work?

How many of us are concerned about those things? You know, what AI might do to our job? What about this economy? Is the economy good or strong? What about your health? How many of us are dealing with continual health issues? Family situations? There's just area after area in our lives we can look, and the question is, when things feel out of control, what do you do? You think about it, if you're moving and you stumble, or like the ground feels like it moves, immediately what do you do? You reach out to grab something that isn't stumbling to stabilize, right? When things are out of control, you look for the thing that seems stable, solid, something that you can grab onto and keep yourself from tumbling or falling.

Well, what the psalmist begins to do in this psalm is declare to us that God's word is settled. God's word is the thing that is stable, and it's stable, it's settled forever. God's word has never changed, and it never will change. It would be hard to find something more stable than that. And notice what he says, your word is settled in heaven. It's not settled in Washington. It's not settled in Tehran. It's not settled in Jerusalem, not in Moscow, not in Beijing. God's word is settled forever in heaven. Why is that significant? Well, heaven is, it's above all these places. Every nation in this world has come and gone. Their laws, their reigns come to an end. They don't last. But that's not true of God's word. God's word.

is in heaven. His reign is settled forever. It doesn't go with the nations. It doesn't rise and fall. We must be careful what we anchor ourselves into, whether we're anchoring and looking for solidity in something that will have any lasting value. Our world is governed by God's word, which does not change. And it doesn't change because God doesn't change. What he has decreed to come to pass comes to pass. So God's word goes forth from heaven to govern all nations, cities, peoples, you, me. God's word goes forth from heaven to govern and rule all things. It's established in heaven over all things. And so as believers, We must anchor our faith into what is fixed above, not what is below. What is below is always shifting and changing. Now, you may say, what evidence do we have of this? How can we know for certain that God's word is fixed forever? The psalmist anticipates that.

And he says, your faithfulness continues throughout all generations. You establish the earth and it stands. If you want proof that God's word is settled, think back. How many days have you woken up and the sun didn't get up? How many days has the sun not gone down? Every day of our life, the sun has come up and gone down because God has commanded it. Every year, seasons have come and gone, seed time and harvest, as God promised that they would. The planets, they're continuing in their courses. The tides have come in and gone out just as God has commanded. God's word is settled forever. And we can see that in the fact that creation continues to operate as God commands it. God's established it. He continues to govern it and it obeys.

This is reiterated by Jesus when he preaches in the Sermon on the Mount. And he says that for truly I say to you, until heaven and earth shall pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until it is accomplished. Creation testifies to God's consistent control and decree from heaven. The earth, he says in the next verse, right? He says this. They stand this day according to your ordinances, for all things are your servant. The earth is God's servant. It does all that he commands. You think about the story of Korah, Nathan, and Abiram and how rebellious the people were. And yet when God commands the earth to open up, it obeys. Every time God commands, Jesus tells the storm to stop. It does. The earth is under God's command.

And so we might ask ourselves, if God is governing the tides, if he's governing the rising and the setting of the sun, does his word not govern our jobs, our health, the situation that you're going through that you feel is like out of control? The planets obey God. How can your circumstances not be under his control as well? If he can control all of these things and keep all of them spinning and moving on the courses that he has ordained. God's word is settled and it doesn't change. He's declared from heaven. It goes forth and it governs and orders all of life, which should give us great comfort and strength. Because if we are anchored into his word, then that gives us a foundation that is sure.

We may not understand all that's going on. And yet we know that there is a sovereign God who controls all things. The psalmist goes on and he says, so your word is settled forever. And we can see that evidenced in creation. God's word has established creation. It continues to rule it and uphold it. But it doesn't stop right there. It continues because this should have an effect on our own lives. The psalmist says that God's word, his delight in his word has kept him from perishing and it has revived him. First, he says that if the law had not been his delight, he would have perished. What does that mean? What would it have meant for him to perish? Well, the psalmist, if you recall in the last few sections of Psalm 119, he's been coming under great, great affliction.

There have been men who are out to get him. They're persecuting him. And he is on the verge of losing hope, of despairing, maybe giving into sin. And yet he doesn't. And the reason he doesn't is because he hopes in and delights in the law of God. The psalmist could give into bitterness, anger, or despair. Something that we're all... prone to do, these sins that as we feel that people have sinned against us or people have sinned against us and we feel out of control, often we can get angry, angry at God, angry at others. We can turn to bitterness. And these things sap our joy and strength. They bear us down. They make us want to die or feel like we're going to die. And so what is the answer to those things? What can change that for us?

Well, what the psalmist did is he delighted in God's word. And the strength to get through all of these persecutions, the strength to get through all of these afflictions that he's going through is found in God's word. So how do we delight in God's word? The first thing is we have to love God. No one who rejects God can delight in God's word. One of the things that God does when he our hearts is he actually begins to give us a desire for his word and a love for his word. It's a mark that someone is a Christian, is that they love his word. They love to study it, to read it. And there is really no substitute for loving God's word and reading it. We need to be in his word. It's how God speaks to us and teaches us and changes our desires, changes our tastes.

And as you give yourself over to reading God's word, to listening to his word, to spending time in it, what you see is that scripture will begin to shape how you think. It will begin to shape your desires and it will grow love and delight within you for his word. If you do not spend time in God's word, you will not grow to delight it. And sometimes what it requires of us is to just begin. You may not quite desire it at the beginning. But what happens is it's like learning how to eat any food. There's many foods that you just didn't like. You don't like asparagus or something. But as your parents force you to eat it, you begin to develop a taste for it. It's one of those things where often with God's word, it's like that, that you have to just start.

Start listening to it and pray that God will change your attitude. And what happens as you do that, as you give yourself to his word, he actually will begin to affect you by it. It's powerful. And it must be united with prayer. God will change what you take pleasure in through your prayers and through your giving yourself over to his word and to what he's commanded you. If you make God's word your study, If you take delight in it, what will happen is it will actually give you strength in times of affliction and hardship. But it doesn't happen by accident. Your affections are things that are cultivated and grown. If we give ourselves over to TikTok or social media, YouTube, podcasts of whatever is the popular thing, that's what you're going to be cultivating your affections by.

That is what's going to shape what you desire and what you have a taste for. But if you give yourself over to the word of God and to its study and to pondering the mysteries of God, that will shape your desires and your delights. And in times of affliction and hardship, it will preserve you. God's word is the instrument that God often uses to preserve and to revive his people in affliction. Therefore, You must not forget it. I remember when I was thinking about this, I was remembering there was a time that I remembered a particular stretch of road I was driving down. I was in an old Chevy truck that I had. And I don't remember exactly what the situation was at work, but I was pretty depressed about it. And Psalm 10, I was just listening to my soul among lions, Psalm 10 on repeat for a few weeks, months straight.

It was just that psalm was a strength to me with all the things that were happening at work at that time. And I just was living on that. And I think that's what the psalmist is saying right here when he says that I will never forget your precepts for by them you revived me. When you are a student of God's word, when you've memorized God's word, when you love God's word, when you go through difficulties, you should expect. That there will be passages, there will be a psalm, there will be a scripture that just gives you strength to get through whatever difficulty and challenge you're in. That it actually will give you life. That you are depressed, and as you listened to that psalm, or you read that psalm, or you quoted that verse to yourself, that you actually felt strength reenter your body.

rejoin the fight, to get on with life. That God's word has so much power that it will give you the strength that you need. And so for us, if we're in a time of relative peace in our lives, be studying God's word, memorize it, put it into your heart and mind so that when the trials and the temptations come, it's ready there to revive you, to strengthen you. And when it does, it is hard to forget those verses. You think of when you first become a Christian and the verses that maybe someone used in witnessing to you or as you first became alive and first began reading the Bible, the verses that stuck out to you. It's hard to forget those things because they breathe life into us. It's the power of God's word.

God's word isn't simply something that sustains and preserves us. In light of God's having preserved him and revived him, the psalmist makes this claim in 94. He says, I am yours, save me. I am yours, save me. It's a very striking thing that the psalmist says here. And as I've been studying in Psalm 119, it's, been an encouragement to me to think about the fact that one of the ways that we ought to pray is based upon God's promises, which is kind of duh, right? But God has covenanted with his people. He has saved the psalmist. He's kept him from perishing by his word. And then he says that you've kept me from perishing and you've revived me by your word. That means that he's God's, right?

God has loved him. He's covenanted himself with his psalmist, which means the psalmist is God's. So now he's looking at all these afflictions, these wicked, which are waiting to destroy him. And he says, you have saved me. You've revived me. I'm yours. Save me. There's an obligation. Maybe we could say it's God has covenanted himself to us, which means he's obliged himself to us in particular ways. So we ought to call on God to fulfill the promises that he's made concerning us because we're his people. Outside of the covenantal framework, it could seem like a crazy claim to call on God to save you as if God owes it to you. But when God has promised that to his people, then all you're doing is saying, do what you've promised. I'm your child, save me. Now, the next thing he says though, I have walked, or I shall diligently consider your test, or I have sought your precepts. He says, I have sought your precepts. The salvation is not because of his obedience to God's precepts, but there is a certain,

hopefulness that comes when you can call on God and say, save me. And it comes from a foundation of having been obedient to God in the midst of difficulty. When you're under affliction, you sort of put up a token fight and then give in, or you're ashamed to name the name of Christ. And then you call on God to save you. You'll probably feel like a hypocrite with good reason. The psalmist here is saying, I am yours. save me, I have sought after your precepts. He doesn't say he perfectly followed God's precepts, but that is the tenor of his life. He is pursuing God, he's seeking obedience to God, and he's calling on God to save him. Obedience is an evidence of faith. And if we are acting in faith, following the commands of God, that should be an encouragement for us to cry out to God.

I'm acting in faith. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. I am seeking after your ways. Save me. Now notice, as he's crying out for this salvation, he also is realizing that the wicked are what? The wicked are waiting there to destroy him. They're right there. They're ready to get him. And this is again where the psalmist does something we don't expect. If you know the wicked are right there, waiting to get you. You're crying out to God to save you. What is your response? What do you think? Well, the psalmist doesn't react in anger. He turns to God's word and he meditates on it and diligently considers it. When you're being opposed by wicked men, you feel like the ungodly are out there to get you. What is your response? Is your first response, Let me turn to God's word and meditate on it and see how God would have me respond. Or is it with anger, with fighting, with we need to make a law about this? When you feel overwhelmed and in danger, where do you turn? Because your instinct at that moment, when you feel fear, the thing you turn to is what you hope in.

That's what you put your trust in. That's what you think will bring stability and control back to you. Our culture, it's very easy to look for help in all the wrong places. They'll search for some lesser type of savior. I mean, all the social media is filled with everyone who will sell you something to save you from some perceived problem. It's easy for us to look to our careers, to promotions, to wealth. Money and success, that will secure us. Maybe we put our hope and our security in our relationship with our husband or our wife, our children, friends. We look to political parties, elections, leaders. Maybe the thing that we need that will fix our problems is health and fitness and lifestyle, right? You want to talk about things that aren't stable. I mean, how much does medicine just...

I mean, I don't know if we're supposed to feed kids strawberries now or peanut butter. That's changed how many times, right? Dairy. Eggs are good for you. Eggs are bad for you. Egg whites are good for you. All these different things, right? We're like, oh, well, if we just get the right diet, the right thing. But all of that is just unstable. We'll find temporary comfort in our entertainment, social media, digital distractions, right? But none of these things will actually answer the problem. None of the things will actually give us the stability or the comfort that we want. They're all finite. They're all deceptive and they're fleeting. Only God's word is settled in heaven and stable forever. It doesn't change. Only the creator can preserve us and revive us and guide us. Everything else that we wanna seek, hope and comfort or pursue is faltering. It's like when, I think it was Sennacherib comes up against Jerusalem and he says, will you put your trust in that faulty reed, Egypt? It'll break and it'll pierce your hand. It's a reed, right? It's a faulty reed. It'll break and pierce your hand. That is all things of this world that we put our hope and trust in. They're faulty reeds that will break and pierce our hand.

So when trouble comes, when we feel that instability and we look what to grab, are we going to look to a lesser savior or are we going to turn to God and say, I am yours, save me? Will you anchor yourself into the word that never fails and trust the God who commands the universe and yet cares for us personally, who's covenanted with his people? Or will you trust in worldly things? And this is sort of, this is what the psalmist then goes into in the last verse. He says, I have seen a limit to all perfection. Your commandment is exceedingly broad. And this again is reminiscent of what we've been reading over the last few weeks in Ecclesiastes. There's an end to everything. Nothing lasts. Everything has a limit. This is true of our careers. It's true of our physical beauty and our fitness.

It's true of a nation's prosperity. It's true of our lives. Everything has a limit and an end except for God's word. God's word has no limits. It reaches to every area of your life. It reaches to your thoughts, your words, your relationships, every decision you make, your work, how we use our technology, our friendships. God's word is exceedingly broad. And this breath teaches us that God's word is sufficient for every circumstance. There's no trial, no temptation, or no uncertainty that is beyond the help of the word of God. That he doesn't have some comfort and guidance to speak to us in the midst of it. And so this section of Psalm 119 is teaching us that we need to trust.

God, we need to trust his word completely. It should rule and guide us in every area and aspect of our lives. We must be meditating on it and obeying it. Not just reading it for five minutes in the morning to check that box, but learning to love and to allow to soak in it and marinate in it. Because his word, revives us, and it gives us the strength to persevere in trials. Maybe the reason we're so weak in our affliction is because we're so anemic in our understanding of God's word and in our love for it. But the psalmist relies on it. I mean, you think about if this was Daniel, as we've talked about before, if this was Daniel who wrote it, how alone was Daniel as a ruler in Babylon?

With people who are constantly backbiting and trying to bring him down. And yet, God's word sustained him. So we should trust in the sufficiency of God's word. When life's overwhelming, we need to remember that God's word applies to every area of our lives. That it is not lacking in any way. And so we need to give ourselves over to its study, to apply it to our lives, and to find our security. There. It's settled in heaven forever. God will not go back on his word or on his promises. And it is the sure foundation on which to build our lives. Nothing else in this world is so sure or so firm. Let's pray.