Teach Your Servant!

Well, good morning. It's good to have you all with us. I'm Pastor Eric. I'm an assistant pastor here at Clearnoat Church. This morning, we are going to be going through Psalm 119 verses 121 through 128. And our passage this morning is about the servant of God. And so I've broken it down into four points. First point is that the servant suffers for righteousness. Second point is that the suffering produces a longing for salvation. The third point is that the servant continually seeks instruction in the midst of the suffering. And the fourth is that the servant loves God's law and hates evil. So if you would please stand for the reading of God's word. This is Psalm 119, 121 to 128.

I have done justice and righteousness. Do not leave me to my oppressors. Be surety for your servant for good and do not let the arrogant oppress me. My eyes fail with longing for your salvation and for your righteous word. Deal with your servant according to your loving kindness and teach me your statutes. I am your servant. Give me understanding that I may know your testimonies. It is time for the Lord to act, for they have broken your law. Therefore, I love your commandments above gold. Yes, above fine gold. Therefore, I esteem all your precepts concerning everything. I hate every false way. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Well, the psalmist makes a bold claim here again.

I have done justice and righteousness. Do not leave me to my oppressors. The psalmist is beginning by protesting his obedience to God. He says he's done justice. He's done righteousness, which is exactly what a servant of God ought to do, righteousness and justice. There are many different ways that the Bible summarizes how we ought to follow God and what that looks like. But one might think of Micah 6, 8, which says, he has told you, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you, which is to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. And so this is what the psalmist starts by saying. I've done justice. I've done righteously. He's doing exactly as a servant of God is supposed to do. Now, When you, as a servant of God, do what you're supposed to do, you're acting justly, you're doing righteousness, what's the result? Everyone's going to love you, right? They're going to give you a good thumbs up and say, well done. They'll be proud of you. Well, there will be some of that probably from some people, maybe. But often the case is that when we're obedient to God,

It brings about opposition. It brings about oppression. The people of God are often treated cruelly, harshly. Now, when he says that he's done justice and righteousness, what does he mean by that? It's not a claim to perfection. The psalmist is not saying that he has arrived at the place he needs to be, right? There's no more sin in his life, all he does, right? He's not making a claim to innate righteousness or that he is now perfect. We see later on he asked God to be his surety and asking God to teach him, which shows that he knows that there's lacking, right? This is not any claim to a perfect justiceness or righteousness. Rather, What the psalmist is saying is the direction of his life, of his heart, of his actions is towards justice and righteousness. That is his desire. He is not going about oppressing others. Rather, he's obeying God. And throughout his day, the decisions that he makes are, to the best of his ability, in line with God's justice and righteousness. He's acting in accord with what he knows.

to be true, and to be in line with God's law. His cause is a righteous, godly cause. However, in pursuing it, he's being oppressed. Now, it's important to remember that this oppression is linked to his righteous cause because often we may be mean, a jerk. We may say things nastily and then think, That, oh, we're being oppressed because we've spoken the truth. He's being oppressed not because he was being unkind in what he said or provocative. He's not been posting provocative things on the internet to shock his friends and to get the algorithm to promote him and to get others to follow him and try and stir up opposition in that way. Being opposed does not mean that you're being oppressed. Being opposed might just mean because...

you're being a jerk. You're not being kind. 1 Peter 2.20 says, for what credit is there when you sin and are harshly treated? And you endure it with patience. But if when you do what is right and you suffer for it and you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. And this is the position of the psalmist, right? And this is the position that we ought to check our hearts and see. When we face opposition, when we face oppression, One thing we ought to ask ourselves is, have I been doing justly and righteously? Is the opposition that I face because I am following God rightly, or is it because I've been sinning and actually need discipline, right? Now, the psalmist does not give us the specifics of his oppression, and that's helpful in ways because what it does is it allows us to look at it and see, and read in some of what we're going through, right? It's not a particular type, but what we see is he is being following God. He's being just, he's being righteous, and now there's oppression. And so we can look at it and we can see and examine our own lives and say, well, where might we be facing oppression like he is? What are some things that might be in the vein of this? As if we think of this as Daniel.

and he's facing oppression or opposition in Babylon, what are some examples that we might face? Well, we can look at our culture, and we can see examples out there, right? I think recently there was a minor league team that had to forfeit a game because they would not support Pride Month, right? They're doing something right, and they're facing opposition for it. There were times where I remember my brothers were in like a bitty wrestling program and they refused to wrestle with the girls. And there was backlash. I mean, there were parents who were very angry and yelling and cussing and whatever for doing what was right. Think about your job, right?

There are times at our jobs where we have to speak up because something that is being promoted is unethical or wrong or we're told to lie. Maybe you think about if you're in school and you have to stand up against friends, maybe a teacher. I mean, we can keep thinking of different ways where we are called to do justice and act righteously and we'll have opposition. Some of us, right? I know of talking to some of you, you've faced that in your families as you've disciplined your children. And you've had to face opposition from parents or in-laws who do not agree with the way that you discipline your children. And there will be opposition and you have to decide what you're going to do. In other words, when we feel pressure to conform, not to obey God, and to speak truth, and not to speak truth because of what others will say, think, or do we will have an option of either doing justice and righteousness or caving to those who want to oppose you or oppress you for doing what's right and the question is will you give in or will you be like the psalmist who will obey god the psalmist does not cave he follows god even though it's difficult and it makes him feel as if he is alone because what he says is

do not leave me to my oppressors, right? So what you realize is that the psalmist here, as he takes his stand, realizes that there's all the people out there who hate him for doing justice and for living righteously. And he realizes that if I take this stand, if the Lord were to desert me, I would have nothing. So he calls on God to not leave him alone. And then next, what he says is, Be surety for your servant for good. Now, this is an interesting thing. What is a surety? A surety is a person who legally assumes direct liability for another man's debt or obligation. The term also refers to a formal pledge, a financial guarantee, or bond used to secure that promise. So essentially, all that just means is that someone whose surety is responsible for the other person. They say, I will be responsible for you. So you think about a loan, the cosigner, right? The cosigner who says, if so-and-so defaults on their payments, then I will take over the payments. That is surety. And so the servant here, the psalmist, is calling on God to be responsible for him, to be his guarantee. Now,

This is actually the obligation that a master owes a servant. The master, when the master has a servant, he is actually responsible for that servant. He's responsible for his actions. He's responsible for what he does. And so here, the servant is simply calling on the master to do what the master is obligated to do, to be his guarantee for good. And what we see is that the servant has risked his well-being in doing his master's will. And in risking that, he's now turning to his master and saying, protect me, guarantee me. And that's something that we should do as well, right? We should never act in faith or live in faith without turning to God and expecting him to be our surety. Now, if we go to the New Testament, And you think about when we're talking about the surety that we have. Well, of course, all our minds should go to Christ. Hebrews 7.22 says, so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. And so right here, we see the promise of the gospel. We are called to do justice and to act righteously.

The best we can do, though, is not good enough. Like the psalmist, he's saying, I've done justice and righteous and all these things, but it's not enough, right? He realizes he's not coming up. So what does he need? He needs God to be his surety. Our surety as Christians is not all the good work that we do, because our good works are lacking. They're filthy rags. But the one who stands behind it, the guarantee of it, the one who perfects it all, which is Christ. Our surety is in Christ, Christ who lived a perfect life and died in our place. And that should give us a glorious confidence. We, you, I should act in faith to honor God and expect him to guarantee it, to be our surety. And so if you think about this, if God is behind you, supporting you, then we ought not to live in fear of living out our faith in public and everywhere we go. Because we have the support of the Creator, of the God who rules all things. And so this is how the saints have always been able to live a glorious, faith-filled life, is because they know that the surety is found in Christ.

They have a foundation that is so unshakable that they can live lives that the world can't comprehend because they're not worried about the world's response. So the servant is doing justly. He's calling on God to be his surety. The next thing he says is that his eyes fail with longing for your salvation and your righteous word. Though he has this surety, God's surety, it doesn't mean that everything's just easy, right? And he's facing this opposition. And what it does is it weans him of a love for this world. And so his eyes long for his salvation. And we ought to ask ourselves, what do you long for? What do you long for? As kids, we often long for Christmas, right?

You long for your vacation, holiday, a certain retirement, certain number in your 401k. What is the thing that you're like, there's a goal that you have and you're pursuing it. And it's like, that's the thing that drives you. That's the thing that you're longing for. This psalmist is like a child who hears that grandma's coming. And so they run to the door, they run to the window, and they're just waiting with wide eyes. longing for her arrival. Well, what the psalmist's longing for is the salvation of God. Does this longing that wears your very eyes out describe your longing for Christ's return? Do you look for and hope for Christ's return with this intensity? Now, I'm equating this to looking for Christ's return because at the return of Christ is when our salvation will be consummated. See, right now, anyone who has faith in Christ is saved. At the moment that you come to faith, you are justified in the sight of God. And when you die, you will go straight to be with him.

While the psalmist was looking forward to salvation, and in part that being the actual death and resurrection of Christ, we're looking, so he was saved by looking forward to it, right? We are looking back to that Christ, the work of Christ, but we're also looking forward. We're looking forward to the consummation of the salvation that Christ wrought. Because while we're on earth, will still face oppression. And this psalm in particular is talking about the oppression of men, right? The men who are hating him because of his righteous living. However, I think that we can generalize this more. I want to open it up a little bit more and think about what is the oppression or the opposition that we face in this life that would cause us to have this great longing for the salvation of God? Well, there's all sorts of things, right? We think about how often our own flesh opposes us living lives of righteousness and of justice. And this would be our own sinful desires, lustful desires, right? But we're even betrayed by our own flesh. We get depressed. We get sick. We face death.

whether that's looking at our own mortality or whether it's looking at the death of a friend or our own child. These are all enemies, things that oppress us, things that make it hard for us to live lives filled with righteousness. The Puritans always talked about the three enemies that we face, the world, the flesh, and the devil. And all of the things that come at us would fall under one of those headings, the world, the flesh, or the devil. And so while we're still on this earth, we're going to face these evils. When we die, while we will be with God as soon as we die, until the end of time, the fullness of all believers won't be gathered together. And so even in heaven right now, there are the saints who are under the altar crying, how long, oh Lord?

And though they're with God, they're still waiting for this salvation that's coming, this full consummation when everyone, every believer of all times are brought together. So we're saved at the point that we believe, but we all look forward to the full consummation when there will be a final judgment and Christians of all time will be brought together. And at that point, every wrong will be righted. the earth will be remade, and we will go to be in the presence of God, never to be out of it. And that will be a great and marvelous day. And so this is what the psalmist is looking forward to, with great longing in the midst of his suffering. And so I ask you again, is that you? Do you look forward to that day? Or are we described more by, we were convicted of our sin, we repented, we've got our fire insurance, And so we're just sort of muddling through this life, doing the next thing. Are we just, you know, sort of tunnel vision? We work really hard so we can buy our toys, so we can fritter our time away, doing whatever the things that we already do, sort of dulling our senses and keeping us from thinking about existential things like death and resurrection and the return of Christ.

we even in the midst of prosperity and good we can learn to long for god and his return because there's always things that we see that are bad and that but but often oppression and opposition is what sparks that desire because that's when we really begin to see the desperate need in the brokenness of this world and if we do not long for the return of christ One question to ask is, do we actually face opposition? And if we don't face opposition in our lives, then one thing to ask yourself is, does anyone know you're a Christian? Do they even have an opportunity to oppose you as a Christian? Because you just sort of buried it. Not the psalmist. He's living justly and righteously. Everyone's seeing it. And so he's suffering. Well, where does the suffering servant turn to?

Where do you turn in your difficulties? Do you turn to something that will dull your senses, doom scrolling, drinking, food? What do you turn to? The psalmist doesn't turn to any of these things. What the psalmist turns to is the word of God. And so what the psalmist says is not only is he waiting for that great day of salvation, but he's also longing after the word of God. And so he turns to the Lord and he says, deal with your servant according to your loving kindness and teach me your statutes. I am your servant. Give me understanding that I may know your testimonies. It is time for the Lord to act for they have broken your law. Now, again, just notice the rights that the psalmist has as a servant of God.

He is calling on God to fulfill certain obligations that a servant has to a master. And this is us. If you're a Christian, you ought to call on God to teach you as the psalmist does, to be surety for you as a psalmist does. It's the relationship that God has put himself in towards his people. As their master, then he's obligated himself in particular ways to his people. Now, what we see here is that the psalmist has familiarity with God's word because he's making this appeal based on the Lord's loving kindness. And this idea of the loving kindness of the Lord is the Hebrew word chesed. And so if you were to go back to Exodus 34 and Moses comes to God and he's up on the mountain with God and he asks God to to describe him or to reveal himself to him, okay? And the Lord hides Moses in the cleft of the rock and his glory passes by. But the Lord, and it's easy to get caught up in all the craziness of that description. But what's even more astounding is what the Lord actually says about who he is. And one of the things that he says is that he is chesed. The idea of chesed is that he is his loyalty.

his faithfulness within a relationship and it says that the lord is abounding and loving kindness right he's not just a small aspect of who god is right but he's overflowing with this and this idea of god's loving kindness and faithfulness this is why God remains faithful to Abraham's descendants as they continually fall into sin and turn away and have to be called back. This is why God's faithful to David, even after his great sins, and to David's household as the king after king rejects God and sins, and yet the Lord remains faithful. Why? Because this is the character of who God is. This is why when we fall into sin, he doesn't just Cast us off. So the servant calls on the master, treat me according to your loving kindness. It is an amazing thing to have a God who deals with us according to his loving kindness and not as we deserve, which is, as we were talking about earlier, based on Christ being our surety, right? He is the one, the guarantee that cures that for us. Now,

As part of God's faithfulness to his people, the psalmist calls on God to teach him his statutes. If you are a servant of God, then God is to be your teacher, your instructor. And so in this section, the psalmist calls on God to teach him, to give him understanding that he may know. And so there's a few things that we learn from this. One of the first things that we would learn is that we've never learned at all. from the 120 verses preceding this section, that the psalmist knows God and knows God's word. He's familiar with the character of God. He's familiar with the promises of God. But the psalmist does not think that he has arrived. He wants to have a deeper knowledge of God. He doesn't think that he no longer has to seek after God and knowing him, right? We will never graduate from God's school. We never know God well enough.

or enough about him. Even in heaven, we will not all of a sudden comprehend who God is. We will spend the rest of eternity studying God and learning God and praising him for who he is. You know, we would never, I would hope, what would your wife think if you said that you knew her well enough, good enough until you die, right? You just maintain the relationship you have. And she should be satisfied with that, right? And yet, does that reflect our relationship with God? That like we're saved and we go to church on Sundays. We don't really need to spend time in his word. We don't really have a burning desire to pray and to get to know him. Why would that satisfy God if that would not satisfy any of us?

in a relationship with someone where they said i know enough about you i don't i don't need to spend time in getting to know you you don't need to teach me about yourself are you content with your current relationship with god or are you seeking earnestly to grow in your knowledge and the love of god amen well what's what else do we know from this we need god to teach us so in matthew 13 11 it says you what happens is the disciples are confused because jesus is teaching in parables and people are confused by the parables and so they say why are you teaching in parables jesus answers them and says to you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven but to them it has not been granted and skipping a few verses he says in their case The prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, you will keep on hearing, but you will not understand. You will keep on seeing, but you will not perceive. For the heart of this people has become dull. With their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they would see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them. So there's this idea that the Lord closes eyes and ears, and he opens them.

John 14, 26, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that I said to you. And so what the psalmist is teaching us is that we need God to teach us. We need the Holy Spirit. We cannot understand God's word without the help of the Holy Spirit. And so you're reading and you have difficulty understanding. Have you pled with God to teach you? Have you pled with the Holy Spirit to open your eyes and give you understanding, right? And he uses means, right? We don't, you know, commentaries, pastors, elders, those are means that God uses to teach us. So I'm not speaking against those things, but we cannot understand without the power of the Holy Spirit. So we see the psalmist, that's being an example for us.

of how to grow in our knowledge the next thing that he says is that we need understanding and knowledge he calls out for the lord to give him these things and so the idea with understanding is this is more of a a discernment it's an ability to distinguish to have insight okay so we could say there's facts and then there's understanding which is how to determine between the facts and how to sort them and and why would a servant want to know his master's will so that he can obey it right the psalmist is not here simply just saying lord teach me i'm curious about these things the reason the psalmist wants to understand is because he's a servant and the servant needs to know the master's will so that he can follow it well He says not just understanding, which is sort of this discernment, but then the other word he has there is knowledge. And that's the word yada. And that is a very intimate experiential knowledge. So I'll give you an easy way to remember yada. Yada knows yama. Adam knew Eve, right? This is, it's not.

just a sexual knowledge, but it's a very intimate experiential thing. And so what the psalmist is saying is he doesn't just want to know facts about God. He doesn't want to have all his theological ducks in a row and then think he's good. No, he wants to know God's testimonies. He doesn't want to be intellectual, but he wants to experience God in his life. and the experience of following God and of being obedient to God. It's not just seeing the truth, but living the truth out. And we get into some interesting, the way that he ties up this psalm, it gets pretty interesting. This understanding and knowledge of God's law leads to a great love for the law of God. And so he says that I may know your testimonies.

And then he goes, it is time for the Lord to act, for they have broken your law. Say, what does that have to do with this knowledge that he's just been speaking about, asking God to give him this knowledge? Well, a knowledge of God's law and understanding of it, as you've lived it out, what happens is the psalmist becomes offended and angry that there are people, who are breaking the law of God. He's not upset that they've been oppressing him. Like it's not, his accusation isn't, they've oppressed me, deal with them. But the accusation here is rather they've broken God's law, so the Lord needs to act. The Lord needs to do something. And how many times, we think about our own lives, how many times do you see great wickedness? Do you read about great wickedness? And what is the response that you have?

What about the wickedness angers you? Is your primary concern the dishonor of God's name? And do we call on God to act for his honor and glory, to deal with it? This is what the psalmist's response is. He loves the law of God. He's seen the joys of obedience to the law of God, and now he sees people turning against the law of God, and he calls on God, you must act. And it's striking because then the next word, there's this weird therefore. Therefore, I love your commandments above gold. Yes, above fine gold. And so it can seem like an odd transition. They've broken your law. Therefore, I love your law. What it seems to me is that as the world despises God's law and they oppose it and they live in darkness, the child of God sees the destruction.

sees the darkness, realizes the joy and the happiness of the law of God and its goodness, and clings harder to it. It's a reflective instinct of the servant of God that as he sees people spiraling in sin, that what he desires is to cling harder to Christ. And so there's this great contrast. They break God's law. I love God's law. They reject God's authority. I treasure God's authority. This is the third time that the psalmist has compared God's word and his law to riches. In verse 14, he says, he rejoiced in God's testimonies as one who rejoices in great riches. And then he says after that in verse 72, that God's law is better than thousands of pieces of silver and gold. And now after having suffered and faced opposition, he says that he loves God's commandments above fine gold. And so this is a mark of a Christian. This is a mark of a Christian that as you live for God and you find the fruit and the blessing,

In the midst of hardship, of following God's law, as they sustain you and comfort you, you cling to them more and you value them more. And this is what the psalmist is doing. He's saying, I don't really care about all the wealth out there. What I want is the word of God. And we begin to see what it does. It changes your perception of things. So he's acquired a taste for God's law. So what happens? He hates every false way. A love of God's law, a familiarity with it, reshapes our desires. How many of you have prayed for God to change your desires? How often have you sought? There's a wicked thing within you. You want something sinful, and you've just asked God to change it, right? Good prayer. Good thing to ask. Have you tried loving God's law?

Have you tried devoting yourself to God's law, to memorizing it, to devoting your life to obeying God? See, those things will actually shape your desires and turn them. And so what we see the psalmist is doing is he says, I hate every false way. And of course, the question we have to ask ourselves is, do you hate every false way? Do you hate sin or do you hate the consequences of sin? Not really the same thing, is it? Do you hate lying or do you hate the consequences of getting caught lying, right? Not really the same thing. But the man of God who's devoted to his word and loves it begins to hate all false ways. He turns from them because we can't love God's law. We cannot know God's law and still love false ways. They're incompatible, right?

We're told that can a spring bear salt water and fresh water? The two things don't mix. And so our lives are not that different than the psalmist's in the sense that we still live in a world that's broken by sin and a fallen world, and we still have this choice before us. Are we going to pursue God pursue his word pursue obedience to him are we going to seek an understanding and not just knowledge of god's word but the experiential part of it where we actually are living it out and finding joy and hope and strengthen it being obedient to his word and deal with what opposition may come or will we live in fear and just settle for mediocrity right i encourage us to be like the psalmist who who lives for god and for his word and and grow in our love for it and our taste for it that it would be we would live mighty lives lives that are marked by holiness and a love for god let's pray