The uses of the Law for the..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Good afternoon, everyone. My plan for today is to continue our consideration of the 19th Psalm.

So please turn there if you would like. This will be my third sermon now in Psalm 19, the third of four, Lord willing. And you may remember a few weeks ago, we started our consideration of this section of the Psalm with verse seven. And my goal there was to explore the concept of the law of the Lord. We consider the nature of the law and how it relates to the gospel.

But today, I want to particularly consider the uses of the law, or its functions, or its roles in the life of a believer. To see this, I want to explore the rest of this section of Psalm 19, extending from verse 7 to verse 11. So, as usual, I want to read the whole psalm for context, and then I will address the Lord in prayer before we begin. So, please turn to Psalm 19, and I'll be reading from the English Standard Version of the Holy Scripture. So this is Psalm 19, to the choir master, a Psalm of David.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.

Its rising is from the end of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean and enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover by them is your servant warned, and in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors?

Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Amen. So, we are back in the 19th Psalm, and as I said, today I want to continue our reflection on the Law of the Lord. Since it has been a little over a month since my last sermon, and some of us weren't here, I think it would be useful to review some of what we already covered. My intention last time was really just to introduce the basic concepts of the law, what it is and what it's for. The passage we discussed last time was just the first part of verse 7.

I argued that David particularly has in mind the law of Moses, the part of scripture that sets forth Israel's obligations to God as part of the Mosaic covenant. David says that the law is perfect. It's complete and without blemish and without defect. And I pointed out this perfection derives from the God who gave the law. That is, the Lord, Yahweh, is perfect.

And so his word is perfect, necessarily. We then consider the nature of the law. As a body of teachings and instructions, the law consists of two different kinds of law. I said one was moral law, the other was positive law. Now moral laws are those that are fundamental.

They flow forth from God's righteous and unchanging character and his good intentions in the created order. These are eternal principles that transcend any particular covenant. The moral law has been revealed to man first in creation in the conscience, but then later became part of the Mosaic law and continues as God's perfect moral standard even into the present age. But then there was another kind of law, positive law. And this doesn't mean happy law or good law per se.

What it means is a law that has a particular limited application. These are things that concern matters that are not absolutely or intrinsically obligatory in themselves. but are established by God for a particular purpose, for a particular time and place. So ceremonial laws and civil laws of the Old Testament would fall under this category of positive law. Further, we consider the purpose of the law.

In revealing God's holy and righteous character, the law reveals sin and condemns our sin. And it's in this respect that the New Testament calls the law a ministry of death. If we left it at that, we would be very confused with David's attitude of delight and love for God's law. But that's not all the law is. The law is also meant as a schoolmaster to lead Israel to Christ.

In the law, sinners were confronted with their guilt before God and their inability to earn their life before God by their works. The law points also to the only solution, the death of a spotless substitute. The law teaches Israel that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. So under the law, the animal sacrifices represent a picture and a promise of the once for all sacrifice of Christ who was to come. And I think this is key to understanding David's attitude toward the law.

The law, apart from grace, is pure condemnation, but David's experience of grace radically transforms his understanding of the law. He can see Christ in the law, and this allows him to say that the law revives the soul. Wrapping up, what I wanted to emphasize most of all was that we have a need to view the law in light of the cross of Christ. The cross teaches us to take our sin seriously. The cross also teaches us that our sin has been dealt with in full.

Christ has borne the penalty that we deserved of the law. He has in every way fulfilled the law for us so we can rest in him. So that's what we covered last time. Today I want to consider the rest of this section in Psalm 19. And all I want to do today is walk through the text, consider what it means, and see how we can experience something of David's own delight in God's law.

So I'm particularly interested in how the psalm instructs the believer about how we are to make use of the law and how it can function rightly in our lives. Because in Christ, we know that we're not under law, we're under grace. That is, the law is not for us a covenant of works. God pardons us and accepts us as children, not because of what we do, but because of what Christ has done for us. And yet we are called to holiness.

And God's moral standards apply to us under the new covenant just as thoroughly as it did to David under the old covenant. So let's consider how we can relate to the law as believers under grace. So let's take another closer look at this passage. I want to read it again but just our section, verses 7 through 11, and this time we're going to pay attention to its structure. So let's read again this section of Psalm 19.

So it reads, The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover by them is your servant warned. In keeping them there is great reward.

So we should notice immediately that there's a certain pattern in this section of the psalm. Particularly looking at verses seven to nine, we can see similar format in each line. So each line we're given a new term that in some way describes God's law. So we have words like law, testimony, precepts, commandment, and so on. And each of these are set in parallel with one another.

And if you've read through the psalms extensively, I think you'll be very familiar with this pattern. It's a poetic device called parallelism. And it's a particular characteristic of Hebrew poetry. And as you read the scriptures, we'll find a few different forms of parallelism. Sometimes opposites will be set in parallel with one another to compare and contrast them.

Sometimes parallel statements will build upon each other, getting more emphatic with each time to emphasize the point. But more often, parallel lines will effectively say the same thing. We'll say something one way, and then with slightly different words and maybe a different perspective, we'll say the same thing again. The effect is to emphasize the point, but also to add richness and depth to the description. Sort of like approaching a piece of art, say a sculpture.

You could just take one glance at it and then move on, or you can come in close, you can look at it from different perspectives. And that'll give you a richer and deeper understanding of that particular piece of art. So parallelism slows us down. It gives us a more layered, multifaceted understanding of the subject. And I think that's what David is doing here.

He wants to talk about God's law, but he gives us all these different terms to enrich our understanding of what it is that he's talking about. And I think it's pretty easy to understand how most of these words—law, testimony, precepts, commandment—mean the same thing. But you might have noticed an odd one out. In verse 9 we have the fear of the Lord. Now we normally think of fear as something that we experience.

We fear God. We tremble before his greatness. But if this just meant fear in this experiential sense, it would break the pattern. It wouldn't be parallel with the other lines in the passage. So many commentators have suggested another way of understanding this passage, and I think they're right.

So think of a word like faith. So we have the word faith, we have faith, we exercise faith. We also talk about the faith, meaning the Christian religion. That is, the faith is the set of doctrines and practices that define what it means to be a Christian and the object of our faith. So I think fear in Psalm 19 is used in a similar way.

The fear of the Lord is not so much a subjective experience in this particular context, it is in other contexts. But an objective description of what it means to fear God. The fear of the Lord is just a way of describing true religion, which in David's context means the divinely ordained Old Testament religion revealed in the law. So each of these terms have their own nuances, but they all refer to God's law. But each line is not simply a repetition of the same point.

In each line have a different attribute of the law given to us. It's telling something new about the nature of the law. The law is perfect, the testimony is sure, the precepts are right. These build together to give us a clearer picture of what the law is. David is showing us what the law is and why we should love and value God's law.

Adding to these attributes, David gives us another short phrase describing something else that the law is doing. The law is reviving the soul. The testimony is making wise the simple. The precepts are rejoicing the heart. In verses 7 and 8, these phrases refer to something that the law is doing to us or for us.

Pattern changes a little bit though in verse 9. Here the law is enduring forever and righteous altogether. These are further descriptions of the attributes of the law. Then in verse 10, God's law is compared with gold and honey. These are objects of man's pleasure and desire.

These are things that we want to have and experience. But David tells us that the law is better than these. Again, he's telling his readers, value this law, esteem this law as a wonderful treasure and a gift from the Lord. Then finally, to conclude the section, we have verse 11. Moreover, by them is your servant warned.

In keeping them, there is great reward. So we have something else that the Lord does for us. This verse has another kind of parallelism. In the first line, we learn that God's laws warn us, shows us the consequences for disobedience. But then we have the opposite of that.

There's reward for keeping God's laws. So the law contains both warning for disobedience and reward for obedience. So that's our passage seen from a bit of a bird's eye view. So what I'm going to do now is come in a little bit closer and we'll spend some time with each of these main points. And so what I want to look at is see how the passage tells us about the attributes of the law, first of all, and then we'll consider what the law means for us, how we can make use of the law and benefit from the law.

So let's consider what our passage says about the attributes of the law, and I think this is important to consider, because they inform what David will then say about how we can make use of the law, because, of course, the nature of a thing will determine what its function can be. So in verse seven, we're told that the law is perfect, and we've already discussed that, so I'm going to move on. We're also told in this verse, the testimony of the Lord is sure. So other translations read steadfast or trustworthy. The idea is that God's law or his testimony is reliable.

It won't go wrong. It won't lead us astray. And once again, the testimony of the Lord is sure because the Lord himself is sure. We can trust in him and we can trust what he tells us. If we follow God's law, if we allow him to guide us by his word, we can be sure that he won't lead us wrong.

In verse 8, it says, So right is another attribute of the law. Now the literal translation of this word is sometimes given as upright, and that is actually how the same word is often translated in other places, particularly when referred to a person. And an upright person is someone who lives rightly according to God's right precepts. So right means just and righteous. Next we have the commandment of the Lord is pure and the fear of the Lord is clean.

Now pure and clean are very closely related terms. God's law is not contaminated with anything unrighteous. Now clean is often associated with ceremonial cleanness under the old covenant. Animals would be called clean if they were approved by God for eating or for use in sacrifice. But the word is often used also for physical cleanness.

So you'll find passages of scripture that talk about clean water or even clean or pure gold. It's also used to refer to moral cleanness. So David uses this word in Psalm 51, verse 10. So a clean heart is a righteous heart, acceptable to God, untainted by sin and wicked desires. So God's law is clean and there is no sin in it.

And I think it's important just to note briefly here that we should remember this fact when we come across parts of the Old Testament that maybe don't sit very well with us, maybe that don't quite suit our modern sensibilities, because there are parts that might seem harsh or even just weird. And these are things that we do have to wrestle with. And it's not always easy, but we have to remember what David says here. The law is pure and clean, and that has to inform how we have to understand God's word and God's commandments, even the more difficult passages. But continuing on, we can also look at verse 9, where we learn something else.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. So we said before that the fear of the Lord in this context means the way in which we should fear God, which was prescribed for Israel in the law. Now we hear that this endures forever. So what does this mean? Because we know that at least some parts of the law don't apply to us today, like circumcision is an obvious example that's very clear in scripture.

The manner in which an Israelite under the old covenant feared the Lord is not identical with how a new covenant believer fears the Lord. So I think we can understand the enduring nature of a law in three particular respects. I'm going to go through each one. So first of all, it endures forever as holy scripture. Two, it endures forever with respect to its moral core or moral substance.

And three, it endures forever as it is fulfilled in the work of Christ. So I want to explain each of those briefly here. So first, the law is scripture. It's the inspired word of God. And so as scripture, the whole law does endure forever.

We don't lose parts of it as salvation history progresses. So we're familiar with Isaiah 40, verse eight, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. And something similar is said in Psalm 119. This is verse 89, and it says, And in verse 160, it says, So thinking about the law as scripture, we could say something like this. The scripture can record a command, maybe a positive law that has a temporary application, and while we can recognize the command no longer applies to anyone, the record of that command is nonetheless preserved and endures forever as scripture, and therefore is useful for us for edification and instruction.

But I don't think that's the whole story. So secondly, the law also endures forever with respect to its moral substance. I'll say more about this shortly, but for now I just want to say that the heart of the law that was delivered to Moses is the moral law of God. Jesus makes this clear when he summarizes the law and the prophets as loving God and loving your neighbor. The whole old covenant law is constructed around the eternal moral law of God, which is grounded in his holy and unchanging nature.

So we can say that the moral core of the law does indeed endure forever. Thirdly and finally, the law also endures as it is fulfilled in the work of Christ. I think we can get some insight from the words of our Lord on the Sermon on the Mount. So this is Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 and 18. Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Now a similar idea is found in Luke 16 verse 17. For it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the law to become void." So scripture attests to the permanence of the law, and not just certain parts.

Jesus is very clear that this is exhaustive, not a dot, not an iota. But Jesus says something else that needs to inform how we understand this. So he denies that he abolishes the law. Instead, he fulfills it. And we've already spoken about some different ways in which the law is fulfilled by Christ.

So I did mention some of these a few weeks ago when I gave a message then. So these are a few ways in which Christ fulfills the law. First, he bears its penalty against sin on behalf of his people. He secondly obeys it perfectly and thus meriting for us eternal life. He also fulfills its types and shadows.

He is a substance, the reality to which the old covenant ceremonies always pointed. He also represents the fulfillment of the physical nation of Israel and its civil laws. He now reigns over a spiritual kingdom, the true spiritual Israel that consists of both Jews and Gentiles who trust in the Christ. In this sense, we can say that no part of the law is simply done away with in the coming of the new covenant. Nothing is simply tossed out and forgotten.

Outwardly, the ceremonies may no longer be required, but that's only because inwardly we now have the reality to which they pointed. To use an illustration, it's sort of like the relationship between the plan for a house and the actual house. The house that is built from the plan isn't a rejection of the plan. The plan is not abolished by the house or replaced by the house. It is, as it were, fulfilled in the house.

The house is the fulfillment of the promise represented by the plan. The new covenant was expected and anticipated by the old. So when the new covenant comes and the old passes away, the truth and goodness of the law is actually affirmed and fulfilled rather than rejected. So we don't simply cast aside the ceremonial law. In one sense, and a very specific sense, I should make this very clear, we might even say that in Christ we do keep the ceremonies, not literally, but in a truer and deeper way.

Christ is our temple. He is our priest, our sacrifice, our year of jubilee. He is our Sabbath rest. The old covenant ceremonies were just schematics, like the lines of ink drawn on a piece of paper. But Christ is the reality, the real brick and mortar substance to which those lines always represented.

So in Christ the real meaning of the ceremonial law continues and thus the whole law in these different senses does indeed endure forever. So let's move on. And we're told two more things about the law in verse 9. So God's rules are true. And this is actually a very important concept because we don't often think of a law as being true or false.

It's an imperative. It's not a statement of fact. Or is it? Well, most people today don't acknowledge the reality of ultimate moral truth. For an atheist especially, the law is just, or a law, any law, is just a matter of one person's will being imposed upon someone else's.

It's not a matter of truth, it's just a matter of power dynamics. An atheist can't really tell you, you should not do that as a statement of fact. He can only really say, I don't want you to do it. And that's not the same thing at all. For the Christian though, things are very different.

Actually, God's laws do constitute a claim to real truth. When God says, thou shalt not steal or thou shalt not murder, that is an objective fact. The truth of the law is grounded in God's perfect and holy nature. And God's nature being the source and ground of all reality is the most objective and sure reality that there is. So yes, the rules of the Lord are true.

And for the very same reason, they are righteous altogether. A law cannot be righteous if it's merely arbitrary. It's just someone's opinion. A law is righteous when it conforms to universal moral truth. And this is another reason, by the way, that I think we can say that the law, particularly the moral law, endures forever.

Insofar as the law reveals eternal righteous moral truths, those laws cannot change and will not change into eternity. Now, some very well-meaning people, whom I respect greatly, will say that the Mosaic law is an indivisible unit that is totally done away with in the New Covenant and replaced by what they call the law of Christ, which is supposedly something entirely different. It's a very common idea, but I find it profoundly unhelpful, and here's why. To say that the law is totally abolished ignores, or at least obscures, the fact that the law reveals objective moral truth. And when God reveals objective truth, whether moral or doctrinal, he does so authoritatively and unchangeably.

If the Old Testament is still scripture, and it is, then we can learn moral truths from the law. And those truths are just as binding today as they were the day they were first inspired. Now to be fair, I think most Christians would acknowledge that there are eternal moral principles that are common to the different covenants. I think we can all agree on that. But the way some people talk, it sounds as though all Old Testament laws were temporary and changeable in their very nature, and as though they were simply all positive laws as I described.

But that's simply not the case. It's very clear. So I think it's much more clarifying to say that the law, even if ended as a covenant, remains a testimony of moral truth. The moral law transcends any particular covenant. So that's why I want to emphasize this continuity of the law from Adam through Moses and into the new covenant and beyond because of passages just like the one before us.

The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. And that is what the scripture says. So I think that's what we need to believe. So we've learned that the law is perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, enduring forever, true, and righteous altogether. That is a very positive review.

There are very few things you can ever say that about. Certainly nothing that we do, nothing we make or say or think comes anywhere close. So we need to ask ourselves, what do we do with this gift, this precious treasure from the Lord? What role will it play in our lives? Well, let's allow the Holy Spirit, speaking through David, to teach us.

So we've already addressed reviving the soul. So let's consider making wise the simple. The first question we might ask is, well, who counts as simple? To be simple is to lack understanding. A simple person is someone who's in need of being instructed.

And ultimately, that's us. Maybe that sounds a little bit insulting, but that's each and every one of us without exception. And the cure for our simplicity is wisdom from God. The biblical concept of wisdom is, as always, multifaceted. It's always a challenge to get your head around some of these concepts.

But we can learn a lot about this from the book of Proverbs. So chapter 1 verse 7 reads this way. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. We later read in verse 10 of chapter 9, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is inside.

Wisdom, in a sense, is not just worldly knowledge or intellectual ability. It's profoundly spiritual in nature. True wisdom is grounded on the fear of the Lord. Wisdom means living in obedience to God, governed by his word. Now all of us lack wisdom by nature.

We are born in a state of ignorance and unbelief. And no matter how brilliant we might be in the eyes of the world, we're simple in the eyes of God. But when the Lord calls us and grants us faith, he begins to teach us spiritual wisdom. And now fearing God, we are able to make a start at wisdom. Just a start.

We're not immediately made wise when we're saved. And actually the Christian is called to a lifelong pursuit of wisdom. And we know where to go to find it. James writes this in James chapter 1 verse 5, So God delights in giving wisdom. This is a prayer that he is eager to answer.

And Solomon is our example in this. When Solomon is newly made king of Israel, he feels the weight of the task before him. And so when God offers him and says, ask anything that you like, Solomon humbly asked God for wisdom above anything else. And it says, it pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. And that's true for us too.

This is a prayer that pleases the Lord. So the question is, how then does God answer such a prayer? How does he impart this wisdom? And I think a lot of people, especially people on the street, not so much people in the church per se, would assume that if God answers prayer, it has to be this supernatural, obvious work that God does directly interfering with created order. And certainly God does answer prayer like that.

But I think it's interesting to reflect on the fact that God doesn't always do that. In fact, often God accomplishes his purposes through other agents and through things in creation. For instance, have you ever wondered about angels? God doesn't need angels. But God seems to delight in using created beings to carry out his purposes.

Could also think of scripture. If God wanted to give us a book, he could have just created a book. He could have even written it on stone like he did with the Ten Commandments. But instead, he works in and through human beings, using their personalities and experiences and desires to write exactly the words that he wanted us to have. And come to think of it, why use a book at all?

God could have just directly communicated to our minds anything that he wanted to tell us. But no, he decides to teach us in this mediated way. And there are so many other examples. We could mention the preaching of the gospel to convert souls. We could mention prayer or ordinances like baptism or the Lord's Supper.

God gives us these ordinary things like bread and water and wine to serve as tangible, visible means of his grace. My point is just that God works through means, often very ordinary means. And when he answers our prayer for wisdom, the primary way he does this is through his word, and indeed by his law. The psalmist in Psalm 119 writes this. This is verse 97 through 100.

O how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts."

So God's law is his specially chosen means for imparting wisdom to his people. And notice that this only works because of all the attributes of the law that we discussed earlier. God can use the law to impart wisdom because he's made it sure and right and true. So we can meditate on God's law and allow him to teach us how we ought to live and serve him rightly. So this is related to another line in our passage.

So we're going to skip down to verse eight. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. So enlightening the eyes is very much the same idea. If our eyes are dark, that means we're blind. And in a metaphorical way, sin does exactly that.

It blinds our hearts and our minds. It keeps us in spiritual darkness. But God's commandment brings light. It brings moral clarity. It shows us the way that we should go.

God's law is our guide, and it shows us clearly the way of life. We see this in Psalm 119, verse 105. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. In this way, God's law functions as a guide, as a rule of life. The law guides us into the will of God and confirms to us that we are walking in the right path.

Someone might object to this and say, we have the Holy Spirit. We know that love is fulfilling of the law. The law is written on my heart. So if I just go by my heart and love everyone like Jesus does, then I'll be right. I don't need to consult the law as a guide.

Well, the problem with that is that in this life, we're not yet perfected. Yes, if we are in Christ, the Holy Spirit is in us to guide us and conform us into the image of Christ. That is absolutely true. But that doesn't make us infallible. Even the regenerate Christian can be mistaken on moral questions.

We don't automatically have a perfect idea of what it means to love or to be like Christ. If we rely on our own judgment on these things, it is very, very easy to deceive ourselves. And isn't this exactly the case with this idea of love? Paul says love is fulfilling of the law. Amen.

That's true. But it does not follow that God approves of anything that we might call love. Love is a badly abused word in our modern culture. It's almost meaningless. We're told that love means accepting people's sinful identities.

We're told that love means using people's preferred pronouns. Or that we should allow the murder of babies if they're not wanted. Or even that love means attending your grandchild's transgender wedding, whatever that means. But no, those are lies from hell. You see, we have to allow God to define what love means.

And he gives us the perfect, infallible, trustworthy, and unchanging revelation of that in his law. Now many people try to set Christ in opposition to his law. They might say, no, we shouldn't look to the law, we just need to look to Christ as our example. But brethren, those are not mutually exclusive things. Christ gave the law.

To look to the law with eyes of faith is to see the heart of Christ. And we know that God does not contradict himself. So what he reveals of himself in Christ is not going to be any different to what he reveals of himself in the law. The real danger, if we're not firmly rooted in scripture, is that our mental image of Christ becomes distorted. The Christ of our minds becomes detached from the real Christ who actually walked this earth and becomes to look a lot like our own personal proclivities and preferences.

And that would be an idol. And if we really want to imitate Christ, we have to make sure we're imitating the real Christ. And that means learning from his law. Now, for David, the law is found in the books of Moses, and we should absolutely look there, too. I've been very clear about that.

But the rest of Scripture is full of moral truth from God that expands on and applies the law. We have the Psalms and the Proverbs and the Prophets. We have the teachings and example of Jesus in the Gospels. We have the moral guidance of Paul and Peter and James and John. And all of these together give us a perfect guide for the Christian life.

All of this shows us what it really means to be like Christ. Okay, so God's law makes why it's so simple and enlightens the eyes. What else does it do? Well, in verse 8, we read, The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. On the same theme in verse 10, we read, more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.

So the rules of the Lord rejoice the heart, for the believer they are a source of joy and delight. They are desirable, more to be desired than gold, we're told. Now gold may be valuable, but the law of God is more valuable than gold. And that's for all the reasons that we've discussed. Gold in the end is perishable, but the law shows us the imperishable heart of God.

And that's what we really mean when we say that we should desire God's law. is to desire him, to know him, to honor him, and to be like him. And how much more eagerly should we pursue this law above any material treasure? David adds that the law is sweeter than honey. There is pleasure in tasting sweetness, but it's a fleeting and carnal pleasure.

The sweetness of God's law, though, is a greater, deeper, and lasting pleasure. So this sense of joy in God's law, desire for God's law, should be greater than any of these worldly pleasures. We should love God's law and find refreshment in God's law. But we have to ask ourselves, do we? Is that really our experience?

Are we eager to search the scriptures every day to find out what God requires of us? Do we delight to find out? And when our father in heaven uses his word to guide us, correct us, reprove us, does it give us joy or does it give us grief? If we're honest with ourselves, I think we'll find that our experience does not quite correspond to that. It's a little bit foreign to us, what David describes here.

And that is a little bit of a problem, I think. So what needs to change in our hearts that we can rejoice in God's law like we should? Well, we have to start with Christ. We have to start with the grace of God in Christ and his work to save sinners from the condemnation of the law. If we relate to the law in any way other than through Christ, that relationship will be one of accuser and accused and nothing else.

The inevitable result of that situation is that the human heart comes to hate God's law. God's law becomes the enemy, and that means God becomes the enemy. The fallen human heart responds to this in one of two ways. Either it says, I can fix this situation. I can purify myself.

I can work hard and be good. God will see me and accept me. And that's legalism, and it's utterly delusional. Either you have to deny the obvious fact of your own depravity, or you have to assume that God has extremely low standards. But God's standards are perfection.

And if you want to earn his favor by works of the law, you've failed before you've even begun, because you were born a sinner. But the other response is to ignore the law, to pretend that it doesn't apply to you, to pretend that God doesn't actually hate your sin. But that's antinomianism, and it's equally delusional. It's a denial of God's righteousness and justice. And if your God is neither righteous nor just, that isn't the true God.

The only way to escape these two errors is to apprehend the law in the light of the gospel. A Christian united to Christ by faith has a very different relationship with the law. I've already said that we are not under the law as a covenant of works. That's a line from the Reformed Confessions and it's so important. I find it very clarifying.

Because we do not and cannot merit eternal life by our works, and we don't have to, because Christ did. If we are to be accepted before God, it will be on the basis of His righteousness alone. And now, looking at the law from a position of security, resting in the love of God, it is no longer a judge and a prison for us, but a guide to a life of loving obedience to our Savior. And the basis of this relationship with the law is now a love for Christ. He says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

That's John 14 verse 15. It has to start here with the love of Christ or else our relationship with the law will become twisted and warped. Because when we love Christ, we will love who he is, which is righteous and holy and good. We will learn to love what he loves and hate what he hates. Our meditations on his law are a delight because they reveal to us his character.

And we know that He loves us. So when He asks of us something, that should not be a burden to us. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. His law is for our good, and we should see His loving purpose in everything that He commands. So if we don't love the law of the Lord, if it's a hassle and a burden to us, we need to ask ourselves, are we forgetting Christ?

Are we separating the law from the giver of the law? And if we know the giver of the law, and if we love the giver of the law, we will receive the law as a gift. So if we struggle with the law, and I think we all do in some capacity, this is my advice. Meditate on Christ. Meditate on His work, on His grace.

Meditate on His wisdom and love. Learn to love Christ, that is, Christ as He is in the pages of Scripture, not just the Christ of your imagination. Learn of him truly how to love God and to love your neighbor. And in so doing, we will learn to love the law because that is its sum and substance. And then when we come to books like Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, where Moses gives God's law to Israel, we'll come to it with the right perspective.

We'll hear the wisdom and love of Christ in those words. We'll rejoice to see him and his work represented by the priests and the sacrifices and the ceremonies. We'll delight to see his wisdom and grace in ordering a stubborn and rebellious nation. We'll also delight to see him set forth the principles of a righteous and holy life, because that is what he is calling us to. Whether an Old Testament saint or a New Testament saint, he says, be holy, for I am holy.

He says, love your God and love your neighbor. In wrapping up today, I want to briefly address verse 11. Moreover, by them is your servant warned. In keeping them there is great reward." So David concludes this section of the psalm with two final things that the Lord does for us.

First warns us, and then it rewards us. And both of these things really need to be understood in the light of the gospel. Otherwise, we might fall into some dangerous heresy. We know that the law warns unbelievers of the wrath of God and the fires of hell. And if that's you, all I have to say to you is heed the warning of the law and flee to Christ.

He is your only hope. But David is clearly talking about himself. By then is your servant warned. The law also warns believers. In Christ, we know that we are secure from God's eternal wrath.

But if we sin, we still have to face up to the consequences here and now. There is no safe sin. It damages our relationships, hurts our Christian witness, it sears our consciences, even makes us liable to civil penalties. Some sins will send you to jail, and in David's context, you might be stoned. More importantly, sin displeases our Father whom we love, and unrepentant sin seriously impairs our experience of communion with Him.

We can grieve the Holy Spirit, like Paul says in Ephesians. Our sin can damage our sense of assurance. We become subject to His fatherly discipline. The warning of the law is meant to drive us back to repentance and be restored in our relationship with God if we've begun to wander astray. We often sing that Christ will hold us fast and well sometimes this is his means of doing so.

The law functioning as a warning becomes the means of our perseverance in the faith. But then we have the other side of the coin. In keeping them, there is great reward. And once again, in the light of the gospel, we know that we don't obey the law perfectly, even now saved by grace. But there is one who did keep the commandments of God perfectly and received the reward of life, the Lord Jesus.

He did this on our behalf so that everyone who believes in him and is united to him by faith will share in his reward. Paul tells us this in Romans 5 verse 19. For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. And for those of us who are in Christ, clothed with his righteousness, we are now enabled and called to do good works as a fruit of living faith. Even then, even in our best moments, Jesus teaches us to say, we are unworthy servants.

We have only done what was our duty. Our best is not enough to merit a reward from God. But God does graciously receive our works done in faith, imperfect though they may be, and blesses and rewards them for the sake of his beloved son. And what's the reward? Well, we could say many things about that.

There's been many ink spilled on that topic. But in closing, I think we can think of all the things that we've seen today. Notice what the text says. In keeping them, there is great reward. That is, the reward is had in the very keeping of the law.

You might say, obedience to the law is its own reward. Through the law, God revives the soul. He makes wise the simple. He enlightens the eyes. He rejoices the heart.

And those are glorious rewards. The law on its own can't do this. A Pharisee who says he loves the law but hates Christ knows none of these things. If we love Christ, if we have a living faith planted in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and truly love Christ, this is what we'll experience when we seek to do His will according to His law. Let's pray.