David wants his life to conform to the righteousness of God. All the godly from all of history have been godly because of their faith in God and then out of that faith they conformed their lives to God’s righteousness.
Saying all that, I want to say that I married the right woman. One time while we were all in the car together we pulled up to the 52nd street exit in Kentwood. As sat at the red light we had the radio loud. Why did we have the radio loud? Because we were listening to a song and waiting for the greatest and most iconic drum part in human history – and angelic history. Phil Collins’ famous haunting song, “In The Air Tonight” was playing – and building. The timing was perfect because it was coming while we sat at a red light. Annie and I sat there looking out the windows not giving each other any indication that either of us was about to do air drums. Then all of a sudden it came, and we both exploded on our steering wheel and dashboard in perfect unison with each other and more importantly, Phil Collins. It was quite literally the greatest performance of air drums on record. In that moment, I knew we were made for each other. While we were high fiving each other we noticed the car next to us full of people watching. They gave us the thumbs up. I think they felt privileged to have witnessed such excellence. Then the light turned green and we all went on with our lives.
I’m not saying we practiced that drum fill, but somehow we did it perfectly. And to do it perfectly meant that we did it like Phil Collins did it. Being able to do the drums like Phil Collins is one thing….but what is infinitely more important is being able to do righteousness like God. That’s the heart of David in Psalm 19 – he wants to do the ways of righteousness like God.
The right response to God’s revelation. We’ve seen four right responses so far from verses 11-13: 1) take warnings seriously, 2) be motivated by your reward, 3) be humble about your blind spots, and 4) don’t commit wilful sins. This week we finish the last verse of the Psalm, verse 14, and with it the last responses that we should have: 5) please God with your speech, 6) please God with your heart, 7) see God as your Rock and 8) see him as your Redeemer. These are the right responses to God’s Revelation.
#5 PLEASE GOD WITH YOUR SPEECH
The fifth way we respond right to God’s word is that we want our speech to be pleasing to God. Verse 14 says, “May these words of my mouth ….be pleasing in your sight…” David started the Psalm describing how the “speech” of creation glorifies God. Now he ends it wanting his own speech to glorify God. Some thoughts:
First, we see the desire David has to be pleasing to God. Other translations use the word, “acceptable.” To be pleasing to God is to be acceptable to him. That’s the very definition of wisdom: the desire, the know-how and the follow through to live and talk in a way that pleases God and is acceptable to Him. The desire of a godly person is that their whole lives would be pleasing to God. David refers to himself twice as a “servant” in this prayer. A servant desires to please their Master.
APPLICATION: Make the purpose of your own life to be that you would please God.
Second, David wants God to be pleased with his prayer in the previous verses about being blameless and asking forgiveness. In other words, when David says “May these words of my mouth be pleasing to you,” he has in mind the words he just prayed in the previous verses. What were those words that he prayed? They were words where he asked God to forgive his hidden sins, to keep him from being ruled over by willful sins, and that by God’s help he would be blameless and innocent of great sins in his life. David is saying in verse 14, “May that prayer be pleasing to you Lord!” The reason he wants God to be pleased with those words of prayer is he wants God to answer that prayer, and to help him walk righteously, and to pardon his sins.
APPLICATION: If something matters to you, you will pray for it. If living right before God matters to you then you will pray for it. If you don’t pray for something it doesn’t matter to you.
Third, we could understand David’s meaning of “may these words” to be more expanded to all the words of his mouth. The way he speaks in general is certainly relevant here. In other words David wants the words coming off his lips every day to be words that honor God. What are ways we honor God with our daily speaking:
- We worship God with our lips AND our hearts. Jesus said, “These people worship me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.” (Mark 7). We take that to heart and ensure that our worship in prayer and song is not merely from our lips, but from our hearts.”
- We use our words to glorify God, as Psalm 63:3 says, “My lips will glorify you, God”
- We honor God when we use our words to bless and build up others, as Ephesians 4:29 says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
- We honor God when we’re not careless with our words, “But I tell you,” Jesus said in Matthew 12, “everyone will have to give an account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.”
- We honor God when we confess Christ before men, “Everyone who confesses me before men,” Jesus said, “I will confess him before my Father in heaven.” (Mt 10:32)
- We honor God with our words when our words accurately portray him. God told Job’s friends in Job 42, “I am angry with you because you have spoken of me what is not true.”
#6 PLEASE GOD WITH YOUR HEART
The next way to respond right to God’s word is to please God with your heart. “May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my HEART be pleasing in your sight.”
You know the word of God is working when it is working in your heart. You know you’re taking God serious when you care about the condition of your heart as He sees it. You know God is first place in your life when you care about what he sees when he sees inside you where no one else can see.. That’s what David wants: he wants God to see his heart and be pleased with whats in his heart. “May this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight.”
God is not a God of ceremony and outward pretending towards Him. God is a God first of our hearts. “These people worship me with their lips but their hearts are far from me” Jesus said in Mark 7. God is not pleased with outward faking. David said in Psalm 51, “You desire truth in my inmost being.” Romans 2 says, “A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart….such a person’s praise is from God, not from people.”
APPLICATION: We don’t live to please others with our outward appearances. We live to please God with is inside of us.
APPLICATION: Be concerned about God’s heart. Its an outgrowth of being concerned God is pleased with our hearts. Being concerned about our hearts will make us concerned about God’s heart. God prizes someone when they are a person AFTER HIS OWN HEART. God praised David as “a man after my own heart.” (Acts 13:22). God promised in Jeremiah 3:15 to bless Israel with “shepherds after my own heart who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.”
#7 GOD IS OUR ROCK
The seventh right response to God’s Word is to see him as your Rock. David says, “My Rock!”
The godly from history have known God as their Rock. God is Moses’ rock, “He is the Rock,” Moses sang in Dt 32, “his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.” He is Hanna’s Rock, who prayed when Samuel was born, “There is no Rock like our God.” (1 Sam 2:2) He is Israel’s Rock, as Isaiah 26:4 declares, “Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.” Jesus says in Matthew 7 that his words are a rock and whoever practices his words builds their life on a solid rock.
He is our Rock too! With David we call him our Rock. What does he mean by this? Turn back to Psalm 18:2 a moment, “The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” God is his rock means God protects him. God shields him. God is his safety. Without God he would be swept away, overwhelmed by his enemies, vulnerable. But God is His rock!
For David to call God his Rock and mean it means he knows that HE is NOT his own rock. David is humbly acknowledging, even embracing his own weakness and simultaneously embracing that he is dependent on God as His strength and protection. But what does David rely on God for? What is the danger or the threat David is feeling in Psalm 19? The context of Psalm 19 is David is describing his battle with sin. Other times David talks about God being his rock against his military enemies or enemies around him. Here HE is his own enemy. In verses 12 and 13 he is talking about his own hidden faults and errors and being ruled by wilful sins. His own sin is the war he has in mind in this Psalm.
APPLICATION: The right response to God’s word will bring you fully into a war with your own sin. If this is not core to your approach to your Christian life you’re not living the Christian life.
APPLICATION: In your war with your own sin enter fully into dependence on God. God is your strength, your protection, your refuge and safety. God is your Rock.
APPLICATION: Build our life on the rock. Practice the commands of Jesus Christ.
#8 GOD IS YOUR REDEEMER
The final point is this: when you are responding right to God’s word you will see God (and praise Him) as your very own Redeemer. “My Rock and my Redeemer,” David says.
It has the idea of rescuing, belonging, and even resurrection and honor. God rescued the Israelites out of Egypt and repeatedly that act is described in the OT as God “redeeming” Israel, as Exodus 6:6 says, “I will free you from being slaves in Egypt, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.” There is the idea of rescuing, and there is the idea of belonging, as Isaiah 43:1 shows, “But now, this is what the LORD says….‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.’” I have redeemed you and you are mine. David knew his Redeemer rescued him from trouble, even the trouble of his own sin. David knew he belonged to his Redeemer. But God as our Redeemer presses further and into the thought of resurrection. Job said in Job 19:25, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” Job’s hope was his future resurrection and seeing His Redeemer, a Redeemer who would cause his resurrection! The resurrection is the ultimate redemption: God by His mighty power rescuing us from the clutches of death and making us alive forever in glory. And thats the other idea associated with redemption: glory, and honor.
But there is yet another part of redemption that goes beyond buying back fields, or kinsman redeemer laws. It is God redeeming us from our sins. It is God paying the price for our sins to free us from our enslavement to our sins. God called Israel back with these words in Isaiah 44:22, “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.” Here the idea of redemption focuses on sins. Our sins bring us under the judgment of God, and our sins enslave us. And just as God rescues Israel from her sins, and will yet, He rescues us from our sins through His Son Jesus Christ.
- What does Ephesians 1:7 says? “In HIM we have REDEMPTION through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
- What does Colossians 1:14 say? “In Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
- What does Romans 3:23-24 say? “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the REDEMPTION that came by Christ Jesus.”
- What does Hebrews 9:12 say about our glorious Redeemer? “He did NOT enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of goats and calves; but He entered once for all by His OWN BLOOD, thus obtaining eternal redemption.”
APPLICATION: Make God your Redeemer right now. Believe on Jesus Christ right now and He will redeem you right now from your sins. He and only He has paid the price for your freedom – a freedom from your sins. Believe today and you will be rescued from your sins today, you will belong to Him today, and you will be resurrected and step into glory.
CONCLUSION:
When Job said he knows he will see his Redeemer in the future at the resurrection, it is because it was by faith he saw his Redeemer in that very moment. If Christ will not be your Redeemer now, by faith, and you refuse Him today, then your resurrection will not be one of glory, but of shame and condemnation. Turn to Him now, and call on Him as your Rock of salvation, and your Redeemer from sin.