Psalms 119: 111 - Soul Delight

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Song. Well, today's dig should be wonderful and delightful, actually, because as we get to the seventh verse in the nun section, then that idea of the nun being our souls or being our faith, that would be looking at the anointings that the Holy Spirit gave Jesus in Isaiah 11. The seventh of those is the delight in the fear of the Lord, and I think you'll see the delight in this verse. There's no doubt in my mind it's there. As we read it in English, verse 111, and I hope your souls will delight in this, as mine does, thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.

So, here we have something that is beyond cool. I remember when I started going to the Masculine Journey bootcamps, the John Eldridge-style bootcamps, the second talk they always do is called The Largest Story. And The Largest Story we teach is an idea of, you know, that God's story is really our story, and that there was a lot going on before we came on the earth, and there's a lot that's going to go on after we leave the earth. And essentially, the concept is that we feel like when we're born or coming into a story like a movie that we got into 20 minutes late, that we don't know what's going, it seems like there's good guys or bad guys, something go on, and it doesn't seem to really figure out. But what's happening here as this psalmist is realizing and delighting in the fear of the Lord that we're all part of a larger story. There's something a lot bigger going on than just me, and I think it's going on than just me, and this is God's story that's essentially refining.

We're all going through this refining that's on our way to pure something beyond gold as He is refining the world. And so, the testimonies that the psalmist is referring to here is this idea of these stories that the Bible is full of, they cause our soul to have a point of reference. So, like, if you were to meet your friend on the street and they begin to have a conversation, you always want to know, what's the story? Well, it's by understanding the story, your soul is wondering.

It loves to wonder, how did that happen? How does that connect to me? Where does that connect to the story? How does this all come into context? And so, as Jesus taught in parables, or we use movie clips as we teach sometimes to show that by having a story, it gives you some kind of a place that you could put context into what's going on.

And so, you may have noticed throughout this podcast, I always try to share a story at the end as to how this actually plays out in our lives. And so, thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage forever. In other words, here, the psalmist had taken on his story to be God's story. And in the case of the psalmist, right, we're talking about King David. And the beautiful part about King David from my standpoint is, he came in the tribe of Judah. And you may know the story, I think it's absolutely beautiful, but to give you some context of how Judah gave surety, which we're going to get a whole lot into that verse here shortly when we get into the Psalmic section. And in the Ian section, we're going to talk about this story some more, but the idea being that the word Judah has to do with hand. Well, the hand of the father to some extent. And so, when you think about how he put out his hand as surety for his brother, and of course, Jesus put out his hands as surety for all of us.

We're going to get to that. But the idea is that as we come into this family, we realize that we have this unbelievable heritage that God has given us. And it is the rejoicing of our heart to know that Jesus is our big brother, and he stretched forth his hands. Judah, meaning it's a yud, and then a dalad, which means yid, which means hand. We've talked about that many times, but you put hay on the end of it, and so it's like the hand of the father expressed.

And so, that means praise to some extent. But it also is that Judah was clearly the hand of his father when it came to taking care of his brother Benjamin. And so, when we think about how God looks at a particular story, he doesn't see necessarily just my side of the story. He sees his side of the story, just like you might remember when Joshua, you know, met the angel of the Lord, and he said, whose side you wanting?

It's like, what are you talking about? This is my side. In other words, this isn't me versus my mother-in-law or me. It's God's side of the story, and how God's heart breaks when he sees us fighting within the family, so to speak. So, as we take on this larger story and look at things from God's perspective, you know, this gives us some clarity as to what's really, really important, right?

And so, to the point, like you may be familiar with Corrie Ten Boon. And, you know, from her standpoint, her sister was, you know, brutally beaten by this guard and had every reason to hate this man in the German prison camp that she was in. But later, when she met him in a church and he held out his hand for hers and asked her to forgive him, right? And she had to reach out, not from her standpoint, but she reached out to Jesus, and Jesus gave her the grace to be able to forgive the man. Because from God's point of view, right? Like we say in the Lord's Prayer, forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

That is getting the heritage on the other side of where our thing is, is where we drop our interest and we switch over to God's interest, to his side of the story. And so, a good example in my own life was, I had this sales manager named Tony Rahimzadeh. And he worked for us when we were at the, what was Bob Neill Chrysler playing with Jeep Eagle. And you may know the story that eventually I got fired. And I was told, could be wrong, but I was told that he was instrumental in sharing that I was this and I was that, and the reasons that maybe I shouldn't work there anymore.

Well, the bottom line is I got fired. And I guess if I wanted to, I could have been very bitter about Tony because I really helped him get the job and I trained him and I kept him well promoted and all that stuff. And I definitely invited him to a lot of Bible studies.

Of course, the relationship ended as I left that dealership and went on and started the West Side Christ with Dodge Jeep. And I even told this story before, where later somebody sent me word that Tony Rahimzadeh wanted me to know that he'd come to Christ. Well, once again, you see, you see, it's really, really cool to think that God allowed me to have this person who likely betrayed me. I have the opportunity to totally forgive them. And not only that, but just be excited as I could be that they are now in the kingdom of heaven and we're going to be brothers forever. Just like Corey Tim Boone got to be the sister of the guard that brutally hurt her sister.

I mean, it's just unthinkable what all went on there. But I've heard this story repeated on several different times in interviews that I've done, that God allows us this view of, wow, this is His story. This is His side.

We're not on their side or our side, you know, we're on Republican or Democrat. It's irrelevant because it's, what does the Father want? And He's always wanting us to be hand in hand. Because if you think about the hands of the Father, you can't help but think about Jesus. And truly, He laid down His life, right? Because His Father, right, wanted reconciliation for all mankind. And He did that for you and me. Thanks again for listening.