How Shall We Respond to Scripture #2

Here on the New Testament, we see that the death and resurrection of Christ are the basis on which God releases us from sin, redeems us from sin, breaks its power so that you can become this kind of person that Psalm 19 has illustrated you to be. Hello and welcome once again to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. And today, as he continues teaching God's people, God's word, Don wraps up a series called Effective Bible Study with a final look at the absolute necessity of allowing God's word to change us from the inside out. If you've got your Bible handy, let's get started. Here is our teacher with part two of a message called How Shall We Respond to Scripture? here on the Truth Pulpit. What is it that you should want as a Christian?

One of the central things in your heart going forward, from this moment as you're sitting here, as you look forward out on your life and where it goes here from now. Maybe some of you are realizing, you know, you've been unfaithful to God. You've been an irritable, argumentative influence in your household, and you're mindful of the fact that that's not right. Well, you need to feel the weight of the conviction of that, not just kind of brush it off and say, well, that's just the way I am. Well, just the way you are might just be displeasing to God, and realize that you need to change.

You understand that? It's just not right for you to be that way, to accept sin in your life. The people, perhaps, have pointed out to you again and again, and you just continue on and you refuse any correction.

Young people, no, that's not right. Well, your desire should be, under the influence of the Word of God, is to say, God, what I want is, I want a compliant heart before you, and I want to grow in holiness. That's the way we respond to God's Word. That's the way and direction that Scripture points us. And that Spirit runs throughout the Bible. Look over at Matthew chapter 6.

I want to reinforce this in your mind. The Spirit of anticipating sin and asking God to deliver you from sin before it even happens. Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6, verse 12. Jesus taught us to pray.

Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Verse 12. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And, see, forgive us our debts.

Forgive the existing deficiencies that I have before you, O God. And then, Jesus says, look to the future. Verse 13. And do not lead us into temptation as we go from this point forward, Father. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. He says, so going forward, Lord, I do not want to go into temptation. Rather, I want you to order my steps by your providence so that I am led into a life of obedience to you.

Lord, direct my steps. Providentially hinder me from going into those realms where I would be tempted to sin. And instead, Father, deliver me from it. Deliver me from the realm of Satan, the influence of demons, from the unrighteousness that is in my own heart. Deliver me from all of that, Father.

Why? So that I might be blameless before you, so that I might walk complete before you, that I might respond to you in a way of which you're worthy. You who are hallowed, you whose kingdom is coming, you whose will should be done, Lord, I want to be in compliance with you. I want to be in submission to you.

I want all of my heart affections to be in complete sympathy with you, with no countervailing force, having power in my heart. That's a proper response to God's Word. You see, and it's a character shaping. It forms fundamental aspects of who you are, not just a superficial thing for the day. This is pointing us to the way that we should be. Not simply what we should do, but what we should be in the presence of God.

Well there's one final aspect of it here. We've seen David ask for pardon for past sin. He seeks protection from future sin. And finally, he asks for purity in God's presence. He asks for purity in God's presence. God's knowledge is pervasive.

Our secrets are open before Him. Our inner man is subject to His examination. And what David does here in verse 14 is he takes his whole inner man and he lays it as it were on the altar of God and says, God, here is my sacrifice before You. Here's what I want to be, here's what I give to You, Father. Verse 14, look at it with me. He says, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. What's David doing here? He is praying that his inner man would honor the Lord. He's praying that the very way that he thinks would be pleasing to God.

There's a lot wrapped up in that, isn't there? That Lord, that my thoughts would be true. That what I think about You and what I think about myself would be aligned with the truth of Your word that You've revealed.

I want my thoughts to be true, Lord, because I know that would be pleasing to You. I want my desires and my impulses to be toward righteousness and holiness rather than toward sin and this world. I want my affections to align with the people of God rather than desiring the wickedness of the people that are around me that don't know You. I don't want to want the same things that an unsaved man wants because, Father, he doesn't even seek after You. I'm seeking after You, God, and so I want the totality, all of the different impulses of my heart.

I want every one of them to be that which You could look upon and be pleased and say, that's the way it should be. And there's something that always strikes me about this psalm. Look back at verse 19, verse 1. The comprehensive thought of this psalm is astounding. He opens up in verse 1 on a macro scale saying, the heavens are telling of the glory of God and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. He looks out and as it were, he peers through the spiritual Hubble telescope and he looks into the deep recesses of the skies and the creation and he gives glory to God for the way that he's displayed himself like that and says, God, your glory is on display there. And as you work through the psalm and you get down toward the final words that he says here, he's gone from macro to micro.

He's gone from outside to inside. He says, God, your glory is displayed in the heavens. I want it displayed in my heart. I want it displayed in the person that I am. That's how much he desired purity.

And you know what? That's true righteousness. That's a glorious transformation. When you understand and embrace the fact that God is not simply looking at you like men do, that God is not simply looking at your outer conduct and as long as the good church people look at you and think that you're doing okay that you're alright, that's not true. God's after an inner transformation. He's after your inner man, your inner affections and the way that you think belong to him and are under his authority. You have an obligation of loyalty for your inner man to belong to God in a loving submissive affectionate way.

And David says, Lord, that's the kind of person that I want to be. I want the very way that I think to be pleasing to you. I want the things that I feel to be right in your presence. I want the things that motivate me in life to be that which you would look on and say that's good. That's what I want out of my children. There's someone who's reflecting the image of my son.

That's it. That's the proper response to the Word of God is when you recognize that your inner man is a place of worship before a holy God. And it's from that inner man, that transformed mind, that transformed affections, it's there that come forthfitting words of praise. It's from that that flows the issues of life, that you guard your heart so that your heart is directing you in the ways that would be pleasing to this God who has revealed Himself. What should your response be to God's Word? Your response to God's Word should be that you have a desire, a comprehensive, complete desire to please Him with the purity of your life. That is the only proper response to this holy God. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 15 says this, through Christ then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God.

That is the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. In an epistle that was all about the superiority of Christ in the book of Hebrews, it comes down to this, saying through this Christ then, here's our response. Here's our response, we offer up continually as a mark of character, as a mark of the settled affections of your heart, I'm going to be a man who praises God. I'm going to be a man who gives thanks to God.

I'm going to be a woman who devotes my energies and affections to being a woman of God that reflects what He would have me to be. And that He would find in my heart a bundle of affections and emotions, of intentions and right thinking that is all designed to reflect back on His holiness with purity that He finds pleasing. And a heart that is full of gratitude, that He's made Himself known in creation, that He's made Himself known in the Scriptures, He's made Himself known in Christ, He's made Himself known in my conscience, He's made Himself known in my very conversion, He's made Himself known in the church, all these great ways that God has made Himself known. And you think this way, you say, He's made Himself known so comprehensively from the great skies to the jot and tittle of Scripture. You say, well then, if He's revealed Himself so comprehensively like that, then you know what He's going to get from me? You say to yourself, what He's going to get from me is He's going to get my all.

He's going to get a comprehensive response from me. Not cherishing sin, not holding things on that I want to keep, but that there would be a total unconditional complete repentance from sin in your life that gives yourself unconditionally to Christ. That's the only thing that's right. For you to be satisfied with anything less than that kind of complete self-response to God is not right. That's not worthy of a God who has done so much for us in Christ and in His Word.

Continual offer of sacrifice, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. Now, as we say that, and even as David said it, he says this not with a spirit of boasting, he says it in a spirit of trust, a spirit of expectant trust, of reliance on the goodness of God rather than a reliance on self and his own self-effort. Look, let's just be honest with each other. Haven't you and I both had enough failure in saying I'm going to be this kind of person now and you go out and you stumble on the drive home? For some of you that's pretty hard because you've got a short drive in five minutes, you know, I don't know how that happens. But haven't you had enough of making these grandiose declarations about what you're going to be and then you go out and stumble on it later?

And you just, you know, you know what that's like. David here isn't asserting his desires for purity in that spirit. Here's the spirit in which you offer that up, where you offer that desire to God.

Look at verse 14 with me again. He says, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, Yahweh, my God of faithful love, my covenant-keeping God, my promise-keeping God. Lord, I offer that up to you because you keep your promises, because you're a covenant-keeping God, not because I'm someone great in myself, my rock. He offers up this spirit with a metaphor of complete trust, that you are the refuge, you are what I cling to, you are the foundation stone that I lay hold of as I express these desires, Lord. I trust not in myself that I can be this way. Oh, it's where I want to go, but Father, the ultimate fulfillment must come from you.

You must help me be like that. Yahweh is reliable. He is a sure source of strength to David because he is his rock, he's his promise-keeping God.

And don't miss those closing words at the end there either. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Redeemer being a word that speaks of God as his deliverer. God is the one, watch this, God is the one who delivers his people from bondage. He redeemed the people of Israel from Egypt. He redeemed them from slavery. He has the power to bring us out from foreign hostile powers that are over us and bring us into the place of his blessing where he has appointed us to be. And what David is saying here, now he's speaking in a spiritual sense, right? You get this, this is really, really important for you to see. He's not talking about a physical deliverance when he talks about Yahweh as his redeemer because all of the whole context, remember context from this past weekend?

You do, don't you? Good. The whole context is confession of sin. Lord, deliver me from temptation.

Lead me in the right way to go. And so spiritually, and he says, Lord, I offer up my inner man as an altar of worship to you. And so this is his inner man responding, not asking for physical deliverance here at the end. And he says, Lord, I offer up this prayer to you and trust for who you are, my rock and my defense and my redeemer. Lord, you have the power to deliver me even from the sinful impulses of my own heart.

You can lift me beyond those. You have the supernatural ability to free me from the shackles of my own sin so that I could become that which I have asked you to make me. My rock and my redeemer, he is trusting God to deliver him from the power of sin so that he could worship acceptably in the presence of God. You know, as you read scripture and as you study scripture, you realize that it beckons you, it calls you, and it illustrates for you a profound response, doesn't it? These aren't superficial emotions that David is expressing, as if he'd, you know, he'd heard a catchy Christian tune on, you know, Radio Israel, and he's just responding in emotion to a musical impulse. His whole inner man is engaged.

And you see, and what I want you to see is that that's the illustration and that's the example for you as well, that your whole inner man would be engaged, that you would think through life and say, okay, my whole life belongs to this one. And David's prayer here foreshadows even the reality of New Testament salvation. You were in bondage to sin. You were under a curse. The curse of God that comes upon those who disobey his law. And what did Christ do? Christ came and Christ redeemed us.

Christ redeemed us from that power with his death on the cross. Galatians 3 verse 13. Galatians 3 verse 13 says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

And the fulfillment of God being David's redeemer was so much greater than what David must have understood in the shadows of the Old Testament. The redemption of God was so complete and the way that God answered this Old Testament prayer was so profound that he entered into human flesh and went to a cross to make sure that that redemption would be accomplished. Redemption in Christ has freed you from sin, from the penalty of sin, and it has broken the power of sin in your life so that you can belong to God. You can belong to Christ and live a life at a profound depth that is devoted to his glory.

Here on the New Testament we see that the death and resurrection of Christ are the basis on which God releases us from sin, redeems us from sin, breaks its power so that you can become this kind of person that Psalm 19 has illustrated you to be. Beloved, that's how God's Word blesses us. Why have we spent so much time over the past two days trying to understand why we can understand Scripture and the kind of person that we need to be to understand Scripture and how we shall interpret Scripture and how do we get started? Why do we go to all of that trouble?

Why so many hours on that one theme? Why so much? Why does a question even need to be asked?

Why would we do it? Because how many times do we have to say it? Because this Word is precious. Because the Lord Jesus Christ to whom it testifies is precious.

Because he died for you, he rose again for you to save you from sin and to secure for you an eternal glory that you didn't deserve. That's precious. That's awesome. It's glorious. It's undeserved. It's gracious. It's merciful.

It's kind. Well, if God's done all of that and has recorded it for us in Scripture, then isn't it the least that we can do? If Christ gave his all like that for us, isn't the least that we can do is to give our all in return in our inner man?

Is there any one of you that would want to argue that that's not necessary, that it would be right to be any other way? Who wants to make that case in the presence of a holy God? Not me.

And I know not you. Psalm 19 has pointed you to how your soul was restored and says this is the way forward in living a life that responds in a manner that glorifies Him. Won't you settle it in your heart afresh? Won't you renew your desire? Won't you renew your commitment as we close here to say yes, that's the kind of person I'm going to be? I want to give you a moment to just respond to what we've seen in Psalm 19.

This will be a little bit, we'll take just a little bit of extended time here to help you respond and not just rush into the next part of the service. David showed us to pray for part and for our past sins. You know what, take a few moments now and just confess sin in response to God's Word.

Understand that you do fall short. God is graciously giving you a few quiet moments in the presence of Christ and in the presence of His Word to confess things and to straighten out those wrong areas of your life before Him. Take a moment to do that just now. We've seen from God's Word here to ask God to lead us not into temptation but to deliver us from evil. Isn't it your desire for God to work in your heart to direct you away from sin and toward greater personal holiness? We'll take a moment to ask Him to do just that. He's eager to answer that sincere prayer from your heart. And won't you just now, without reservation, without trying to hold on to anything else, won't you just gather up your whole inner man and offer it to God as David did? Let the meditations of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you, the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you.

Won't you ask God to make you a person like that going forward? And that's Don Green, bringing our series titled Effective Bible Study to a powerful close here on The Truth Pulpit. Well, friend, if you'd like to hear today's message again, or perhaps you'd like to find out how you could support this ministry, just go to thetruthpulpit.com.

That's thetruthpulpit.com. And right now, here again is Don with some final thoughts. Well, my friend, it's sad but true to realize that we're living in an age where people increasingly do not care what the truth is. Scripture told us that there would be times like that. In 2 Timothy 4, 3, it says, The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.

What should you and I do? Our response must be to study and teach Scripture all the more carefully. And friend, thank you for your prayers and your support of The Truth Pulpit as we seek to teach God's people God's Word. Thanks, Don. That's all the time we have right now. I'm Bill Wright, inviting you to join us next time as Don Green continues teaching God's people God's Word here on The Truth Pulpit.