The World’s Greatest Love Letter

Today on some at length with JD Greer main message of the Bible is not.

Here are some prodigal tools I can fix your life is the story of his love for you. What you holding your hands is not a book of commands or heroes install worlds and universes greatest love letter. If you read it that way you ever read it. As God's statement of love is love letters solid light with JD Greer. As always, I'm your host Molly bit of edge and I am so glad here with us today. Okay so when you think the Bible did you actually holding 66 individual books written by more than 30 authors over a span of thousands of years, and yet miraculously it all tells one story that the subject of a new teaching series that were kicking off today on Senate life titled the whole story over the next few months where to go from the beginnings in Genesis to the conclusion of the story in the book of Revelation hang most of the major events before we get to Genesis. Pastor Jenny is kicking off the study with a quick stop in the book of Psalms. He titled this message the world's greatest love letter today I'm going to spend some time in the greatest local in several written in human history. Psalm 119 Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible 176 versus it is a love poem about the Bible itself. We do not know who the author of this poem is our best guess is Ezra wrote the book of Ezra in the Old Testament, but I hope that you see that it is significant.

Listen that the longest love: the Bible is not about marriage is not about children is not about mountains. Not all sunsets are good health. It's about the Bible because the author understands that the greatest beauty that God has put on the earth is not found in the medical love is not to be found in nature is not to be found in children. The greatest beauty that God has deposited on earth is in that both you hold in your hands. Jewish people have for years. Use this Psalm Psalm 119 is a part of the Roche passion, celebration, or new year celebration so appropriate for us to be able to open up with the same song Charles Spurgeon said that every preacher should memorize this Psalm in its entirety on Blaise Pascal, the philosopher quote a lot had to hold my memorized William Wilberforce to stop slavery in the Western world. He had it memorized. I will not tell you if I have it memorized or not, but you guys know how humble I am and I would never want to show off if I had memorized it. So I'm just going to act like I'm reading a few verses when you know I'm really quoted offer memory okay and then I'll give you brief or have reflections on the verses that we read on these and all the verses in the Psalm, but these can represent to me the main things of the psalmist is trying to say Psalm 119.

Here we go. Verse nine how can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to your word. Verse 11. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Verse 14. I rejoice in following your statutes like one rejoices in winning the lottery. That's my translation even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes were 41 let your steadfast love come to me oh Lord your salvation.

According to your promise, then, so I have an answer for him taunts me for I trust in your word. Verse 72. The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold were sitting on forever. Forever Lord, your word is firmly fixed on the heavens are lost in door to this day for all things serve you.

Verse 99 I have more understanding than all of my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation, I understand more than the agent for I keep your precepts verse 105 your word is a lamp to my feet and a light unto my path. 109. I hold my life in my hand continually means how my life lightly, but I clean to your I do not forget your law. I cling to it with all of my life. 111. Your testimonies are my heritage. My inheritance what I'm looking forward to forever, for they are the joy, the delight of my hearts. Verse 116 sustained me, my God, according to your promise and I will live 133 keep study my steps according to your promise and let no iniquity have dominion over me. 176.

The last verse in the Psalm. I have gone astray like a lost sheep.

Seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.

We give you for to have reflections on what I think the psalmist is trying to show us, and the things that he says or she says about this about the word of God here. Number one if you're taking notes. The Bible is Revelation from God. The Bible's revelation from God throughout the song. The author refers to Scripture as testimonies from God statutes law precepts rules, commandments, and word from God. Nowhere in Scripture. Nowhere in Scripture, not one place. The Scripture talked about as enlightened human thoughts about God is God's revelation come down to us and that is one of the most important things that you can learn about the Bible. You see, our culture relegates this book the Bible as one collection of enlightened thoughts about God and it might be a good collection of enlightened thoughts about God arising from certain cultures and Western tradition, but every religion has its own contribution to make and we are going to be smarter when we learn from everybody that is not what Jesus nor is it what the prophets are what the writer. This Psalm believes about the Bible.

Jesus believe that when the authors of the Bible wrote, they spoke with a very voice of God in Mark chapter 12, for example, Jesus quotes a passage from the Old Testament that is clearly written by David, but he doesn't open it by saying David said he opens it. Mark 1236 by saying God said you simple but how can something written by fallible human being like David, how could actually be the word of God. Theologians compared to the virgin birth of Jesus. Jesus was both human and divine. The human part of Jesus meant that Jesus was limited in his power and limited himself. He didn't fly everywhere you went there were certain kinds of knowledge, he limited himself to what he was also 100% divine, which meant that Jesus was 100% free from error and sin, all the same is true the word of God the Word of God that you hold is 100% written by humans, but it is also 100% divine, which means it is absolutely perfect and free from error. I know it is popular today to say well I believe in Jesus but not all the stuff that's written in the Bible lesson. I am until he was humbly and clearly as I can.

If you say that you don't really believe in Jesus because Jesus saw himself as only the explainer and the fulfiller of Scripture, never its correct Jesus in Matthew 518 that sooner would heaven and earth pass away than one syllable out of the Bible become untrue.

Now of course you have to learn how to interpret the Bible you had a know when the Bible is speaking metaphorically.

You have to learn which laws the Bible says do not apply to us anymore and were going to get into that, but for now, what I need you to see is that Jesus thought about book that you hold in your hands as absolutely perfect for it to be wrong would be like saying to him that God was wrong because the book was 100% divine. It was the word from God hears all the writer of the song says it verse 89 forever. Your word is established in the heavens, not it's being edited and improved. It's been established in the heavens forever.

The Bible is a word that comes down from above, not a consensus of wisdom that rises up from below and here is why I belabor this because you gotta decide whether that is true or not. That is the most important question you're ever going to consider about the Bible is the Bible actually what Jesus and the prophets and the apostles said that it was because if it is, that changes the way that you approach it means that you accept it. Even the parts that make you mad and that you disagree with it because it's a word from God, and you don't pick and choose a part of the Bible you like like at the salad bar that you're constructing your own meal from God is the judge and he's the one that's right. And we're like, will he and I disagree he's right and I'm wrong I if on the other hand, this is just a collection of human ideas about God and how about it since through what sick would help only he was not helpful, but whatever it is you gotta choose which one you believe it isn't what Jesus said it was or is it just a collection of human ideas.

There's number two, number two.

The Bible is life-giving law. The Bible is life-giving. All the word wall that the psalmist uses throughout the Psalm labor 72 we read a moment ago, straight edge, literally reforming straight edge like something you used to measure a piece of cloth or construct a building if you don't have a standard measurement for those things and you end up with chaos and imagine if everybody can redefine inch or pounds.

God's law is the straight edge by which we measure all things in life that what which is good.

That which is bad, that which is right and that which is wrong.

Now I realize that that also is anathema to our culture because our culture cherishes the idea that ultimately the one who makes the best decisions about what's right and wrong for me is what is deep inside my heart. But how are you to determine what inside your heart is good and what is bad and you cannot say that everything in my heart is good. Nobody says that nobody says that II had to be an example how Tim Keller says that she got to imagine two young men in their early 20s.

I bear walking down the street. One of them was an 800 A.D. in biking Norway and the other one is a young professional in downtown Durham in 2016. They have two impulses in their hearts both of one impulse is I want to go back to the shop without God just insulted my honor and I'm going to murder him.

The other impulse is I want to have sex with another man. Both of them come from inside of him in the first culture they would say obey the first, obey your honor, but Shawn the second were as our culture would flip it and say Shawn the first, but obey.

The second, because that's the real you know the point of that is not to say those are moral equivalence, the point of that is to say, you know that just because something comes from deep inside your heart doesn't make it good or healthier lives. Why would you say that everything that our culture believes is going to be right where is everything previous cultures believe is wrong.

Could you put down your arrogance for just a second and have a little historical humility and realize that 100 years from now your kids a great grandkids.

You can make fun of some the stuff you believed and realized that the only way that you have a straight edge going to life is to found your understanding of right and wrong, not based on what everybody else around you make what's in that dark heart of yours but you base it on the illuminated word of God, the Bible ought to listen. The Bible ought to contradict you and make you mad if it doesn't, you're not really reading it. In fact, if it doesn't ever make you mad all you're doing is taking some of your own preconceived ideas of right and wrong and deifying them and calling that God is worshiping yourself. The Bible makes me mad sometimes and I know that I'm like a professional Christian and it's not, but it still makes me mad that it's this is what it means when it comes from a word from God that is super cultural and beyond us. It contradicts us, because God is God putting this all of this, someone 1999 I one thing all my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation understand more than the age of right your precepts talk about liberals for my hungry liberals like progressive wisdom there always want to be on the right side of history. So it's always that the future that's where the wisdom is conservatives, by contrast, oh they like the wisdom of the past where the word comes from. We want to conserve all these great things from the past which one is better electric?

Right when you are saved by the word of God, you're not really going to be a true liberal or a true conservative because her to Christie the pastor to critique the traditions of the agent and even a critique the future which is the progressive wisdom of your confused Prof. he gives you the ability to be neither conservative or liberal first 105 your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path towards word of God gives me the ability to find a way in a place of confusion and darkness. CS Lewis said he said yes, the law can be narrow and constraining. But it's like somebody who is lost in the woods that suddenly in the dark finds the path again government lost in the woods. So when God built me. He chose not to give me 1 ounce of any sense of direction, but he also chose to give me this pioneering spirit that says wherever I am.

There's probably a shorter way to get to where I need to go in the path that has been laid out. These are two very dangerous things for God to put into one human being which means I spend a lot of time and when I'm in the woods unlike why why we should go that way. I think we get back to where were going that way, and when I get what you just going to panic and then you don't start getting dark and you're trying a new award made an and also need on that path again right in that light shines in your serious areas in its narrow and it's constraining but it's liberating at the same time because it is the path out of the darkness. Listen, college students, high school students you're about to walk into some wildernesses known as dating in college and career and you got a bunch of things and there's nobody not mean that your parents is going to be able to prepare you for in the sauna says is the word of God gives me light and insight in the things I can't sleep because it helps me see the in flight even get to the beginning of the word is a light to your people path and or whatever with the verses verse 133.

Keep steady. My steps according to your promise to let no iniquity get dominion over me steady. The worker here steady. Whatever party your life is not anchored in the God's word is to be a shaky part.

What happens is the enemy finds whatever shaking your life and that becomes the area he begins… That I will sell more time to give you an illustration to whatever party your life is not anchored in the God's word is the part of the enemy to start happen as you try to bring all structured out to like the game Janke. What happens is the enemy looks at you and he figures out what parts are not anchored in the God's word. They beat your career. Maybe it's your money. Maybe it's your purity sister staff and in Tappan that eventually bonds the one to bring full structure of your life down three says you going to stay steady by building every part thinking very party your life in the word of God. Verse 23. Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes. When the most powerful people in the world whether their financial, political, my friends, my spouse, when they turned against me. The first place. I turned to say is on my feet anchored in God's word because even the most powerful people around me could be against me, but my feet are on God's word and not fear. On a solid foundation where you turn in opposition where you charting tragedy where you turn when the bad health route report comes in. Where you determine your marriage goes in the hard times because the way that your life stay steady is when you are anchored in God's word number three, the Bible, he says, is primarily the story of God's deeds, not ours is the record of his promise, not our duties. Explain the ceiling of verse 27 there caused me to understand the way of your precepts that I may meditate on your wonderful B-12 of the Bible was about all the deeds that I was supposed to do but here is to meditate on what he's done, but your steadfast love come the meal Lord your salvation.

According to your promise.

The Bible is primarily the story of somebody who came to rescue you because you broken all the rules rejected all the advice and mess yourself up so bad that you and unable to start keeping any of it again, and that story of love is to be so big and so captivating that when you finally learn that story. The rest of your life is gonna start to make sense and are to be able to think about your marriage differently in your career differently you're gonna have the motivation to start to obey God. Again, you gotta stop reading the Bible as if it's all about you because it's not. It's all about Jesus. If you're life were conceived as a movie would you think the main character would be that will dodge me on the movie about me Scripture says what if we gave you the invitation to get out of a movie about you and get into one where you're not the main character but your minor character and outcome changed things because of changes. The fact that not everything that happens using a be for you, that God may prosper you because he wants you to support with your prosperity. The point of the main character and of God put you the pain. If you blow up in the next one side or maybe it's because you're supporting something of the main character is doing and the point is not living and dying.

The point is how you are contributing to a story that's going to last and go on forever, so why would I want to do that I would be a main character of my movie.

His wife because that movie goes on forever for all eternity is the kingdom that nothing can ever touch for change and I find a strange amount of significance and purpose in being a minor character in a movie is about Jesus.

That's the imitation of Scripture is that it is all about him, you have to stop reading the Bible as it was all about you main message of the Bible is not.

Here are some practical tools I can picture life. The main message of the Bible is fix your eyes on Jesus and then your problems and be seen in a different light. And then when you fix your eyes on Jesus will begin to fix your life for you. By the way. That's why all the genealogies and those things are in their genealogy like once a Bemis shazam emotional got to be with my marriage. Nothing in a direct way, but they're all about Jesus. And when you see the story. Jesus suddenly everything in her life looks different. This is not a book of duties of things you need to do for God is the story of his love for you. What you holding your hands is not a book of commands for heroes. It's the worlds and universes greatest love letter you read it that way you ever read it. As God's statement of love, his love letters to you. Number four. The Bible has more value than life itself. The Bible has more value than life itself. The psalmist says the word has more value to him than thousands of pieces of silver, gold fever 72,000 pieces of silver. Go verse 109. What I showed you he says I hold my life very lightly and my hand but I cling to your lawyer hold it like a drowning man would cling to a life raft recently when asking this question what level of importance does the Bible have in your life mimic. Talk to you for a minute if you found out some kind of predator was in your neighborhood and you just let your kids go out and play with no supervision. What kind of dad would you be in Jesus Christ do you say understands reality more than anybody else tells us that there is an enemy who prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking him, he may devour. Jesus said his intent for your kids is to kill to steal and destroy them. Their only hope.

Your only hope is Scripture because the only way that you can confront a lie is to know the truth when Satan attacked Jesus. Jesus did not win it and outsmart him.

He didn't say I'm better than you can say I'm moral and you can't to me. He quoted Scripture. What are your kids going to come up with when Satan attacked them. Not if Satan attacks them when Satan attacks them going is the word of God that God used to create everything that you see he didn't mix up a potion and create out of that he spoke a word, it was with the word that God raised Jesus from the dead. It was with a word that he gave sight to the blind is with the word of the book of Revelation tells us that one day he will destroy the works of the enemy and make all things new. It is by the word of God that God will release you from the chains of sin.

He will heal the wounds of addiction is by his word that he will pick up the shards of a broken relationship and put back a family together again, there is no power on earth. There is no powerful in no power in the universe quite like the word of God is the word that creates is the word that redeems is the word that restores is the word that heals everything in the Bible who is about Bullard. You got to know you gotta believe it. It's got to saturate you when life cuts you. You gotta believe God's word like shakes you.

You got to regurgitate God's word.

The problem is not that you will know that the problem is that you never brought your practices in line with what you believe. So why not let this be the year that you change that which leads me to the last person Psalm 119. Look at it I love it. Psalm 119 Swanson music I've gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, try to not forget your commandments. The second like a resumes and contradictory to you it does to me.

I've gone astray like a lost sheep, but I've not forgotten your commandments which is you read the song like I did this week. Several times we will start to see is that there's all kinds of useful contradictions in their seeming contradictions in one throughout the psalmist says I hate double mindedness versus later he's like my am double minded.

I love the law of a lot of stuff is as long which is busy.

Mother does not, here's the answer. He wants to live wants to love it, but he knows his heart is divided so he resolves that he's going to love it and asked God to bring his heart into line.

Miss you love that because the writer the Psalm is just like me. I want to love God's word.

But I'll tell you a lot of times I'm looking more forward to the next episode. Whatever shows, now that I'm watching and I am what God has to say to me his word is what I will resolve his goblet. You bring my heart in line with what I know to be true Christian growth begins by confessing to God what you are not, and then asking God to make you into what you know you should be in Jesus died so that you could be for most of us, including me, the word didn't have nearly the place of prominence in our lives that it should prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart Lord take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above, why not let this be the year that we resolve together as a church that this year is going to be the year of the Bible for us that we will choose to hate double mindedness that we will ask God to change our hearts are the word of God becomes our prize. Our passion. Our treasured possession. We would seek it more than we seek riches more than we seek the applause of men. We would pay for that more than a drowning man pants for the another breath I want you to resolve that and then ask God to bring your heart in line with what you know to be true. Thinking of the greening teaching series called the whole story you're listening to Senate life with JD Greer were so excited to have you along with us for this study as we walk through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. You can always find all of our teaching, free of charge@jdgreer.com will agree that the Bible is essential but so is premier. They go together hand-in-hand the word of God is part of the two-way communication we have with our father. But the truth is prayer can be a struggle giving specific practical tips for growing in prayer in everyday life pastor Jenny's brand-new, but come just really wanting to praying rather than just feeling like you should be one of the very first to have a copy of this new resource just released today when you get $25 or more to support this ministry will think you a copy of just our way of saying thanks when you make your first donation as a member of our monthly family. If you think going through this program, give us a call 335 20 we can give and request the book online.

JD Greer.com Molly Witt events tomorrow are starting at the very beginning. Looking at the creation account in Genesis discovering how first days. Be sure to listen Tuesday Senate life JD Greer by your ministry