Bible Journey Final Preparations Pentateuch Sermon Series Kenwood Baptist Church Pastor David Palmer October 11, 2020

TEXT: Psalm 19:1-14

Good morning, beloved. We are delighted to be in God's house this morning, and I want to say thank you for those gathered here in person safely. You look beautiful with your masks on, and I thank you for observing COVID-19 protocols in the sanctuary. A warm welcome to those gathered outside and also joining from home. We’re grateful to God and continue to ask you to pray for us. We have no known COVID cases as a result of our physical gatherings, and that's been a result of your diligence and safety. This is a community that loves each other. I'm a hugging pastor, so this has been particularly challenging for me, but I'm really getting into the elbow bump, and I’ve managed to do that safely now. So, if you want to bump elbows, I’m available, and I praise God for that.

We are in the middle of a sermon series. We finished a portion of Bible Journey in the Gospel of John to test out this amazing digital resource as a companion for us in this study. We are now making final preparations to begin at the beginning. This week is a transition week, and it's really an appeal to you to decide to join us for Bible Journey. We are going to go back and begin the Pentateuch study. This week we’re going to look at a key passage as we prepare to start reading the Bible and, in a sense, ask the question: “Why should we read the Bible?” Why should we care so much about reading the Bible? There is not an obvious answer to this question. There may be a church answer: “Oh, I'm supposed to read the Bible.” There may be a question in your heart of what makes the Bible different from any other book. It may be a populous question. You may be a marketing person and think: “Wow, the Bible is the best-selling book, year after year after year. Why do people continue to buy and read it?” We're going to try to answer that this morning.

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As we begin, we want to look at Psalm 19. Of all the places to choose as an entry point in the field guide to prepare for Bible Journey, Tim Laniak, my good friend from Gordon-Conwell, recommends Psalm 119 or 19. Psalm 119 is the longest of Psalms. It's a very long Psalm that celebrates the power of God's Word. Psalm 19 shares many features with the heartbeat of Psalm 119, but it’s more accessible in length, and it is our focus this morning. Why should we care so much to study the Scriptures? We begin Psalm 19:1 with the statement: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” The visible heavens are communicating according to Psalm 19:1. They are communicating something very specific. It's not the vague word of nature. Still far less is it the word of “Mother Nature.” It's a declaration of the glory of God. Psalm 19 invites us to see that the visible world around us is communicating to us. In Hebrew parallelism, the heavens declare the glory, the sky above His handiwork. And the works of His hands that you see around you are not the result of an impersonal universe, but a personal one. It is the glory of God on display.

I love the night sky. I love to get in environments where there isn't ambient lighting. I love the city, but cities are bad for looking at the stars, aren’t they? And so we go out into the countryside. Sometimes I love to just lie down on the ground and look up and see what I can see. It's amazing what you can see. When you look up at the night sky, you see the Milky Way galaxy, and it’s spectacular, absolutely spectacular. You can see 100,000 million stars above you, stunning in beauty and glory.

I have a big heart for international students. My wife became a Christian as an international student. Coming from Greece, she came to United States. She was exposed to the gospel in a direct way through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship ministry. When students come to new environments, sometimes they are open to new things. There are 6000 international students in Cincinnati, and COVID has been very challenging for them. Some of them have not been able to go home. They've had to stay; they have been isolated. That's a population of very bright people in our city. We were on a retreat a couple of years ago, and a young graduate student from Shanghai, China, came on the retreat. We were out in the wilderness and looking up at the sky. The retreat was three days and two nights, and I noticed on the third day that she was looking just a little bleary-eyed, and I realized that can happen on a retreat. People stay up late, they talk, and I asked how she was doing and how she enjoyed the retreat. She said, “You know, I haven't slept the whole time.” So I thought about all the activities like volleyball and the compelling teaching from pastors that can keep people up. And she said, “I never saw the stars like this, and I didn't want to miss a second of it. My whole life has been in a

Page 2 of 12 very urban environment.” Shanghai is a huge city, and she had never seen the stars like this. And that sight of the visible glory of God in the night sky was pointing her away from everything she'd been taught growing up in her education system: that this is an impersonal universe and that change happens through impersonal market forces and revolutionary ideologies that speak to an inevitable turn of history. And as she looked up at the night sky and saw 100,000 million stars, it began to awaken in her that maybe this universe is personal. That doesn't look random – it’s too beautiful.

When you look up at the night sky and you see the Milky Way galaxy, if you could just lie there and keep staring straight up, you would notice that the stars seem to be sweeping around you, and there's just one fixed point. Of all the ways the heavens could declare the glory, the sky above to proclaim the work of His hands, I think the North Star communicates powerfully. When you look up at the North Star in the summertime you see in the night sky the sweeping rotation of the stars. Everything seems to be moving except this one spot in the middle. It's extraordinary.

If you just lie in that field from summer to fall, you would see the leaves change and fall, and yet you would see the stars continue to sweep in this breathtaking rotation day after day.

If you move into wintertime, creation is changing, but the heavens are still declaring God’s glory.

In the springtime, the earth begins to renew itself. Psalm 19:2 says that day to day pours forth speech. It's not just a little bit of communication. It is a bubbling forth. It is an overflowing. Jonathan Edwards said it's not a mark of deficiency for a fountain to overflow. The heavens are communicating, day after day, night after night, pouring forth speech, revealing knowledge as the sun comes up and as it sets. The world around us, the skies, proclaim the work of His hands.

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This communication is far more impressive than your Wi-Fi. It just is. Can we concede that point? I'm really ready to concede that point. As impressive as our devices are, they pale in comparison with a global network that never goes down. It never needs to be repowered. It communicates. It’s accessible to all, and you don't have to buy anything to see it. You don't have to renew a subscription. There are no limits on the data. It communicates day after day, night after night. It's global – you don’t have to live in an affluent country to access it. You don’t have to have a cell tower near your home. There is no speech, according to Psalm 19:3, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. There is no place that you can go to not receive the communication. There are no dead spots in this network. I love this.

I don't know why, but in my cell plan, I have one dead spot in Cincinnati, and it happens to be when I'm on Ronald Reagan Highway, looping around to get onto I-71. Some of you are smiling, and I'm feeling some homiletical sympathy with you. Maybe you're experiencing this. Others of you are looking at me like, “I don't have that plan; I don’t have that problem,” and you give me the cold postmodern stare of people who say, “I don’t have that technological problem; that must be user error.” What happens to me, since I pastor here, is that I often get on calls with people, and I start to talk with them, and then we just have a little hiatus. Sometimes we drop, but other times we pick up before I get to Pfeiffer Road, and we rejoice.

According the Psalm, this voice is heard. There's no place you can go and not hear it. In Psalm 19:4 we read: “Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” This is not a localized bit of communication, but it is a constant declaration, a pouring forth, announcing the glory of God, the works of His hands. What is the universe saying? What is the content of the message? How is the glory of God understood and seen? And now David picks just one element of that visible sky to describe in more detail. In Psalm 19:5, he says: “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.” In this poetic language, he draws our attention to the most obvious feature of the day sky and of the sky in general. The most obvious feature of it is the sun. He describes it using two similes: like a bridegroom leaving his chamber and like a strong man, running its course with joy.

There are many great joys in serving as a pastor. You have access to wonderful moments in people's lives, both wonderfully intense and difficult moments. I had one of those early this morning with a dear member of our church whose wife had a serious health incident yesterday. We cried this morning and lifted her up for healing. You also are allowed access to moments of tremendous joy, and one of those joyous moments that I get to stand at the center of is a

Page 4 of 12 wedding ceremony. The first few weddings we do are stressful for pastors, because we think this is a big moment, and we don’t want to mess this up. And after a few weddings we realize we can't mess this up. This man loves this woman, and she's going to walk in, and we’re all going to be stunned, and it's going to be this foreshadowing of eternity. That's why everyone is moved. Everyone is moved at a wedding because it signals something eternal.

The Bible says that all of history ends with a big wedding – the marriage feast of the Lamb. And we just sang that beautiful song Agnus Dei, Lamb of God. Jesus is the Lamb of God, and He likens His return to the return of the Bridegroom in this wedding feast and celebration. I love that moment when we walk out and the bridegroom is next to me, and that's the moment of no return. It's not when the invitations go out – that’s not the moment of no return. It's not that moment when the prelude music is going because, praise God, people like Pastor Alberto and others can do prelude music almost indefinitely. That's not the moment of no return. The moment of no return is the sight-line from the wedding coordinator to the pastor that all is ready, and the pastor and the bridegroom come out. When they walk out, that's the moment of no return, because we can't stand up here indefinitely without getting awkward. But when we come out, it's so special to see the joy and excitement and a little bit of nervousness on this man's face. He's about to stand in the posture of representing the Lord Jesus Christ as he receives the bride prepared for him. He comes out with great joy, and there is joy in this back hallway as we begin.

The Psalm says that the sun’s coming out is like that. Every morning is like a wedding that's about to start with the joy and the anticipation and the beauty and the celebration and that moment that feels like everything is right when the sun comes out of its tent, out of its chuppah. The sunrise is stunning. I've seen the sunrise in many places. I'm sure that you have, too, and maybe you have some favorite places.

Some of the top sunrises in the world include the Grand Canyon. It’s spectacular! People make reservations for key locations to see it.

In Haleakala National Park in Hawaii, people queue up to make this hike to a breathtaking view to see the sun come bursting forth.

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Mount Fuji in Japan has a glorious sunrise, reflecting the beauty of the mountain.

In the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee the sunrise illuminates the valleys.

The sun is like a bridegroom personified, the work of God's hands. It is not an object to be worshipped in its own right but an object to cause you to celebrate the One who would design the world with such breathtaking beauty day after day. God didn't have to do it this way. He could have made the universe so that the lights came on in the morning like a high-powered fluorescent light. Have you ever had someone do that to you in a college dorm room or in an office? Someone just comes in where you have mood lighting and abruptly awakens you with full-on bright fluorescent light. And you think, “Wow, you just wrecked my day.” This beauty is set within the world like a bridegroom and, as the second simile describes, like a strong man running his course with joy.

I love to run. I love to run long distances, and some people who don't run long distances think that's crazy. Why would you run 10, 20, 26 miles? There must be something wrong with you. But for those who love to run, the secret is that running produces a tremendous feeling of joy and accomplishment. It’s not an experience of hours of pain; it's an experience of joy and beauty and balance and freedom of movement, and I love it. I love to watch other great runners run. Some of my heroes are the African runners. The very style of their running is so beautiful to watch.

Last week was a big week for running. You may not have heard, but on October 7, Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda ran the fastest 10 km in the history of the world. He ran 10 km in 26 minutes and 11 seconds. If that doesn't mean anything to you, that's running 6.2 miles at a four-minute 13-second pace. If that doesn't mean anything to you, let's just boil it down and be real clear – that’s fast. That's running breathtakingly fast for six miles in a row. For most of us, if we tried to run at that pace, we might be able a run that fast for 10 or 20 meters and then just keel over. Stunning! But when you see him run, he’s smiling.

The sun moves with joy. It's rising in Psalm 19:6:

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“Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing is hidden from its heat.” The sun courses over the visible heavens. Its sunrise is beautiful, and I'm sure you all have spots in the world where you've had special moments watching a sunset. The sunset moves us, in a way that is different from the sunrise. For me personally there is no competition for the most beautiful place in the world to see the sunset. You may have your favorites. The Greeks already know that the most beautiful place in the world to see the sunset is the Greek island of Santorini. It just cannot be compared. It’s a beautiful island set in the midst of the Mediterranean Sea. A big portion of the island is gone because of the massive volcanic eruption about the time of the Exodus, so it gives you a sort of large reflecting pool in the middle of the island. You climb up to the top near the town of Oia, where whitewashed houses are built along the cliff side, and the sun just seems to drop into the sea. It is the most beautiful place. The heavens declare the glory of God. The stars, the sun, like a bridegroom coming out for the wedding, like a strong man running with joy. And those similes signal for us that God takes great delight in His creation. It’s not just a functional matter of heat transfer to the world. It’s for joy and beauty. C. S. Lewis says: “I believe in Christianity, as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” I love to go to art museums. I especially love to go to art museums with my wife, who can explain and interpret, and help me appreciate what I'm seeing. It would be just amazing, wouldn't it, if you were standing in a room and looking at all these beautiful Monet paintings, and all of a sudden Claude Monet just walked out and started talking to you. That would change the experience. Psalm 19 invites you to hear and to believe and to receive that the God who made all of this actually does step out and talk to you directly. He has spoken in His Word, and His Word gives us not just information, but His Word actually changes us.

The universe is not impersonal, but personal. Psalm 19 celebrates God's creative power. In Psalm 19:7, the poem of the Psalm turns. He says in Psalm 19:7: “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;” The law of the Lord, the Torah of the Lord, is perfect. The Hebrew word tamam means blameless. Perfect is the language used for a sacrificial animal. It has no defect; it is absolute perfection. Looking at it, reading it, hearing it, it just revives your soul. Are you weary? Are you worn out? Are you tired of some of the banter of this world? God's Word in its perfection and

Page 7 of 12 the Person whom it represents, when you encounter it, actually breathes life into you. That's reason number one why you should read God's Word and join us on this journey. The testimony of the Lord in Psalm 19:7 is God’s Word is sure, it's reliable. It can be trusted in its faithful transmission, and the effect of reading God's Word, hearing it and studying it, is that it makes you smart. It takes dumb people and makes them smart. Have you ever thought, “I just wish I knew how to do that; I wish I understood that”? Have you ever had moments in your life where you thought, “Boy, I was really gullible on that”?

I'm really not the person you should call for tech support, but I do my best. I did get an emergency tech support call from a family member recently who had done a Google search. Google is not a neutral entity; it is not a public service. Google is a business, and so if you do a seemingly innocent search for Apple support, one of the first things that will come up for you is not actually Apple support. It's a company feigning to be Apple support, and they may coax you into trying to share your screen and coax you into trying to share personal information. This family member called and said this had happened and asked what to do. So I asked a few questions, and it looked like they had stopped just short of sharing personal information.

Sometimes we’re naïve or gullible. We lack wisdom, but God's Word in its reliability and accuracy makes us wise. I love to be around wise people who know when to speak, when to be quiet, when to rebuke, when to encourage, when to challenge, and when to hold back. In Psalm 19:8 we read: “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.” Within us is a longing for justice. We desire to see righteousness in the land, and we don't know how it will be realized. But God's Word prescribes a righteousness of conduct, both for individuals and states, that causes our hearts to rejoice. God's rule is righteous. The commandment of the Lord is pure or bright. The Hebrew idiom means that in its brightness, its luminosity, God's Word actually will bring light to our eyes. As Augustine said that when we open the Scripture, it is the face of God for now. And when we open the Scripture we see the radiance of His glory, and it brings light to our eyes so that we can see clearly.

The fear of the Lord in Psalm 19:9 is clean. It is untainted. It is the language that’s used for ritual purity, that which is brought in close to the sanctuary, to the place of God's dwelling. It is uncontaminated by sin, and so it lasts forever. Sin makes us wear out, but the fear of the Lord is clean, and it lasts forever and satisfies our longing forever. The rules of the Lord are true; they are accurate; they are altogether righteous. This Psalm in its beauty announces that the heavens are communicating to us day after day, night after night, the glory of the living God. God's Word gives us His voice recorded for us, and His voice produces change in us.

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Sometimes the Bible is likened to love letters from a husband to his bride, and although that is an imperfect analogy, there is something there that is beautiful. I remember as Christine and I were preparing to get married, she would write letters to me. I kept those letters. And like many of you, I'm sure, I read those letters and I reread those letters, and I picked up fresh nuances from those letters, and those letters stirred my heart. God's Word stirs our heart, makes us wise. It brings us joy, renews us, refreshes us, and points us to eternity.

Because of the effect on us and because of the Person of God whom we meet there, God's Word is more valuable than wealth. And this is a great challenge to us. We live in a society whose leading virtue is the accumulation of wealth. We think that wealth is intrinsically good. We think that the accumulation of wealth is a good thing. We direct a lot of energy and ambition toward it because we value it and the things that we think will accompany it. But I've known wealthy people, as I'm sure you have, who are very sad and anxious, because it's not wealth that satisfies. God's Word is more desirable. The word that's used in Psalm 19:10 is the word that's used in the tenth of the Ten Commandments: You shall not covet. The word used here is that God's Word is to be coveted. It is to be desired; it is to be pursued. It is more desirable than gold, even much fine gold.

Some of us put wealth in second place, and we have imbibed the toxic drink of our own society that says you really need to go after the experience of pleasure. I go after experiences. Psalm 19:10 says that God's Word is sweeter than honey: “More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.” Its taste is sweet. It has no regrets. It is more desirable than gold and more satisfying than honey. Do you believe that? You know, it's okay if you don't yet, and I'd rather have you say, “I'm just not sure; I don't know that yet.” That's okay. I really want you to join us on Bible Journey and expose yourself to the Word of God. Read it and see if your soul is revived, if your naïveté is brought over into wisdom, if you can see the world more clearly, if your longing for justice and righteousness is satisfied. It will be. And you'll find here that what you need, where you need to go, is back to His Word, not so you can become a Bible scholar, but so you can know and be in covenant-communication with your heavenly Father. It’s because the heavens declare His glory and His Word reveals His person.

You see, God desires your good, and that's why His Word is divided into positive commandments and warnings. In Psalm 19:11 we read that by them, by the full counsel of God's Word, we are warned where we need to be warned, and we are encouraged to go toward a place where there is great reward. We need both of those things. We need to be told, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” We also need to be told,

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“You shall not steal or commit adultery.” We need the warning: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

God's Word reveals His person, and then beginning in Psalm 19:12, the last portion of the Psalm, there's another breathtaking turn. We move from the glory of God on display in His beauty in the world around us to the declaration that His Word reveals His person and character in the recorded speech of the Lord God Almighty. And all of a sudden there's another turn, and it's the direct address. It's a direct address of us, made in God's image. The heavens are speaking, day after day, night after night. God's Word is speaking clear communication from Him, and then we begin to speak. We ask in Psalm 19:12: “Who can discern his errors?” You and I don't really have the power to self-diagnose. We can't even recognize our own faults. Really, if we’re honest we know we can't, because when someone points them out, our first reaction is to explain that what we were just told is inaccurate. We are masters at self-deception and so skilled at forgetting the needs of others while remembering the attendant circumstances to explain our own behavior. Maybe that's why our memories don't work for other things, because we’re using up our available space to explain our own actions or lack thereof. And all of a sudden we speak again in the second line of Psalm 19:12: “Declare me innocent from hidden faults.” To the God who is on display in creation, who is revealed in His Word, we speak in covenant relationship, asking God to declare us innocent from our hidden faults. These are the unintentional sins. In the book of Leviticus, the offerings are made for unintentional sins. They are things that you do accidentally.

I had a traumatic experience on Friday, moving furniture. This was my first time ever to have a traumatic experience moving furniture. As many of you know, we recently moved, and we found this place to get good quality furniture at low prices, but it's in Columbus. So I made a few trips to Columbus and found this chair for my wife's office. Great price, praise the Lord! It wouldn't fit in the back of my car, so a generous Kenwood member offered me a truck, and I drove up to get the chair. They shrink-wrapped it and put in the back of the truck. And I thought, “Here comes one of the best husbands in the world, just coming down I-270 with this new chair for my beloved bride.” There was busy traffic and construction, but I was just “livin’ large,” when this guy came up and passed me on the right. My first thought was that you usually don't pass people on the right, but I was going a little slower, because I had this sweet chair right behind me. No problem. He pulled up next to me, looked in and gestured toward the chair. And I thought, “You know, that is a nice chair, and I don’t know how to break it to you, Buddy, but there's only one of those.” So I looked in the rearview mirror, and I noticed that the

Page 10 of 12 chair looked a little different than it had a few seconds ago. The back cushion was gone! I was crushed. The beautiful chair for my beautiful bride was now missing its back.

I was driving in the middle lane of I-270, so I looped around and came back, retracing my route, and I saw the cushion in the center lane of I-270. And I thought, “Oh, Lord, do I risk life and limb for that cushion?” So I prayed and looped around again. By God's kindness and mercy, the cushion had been struck enough times that it flew to the side of the highway, so I was able to retrieve it without having to go into traffic. I was crushed. I drove back to the store, and I was so sad. Here was this beautiful cushion, and it looked like it been run over by semi-truck after semi-truck. My confidence was shaken, and I thought, “I can’t bring this thing home.” But, praise God, the beloved staff at the Arhaus Loft in Columbus spent two hours cleaning the cushion and sewing it back together.

Then I called another beloved member of our church and said, “Hey, do you want take a road trip sometime?” He said he was actually on a road trip then. He was driving home from Cincinnati in a big moving truck that was empty. So I told him I was in Columbus and asked if he wanted to come and pick me up. He did, and we brought the chair and some other furniture back safely to our house. Isn’t that cool?

Psalm 19 invites us to speak back to God. Declare me innocent from the things that I didn't intend to do. I didn't intend for that cushion to fly off, and I praise God that it didn't land on the windshield of a mom with three kids in her van. Psalm 19 also pleads with God our Father to keep us back and restrain us from arrogant sins. These are the really deadly ones — the sins that you know you shouldn't do and you do them anyway. And there are things that you and I know we should do. We’re supposed to speak, act, give, and we don't. And there are the things that God has been clear about in His Word, and the Holy Spirit has convicted us not to do. He’s not asking us to do that, not giving us that responsibility or entrusted that person to us, and we go for it anyway.

Psalm 19 ends. This God of majesty and glory in creation has revealed Himself to us in His Word and then lives with us in covenant-relationship. Therefore, we can say, “Oh Lord, declare me innocent; make me innocent of doing things I don't even to intend to do. And, Lord, hold me back, restrain me, keep me in check from arrogantly transgressing against what you have said.” And God answers this in the final breath of Psalm 19:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” And so at the end of the Psalm, our words come into alignment with the day after day, night after night speech of the heavens. Glory to God, glory to God, glory to God. They come into

Page 11 of 12 alignment with the sentence after sentence, verse after verse, chapter after chapter, book after book revelation of God's Word. Glory to God, glory to God, glory to God. And at the end, my words and your words, and not just our words, but the thoughts of our hearts, are: Glory to God, glory to God, glory to God.

Will you join us for Bible Journey, so we can encounter this God, and know His character? Our God is great and glorious. He is worth knowing. He satisfies. His greatness is announced, and the primary place where this great God is known and announced by His design and wisdom is through the local church. His plan is to bring us together in groups of people to worship Him and announce His greatness in worship and also to read His Word and study it. And when we do that we end up thinking God is great. Will you stand with me as we ask God's blessing?

Father, we thank You for Your presence and power. We thank You for Your hand on display in the creation around us, and we thank You that You are a God of beauty, of consistency, of joy. We thank You Lord that You have marked these things into the fabric of Your works, and You have created in us a longing to experience them. We thank You that we experience them as we see what You have made, and we experience them when we get to know You through Your Word. Lord, we ask for Your forgiveness right now. Forgive us, Lord, for the things that we have done unintentionally or that we are unaware of. Purify us, Lord. Lord, we ask You to hold us back from presumptuous sins, sins of arrogance, sins with a high hand. Hold us back, Lord, where we need Your restraint. Send us forward, Lord, as people whose words and speech and desires and meditations of our heart are pleasing to You, our Rock and our Redeemer. Lord, we love you, we praise You. We thank You that when we come into Your presence there is an altar there that provides forgiveness. We thank You that every moment that Israel came into the sanctuary, there was an altar that was burning with sacrifice, that You were there, Lord, offering forgiveness and new life. We worship you, Lord Jesus, and we thank You that You satisfy our deepest desires. We honor You and praise You now.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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