Sermon Psalm 19 The LORD, His Creation and His Word Preached at 8.15 & C@10 on 11 th January 2015 Intro There s only so much you can tell about a person just by looking at their work. When our kids were really young I was working as an accountant in the Bankstown Civic Centre, which is a tall blue glass building in Bankstown. One day we were driving up through Bankstown and we could see the building from the car, and I said to the kids look, kids, there s Daddy s work. And Murray said did you build that daddy? But what can you tell me about the person who built this building by looking at it??? Someone built it? They had a lot of skill? They like the colour blue? Can anyone tell me his name? Can you tell me what he s like as a person? To know those kinds of things, he would have to speak to us. Psalm 19 is a psalm that shows us what s plain for everyone to know about God, and what we can t know unless he tells us. One of the questions some Christians have is what happens to people who ve never heard about Jesus? Jesus teaches us in John 14:6 that no one comes to the Father except through him. In other words, no one gets to be in heaven without a living faith in Jesus as Lord and Saviour. But how does God treat people who ve never heard about Jesus? 1
It s not just an interesting question. The way we answer it will affect the way we think about God s character is he being fair and just by excluding people who ve never heard the gospel? And it will affect our evangelism if we think people who ve never heard bout Jesus are somehow off the hook, why would we want to tell them about Jesus? Well, it s not how we answer the question that s important, it s what God has to say. So let s listen to what he says in this psalm. God s Voice in Creation Verses 1-4 talk about the creation declaring the glory of God. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (Psalms 19:1 NIV) The universe that God has made shouts out that He is the glorious creator. His glory is plain to see in the work of his hands, the creation. And creation s declaration of God s glory is for all people, and for all time. In verse 4, it says the creation s message has gone to all the earth. You can go anywhere in the world and you can t avoid seeing God s glory in creation. And the creation constantly speaks to all people, that God is worthy of all glory as Creator v2 uses the words day after day and night after night they pour forth speech Lots of people say they would probably believe in God if he spoke to them personally. But here in Psalm 19 God s saying that he does speak to all people all the time through what he s made. You don t need to read a book about the man who built the Bankstown Civic Centre to know that he exists, and that he has certain abilities. 2
Likewise, it s obvious just by looking at the greatness of the universe, or the intricacies of the human body, that there is a God and that he is gloriously and infinitely greater, wiser and more powerful than any human being. What about people who God hasn t spoken to? There are none! It s what we call God s general revelation general because he s made this about himself known to everyone whether they ve ever seen a Bible or heard about Jesus or not. So no one will be able to stand before God as we all will one day and say I didn t know that you were my Creator that I should have worshipped you and lived for you. Much less will we get away with saying I couldn t be sure you even existed. In Romans 1:20 it says: For since the creation of the world God s invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20 NIV) It s not for lack of evidence that anyone fails to see who God is and how we should respond to him. One of our boys was sitting for an exam at school once, and when he looked at the paper there was a whole section on a topic that he couldn t recall learning anything about! He froze, trying to remember if there might have been something tucked away in a chapter somewhere that he wasn t paying attention to. So he decided to pray about it, and as he looked up, the department head came in and told them that there was an error in the paper and he topic they hadn t been taught had been accidentally included in the exam! 3
God doesn t expect anyone to know anything about him except what he has made perfectly clear. God won t judge anyone according to what they don t know only what they do know. And he hasn t tucked away any of what we need to know that he exists and that he s our glorious Creator who we should worship. There s no problem with the message. The problem s with our reception of it. Since the first people sinned, there s been a problem with our antenna for receiving what God clearly says in Creation. Back in the days of analogue TV, I could never get a proper picture on SBS when it first went on air. All I could get was this snowy, shaky picture where you couldn t tell which team was what end of the soccer field! There was nothing wrong with the signal. The problem was I just refused to install an antenna that would receive a UHF signal! It s not that people can t hear what God s telling them about himself in Creation it s that we won t we refuse We don t want to hear that there s a God who made us and the whole universe who we ought to be worshiping. The truth about God that s there for all to see, Paul says in Romans 1:18 that we suppress it like trying to hold a basketball under the water in a swimming pool. Our refusal to listen to what God has clearly spoken to everyone is a deliberate and wilful act. And we ve all done it. And so all people are rightly and fairly guilty when we stand before God. God s Voice in His Word However the speech of creation the general revelation available to all people isn t all that God has said. 4
God speaks in his word the word of Scripture the Bible. In the Bible, God speaks more specifically to the people he calls to himself. In the first 6 verses the word used for God is the general word god, but in v7 it changes to LORD meaning the name God gave for his people to know him by. And the words that the LORD speaks to his people aren t just about his glory, but about his will for his people and his world. If I can stretch the illustration, it s a bit like reading a book by the man who built the Bankstown Civic Centre, telling us who he is, why he built the place and how he intended people to use it! God s word in the Bible is described in v7-10 as: The Law of the LORD not just a list of do s and don ts, but instruction for life lived rightly The statutes of the LORD what God says is true and right The precepts of the LORD the application of his will to the smallest details of our lives The commands of the LORD commands that he expects us to obey The fear of the LORD a right attitude of reverence for God and The ordinances of the LORD his authoritative rules of right and wrong to judge our thoughts and actions. The second- last one the fear of the LORD is about our attitude to God s word. What God has said in Scripture is true, clear and authoritative. Just looking at creation it s not clear that you should love your enemies, or be faithful to your spouse. But God s word to us in the Bible doesn t leave us in any uncertainty about such things. The author Mark Twain once said: 5
Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture which troubled me most are those that I do understand. To fear the LORD is the attitude that recognises that when God s word and I disagree, I m the one that needs to change. Because this is the word of the LORD the Creator of the universe my glorious Creator. And his word is like him again in v7-10: Perfect or complete nothing s missing Trustworthy it s completely reliable Right there s no errors and it won t lead us astray Pure expresses exactly what God means Radiant it enlightens us to the truth Enduring forever God never changes and neither does his word Sure and righteous undoubtedly right and good More precious than gold to be valued more highly than anything else Sweet to be enjoyed! Is that how you think about your Bible? As you live your life, what s more important to you in determining how you think, speak and act? Do you give anything else the same place in your decisions, than the perfect, trustworthy, right, pure, radiant, enduring, sure, righteous, precious, sweet word of the perfect, trustworthy, right, pure, radiant, enduring, sure, righteous, precious, sweet LORD? God s Word Changes Us Finally, only God s word changes us. When I ve felt that I m struggling to trust God and to live for him, and trying to do things my own way in my own strength, it s almost always when I ve not been reading my Bible as I should. 6
It s God s word that keeps us on the right track, by warning us and encouraging us. By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. (Psalms 19:11 NIV) The more we read the Bible and hear God s voice warning and leading us, the more we ll be convinced that his ways are the best ways. And the more our lives will be transformed into life lived the best way. His word is never just for information it s for transformation of our lives. And as we saw in Hebrews before Christmas, we are being transformed by God s final word to us in Jesus, into his likeness. We aren t transformed to be more like Jesus through osmosis. We re transformed as we hear God s final, perfect word to us in the gospel believe, trust and obey. And that won t happen unless we re regularly reading our Bibles treating God s word the way that God deserves to be treated revering and obeying his word the way that we should revere and obey him. If we really want to know that our lives are on the right track to know that we re living the best way and with an eternal future then we ll want to know as much as we can of what God has to say. I don t go in for new year s resolutions, but if your Bible spends more time on your shelf than in your hands, how about resolving to make a change at the start of this new year. If you need some help to get started or re- started, come and talk to me. If you don t have a Bible or you re confused about which version to get, come and see me. If we want to see our lives changed and the lives of the people of Beverly Hills and Kingsgrove changed this year, we need to be listening to all that God graciously says to us in the Bible. 7
As we place our lives under the authority of God s word, we ll want to be people who please God with lives that truly honour him trusting and obeying Jesus and telling others about him The psalm concludes with the words of one who has been moved by God s word to please God not only with words but with his entire heart: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14 NIV) May that prayer become more and more the prayer that we say amen to this year. 8