Evening, everybody. Go ahead and turn in your Bibles
to Psalm 119. Psalm 119.
This message started off from Brother Brian's message about
how important your relationship with Christ and God is and how
we shouldn't diminish that to, to do work for Christ.
And so it started off as how to have devotions.
I think a lot of times we talk about it and it's told make sure
you're having devotions, make sure you're reading God's word,
make sure you're doing that daily.
But as a new Christian, I don't think that we've in my life, I
don't ever think I've ever been told, how do you have devotions?
They have, you know, devotional books and those are really
helpful and they give you guidance.
But a devotional book is kind of like a commentary.
It's great to have, it's great to use, but the source should be
this not, not not illustrations that give you one verse to read
that go in inside with with an illustration.
And as you grow older, you need to get away from the devotional
books that they're great for kids and great for family
devotionals. But as you grow older and grow
in your faith, this should be your devotional book.
You should be able to pick up your Bible and have devotions
with God. And that was one of the things.
And I even talked to Brian about doing it as a Sunday school 13
week. And he was like, how are you
going to do that for 13 weeks? And I said, yeah, that's a good
point. So the IT started off as that
how to have devotions. And I finished that up last
night, finalized and printed it off and headed off to bed.
And about 3:00 this morning I woke up.
And that wasn't the message that got changed.
It's important to have devotions.
But why are we reading our Bible in the 1st place?
Why read your Bible? Yes, yes, we know we're
commanded to do it, but as Christians, I think in today's
Christianity, reading your Bible is such a well, if I got time,
I'll do it. I don't really have a benefit of
why I should read it. I just, you know, I'm told to
read it, so I should read it And I woke up late.
I didn't have time to really get to it.
I'll read it later. And we see through the Bible,
David talks about rising up early in the morning and having
his devotions and his time with God.
And that's the best time to do it is start your day with God.
But why? Why should we read our Bible?
The there was a sad statistic back in 2021 that that looked at
Christianity and, and found that 11% of Christians read their
Bible daily, seven days a week. 5% read four days or more.
That's 16% of all Christianity. Obviously I don't, it didn't say
how many were polled, but in that polling only 16% read it.
The worst thing is it's not that.
Oh, I do it on, on, you know, the days that we don't have
church. The sad thing is 13% read less
than once a year. 29% said they never read it.
That's almost half of Christians that never read it or they read
it once a year. Why why why is why why do we
have? Why are you shaking your head?
What? What's the point of reading
God's word if it's so important? Shouldn't a Christian
automatically want to read it? I I agree, but sadly,
Christianity Today doesn't see this as an important thing to
read, let alone every day or bring to church.
Well, I'll get to it when I get to it.
You know, I and I, I was guilty of this in college.
You go to class, you listen to the professor and they teach and
stuff all everything in the book.
And then you go to have the test and you're like, where did you
come up with these questions? Like 90% of them aren't even
anything we went over in class. What was the point of everything
you were teaching? As funny as that is, the sad
thing, I think a lot of Christians see the same way.
They come to church, they listen to the preacher, The preacher
reads from the word of God. But the sad thing is, is we're
not having a test at the end of the week.
The test is every day of our life and yes, we we get things
that God gives to the pastor to give to us every single week,
but the rest of the book is important.
Pastor can only give you 3 messages a week.
I don't know if if you've looked at it doing 3 messages a week,
it's going to take a long time to get through the whole book
and half the time that you're in the same passages a lot of
times. So, so God designed his word
that we read it ourselves as a child of God.
We should want to read it as you grow and as you get older and as
you want to be closer to God. This is the letter that he wrote
to you. This is this is the the
everything that God ever wanted you to know.
OK, for instance, we just finish.
Let me get there. What did we just finish?
What book did we just finish? Well, I just heard a whole bunch
of different books. No, no, no, not Sunday school
Colossians. Sorry, I should have specified.
And what's interesting, and you might have remembered here
reading this or hearing pastor read this, in the end it says
Paul says in verse 16 in the last chapter, and when this
epistle is read among you, cause it to be read also in the Church
of Laodiceans, and that ye likewise read the epistle from
Laodicea. Well, that's interesting.
Where's the book of Laodicea? Oh, my Bible doesn't have it.
Well, why wouldn't we have that? Well, obviously it's because God
did not want us to have it. God put these 66 books in His
Word for a purpose, for a reason.
And it wasn't just so you could come and listen to it, be
preached at you and taught to you at church.
It was for your everyday life. Go to hold your finger in Psalms
119. Go to Ezekiel 33 Ezekiel 33
gives us a really important warning and kind of a a what I
think a lot of Christians how we are today.
Ezekiel 33 verse 31 and they come and and the beginning of
the chapter is talking about some pretty horrible things
going to be coming to the children of Israel.
Some some judgements, and then we pick up in verse 31.
And they can't. And they come unto thee as the
people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people.
And they hear thy words, but they will not do them, for with
their mouth they show much love, but their heart go with after
their covetousness. And lo, thou art unto them as a
very lovely song of one that has a pleasant voice and can play
well on an instrument, For they hear thy words, but they do them
not. I want to give you 10 reasons
from Psalm 119 why the Bible says read it not just commands,
but some benefits. Why you as a child of God,
should read God's Word daily. Psalms 119 And these by Oh no
means is this a long list. A list expounded.
There are so many reasons, but here are 10 reasons why you
should read the Word of God. And hopefully it'll challenge
you to want to read it if you don't read it already, and
challenge you to want to read it more if you do read it already.
Maybe you've never been taught the same way.
Well, we'll just #1 we'll just get into this.
You're there in verse Psalm 119. Look at verse 2.
Blessed are they that keep His testimonies and that seek Him
with the whole heart. We get a blessing from reading
God's Word. I don't know about you, but I
can ask Pastor to pray for me. I can ask ask pastor for for
wisdom, for guidance, but pastor can't give me a blessing.
The the the Catholic Church sees the Pope and the priests as
something that they can give blessings, but only God can give
blessings. Revelations 1/3 talking about
revelation that says blessed is he that readeth and they that
hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are
written there in for the time is at hand.
There's a blessing that God can give you because you read his
word. You know, there's there's a lot
of times where we talk about or you shouldn't give candy for
somebody knowing something about the Bible.
We have the Bible trivia. We shouldn't reward people to be
doing that kind of stuff. It gives them just an incentive
to just to want candy. The Word of God is filled with
reasons why God wants you to do something and then gives you a
gift because of doing it. The crowns.
One of the reasons for reading God's word is God will bless
you. Take it how you want.
I want God's blessing. Read His word.
The second thing we see there in verse 9, wherewithal shall a
young man cleanse his way by taking, taking heed thereto.
According to thy word, you want victory over sin.
You have a sin that that easily besets you, one that you can't
get victory over that you. Every time the temptation comes,
you always fall to it, and you try everything in your strength
to do it. God says you read my word, I'll
give you victory. Psalms 119 verse 11 Thy word
have I hid in my heart. Why?
That I might not sin against thee.
How do you hide God's word in your heart?
You read it. I'm not going to be able to hide
God's word in my heart if I don't read any of it.
One verse 101 I have refrained my feet from every evil way that
I might keep thy word. Verse 170 Let my supplication
come before thee. Deliver me according to thy
word. You need victory.
It's in this book. How do you get it?
Read it, study it. God's word can keep you from
those temptations and and give you the victory to overcome that
sin. Verse one O 5 Guidance.
Verse one O 5. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet
and a light unto my path. You you need help trying to
figure out where to go to college, where you should go
work, who you should marry. God says read my word and I'll
guide you. Don't.
Don't you want God's will for who you should marry?
Don't you want God's will for to know where you should live, what
place you should go to, what you shouldn't do?
God's Word can give you guidance.
Psalm one 19133 says Order my steps in thy word, and let not
any iniquity have dominion over me.
As a Christian living in this world, we need this book to
guide us this, this world and, and work and dealing with
people, dealing with people that we know are not saved, that that
we know are fully against everything this book says is
right. How do you deal with that?
How do you live with them? How do you work for them?
This book will tell you how and the only way to do that is by
reading it. Let's pray.
I forgot to pray. I, I, I need that Heavenly
Father, I thank you so much for this morning, for, for being
able to be in your house, to be able to wake up this morning
and, and to have another day to live for you and to, to be able
to come here tonight to gather around your word and to learn.
God, what you've given us this precious gift that we call the
Bible. God, I pray that we, we learned
that how precious this is, how important it should be to us.
God, I pray that you, you help us to, to see why it should be
precious to us. I pray that you you'll be
glorified and you'll be lifted up and be honored by the
preaching tonight that it's specifically about your word
that you said that you magnify above your own name.
God, I pray that you'd be pleased with everything tonight
in Jesus name I pray, Amen. So it gives us guidance.
OK, We can get a manuscript to give us guidance on how to get
through the trail. Brother Scott, you do a lot of
hiking and there's a lot of times where you're going hiking
and it's like, do I go that way or that way?
And they have guidebooks, they tell you, hey, this is the trail
that takes you an hour to do. Don't take a left because that
turns into four hours unless you're ready for it.
It's a guidebook. But what's the difference
between that guidebook and this one?
This one's forever settled. Those paths on that hiking trail
may change. Floods come.
Trees fall down. Your path might change.
But this guidebook never does. Look at verse 89 of Psalm 119.
Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven, not here
where it can, where moth the corrupt as the Bible says, but
in heaven. Psalm 138 verse 2 says, I will
worship toward thy holy temple and praise Thy name for thy
loving kindness and for Thy truth, for thou hast magnified
thy word above all thy name. Brother Brian Sunday school did
a couple times ago about the names of God and, and, and by
all means. It was not an exhaustive list.
There was so many more names that he could have gone into.
God says, I put this book above all of them, every single one of
them, Jehovah, Jehovah Jireh, every word that describes me.
God says my names, I've put my word above it.
All that should be important to us, that should make God's word.
If God puts his word above his name, we should do the same
thing. It's forever settled #5 it's
perfect, it's true. 119 Verse 140 Thy word is very pure,
therefore thy servant loveth it. Verse 160 Thy word is true from
beginning. From the beginning, and every
one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever.
John 1717 Sanctify them through thy truth.
Thy word is truth. Second Samuel 728 Samuel says,
And now O Lord God, thou art that God, and thy words be true,
and thou has promised this goodness unto thy servant.
God's word is settled forever and it is perfect and true.
There's no mistakes in this guidebook.
There's no there was a misprint. Sorry.
AC subsection 4 for the correction.
No, it's perfect cover to cover all the way through.
It's going to be around forever. You know, we, we use the word
that it's a living book. We, we hear that at the, the
pastor says that. We hear that every, every now
and then somebody says that I, I, I love reading this book
because it's a living book. What does that mean?
You know, a lot of, a lot of people have the right words to
say, but do you know what it means?
It means this and and this was a good quote that I I better way
of saying it than I could have. It lasts its lasting freshness
in every generation and every age and every person that picks
it up. It is alive and living and
fresh. I may have other books in my
library, but I've read them a number of times, but after a few
readings, I exhaust their knowledge.
But not the Bible. The lasting freshness of this
Word of God says that it is alive.
It never, it's never obsolete, it's never into, it's
indestructible. It produces growth that gives
life and it sustains life. That's why this book is living,
because I could read Psalms 119 and get this message from it.
Brother Matt, you could read the same Psalm 119 and get a whole
different message from it. It could change what I read.
Not the words don't change, but the Holy Spirit speaks out of
this book, teaches and and points things out that you need.
How do we get that? By reading God's Word.
The only way to get that is to be in it.
Wisdom number six. Psalm 1/19 1:30 The entrance of
thy words giveth light. It giveth understanding unto the
simple. I need that I fall under simple
gives me understanding. How?
How come the unsaved read this and say that that's too many
thighs and thighs and they don't make any sense?
Well, you know why? Because it's not a book for the
unsaved. Yes.
Does it show the gospel in it? And can they get saved through
it? Yes.
But the understanding is with the Holy Spirit.
That's why a child of God can read this book and see something
different every single time. You can't.
Verse 169. We'll look.
Let me let my cry come near before Thee, O Lord, give me
understanding according to Thy word.
You have something going on in your life and you just don't
know what to do. You don't understand why is this
happening? Why?
Why am I having to deal with this?
Why am I going through this? Lord, get in the book along with
it. It can give you an answer of the
words to say you know the the Bible says study to show thyself
the proved unto a God, a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth talks about being able to
give an answer to every man. How do you do that reading God's
word. Psalm 11942 So shall I have
wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me for I trust in my
word. If you read his word, he'll give
you the answers. He'll give you the, the
responses that you need to be able to say to somebody.
You have somebody knock on your door.
How do you respond? I, I, I, I'm not a, I'm not a
pastor. I didn't go to Bible college.
I don't have all these degrees and knowing if, if you're in
God's word every single day, don't you think God will give
you the right words to say? You know, somebody can go to
Bible college for four years and be trained in the ministry and
trained in Bible theology, but if you just read the word every
single day for four years, you'll have the same amount of
knowledge. You don't need to go to college,
Bible college to be able to no one understand God's word.
You can just read it, and God will give you the words to say
#7 Protection. Verse 114 Thou art my hiding
place and my shield. I hope in thy word. 116 Uphold
me according unto thy word, that I may live, and let me not be
ashamed of my hope. There's protection given when
you read God's word. Strength Psalm 1/19/28 My soul
melteth for heaviness. Strengthen thou me according
unto thy word. Have you ever got to the point?
After the day of work, you're just like I'm done.
I'm just. I'm going to have a pity party.
This is you don't have any idea what I had to deal with today.
The people pastor said it many times.
The ministry would be great if it weren't for the people Fill
in the name of the job title. It would be the same, it would
be great if it wasn't for the people, and you start having a
pity party. God's word says, get in me and
I'll strengthen you. Psalm 11950 This is my comfort
in my affliction, for thy word hath quickened me.
You'll see that if you read chapter 119.
Over and over and over he says, Thy word hath quickened me.
What does quicken mean? Made alive Does something that
is made alive be weak or is it strong?
Is it renewed with strength? This word of God has the ability
to give you strength. How do you go through a death in
the family and, and, and the Bible says that we we we sorrow
not as those that have no hope. Why?
How are you able to do that? How are you able to get through
the tragedies that this world sees is is the worst possible
tragedy by being in this book the benefit of reading God's
word peace. This world needs peace this
these these Christians in this world need peace.
Verse 165 great peace have they which love thy law and nothing
shall offend them. Oh, that would be interesting.
Wouldn't that be nice to be able to say at any time There's there
was people griping at church in a church.
I'd love to be able to pull that.
You have a church that's about to split.
Hey, guess what, you shouldn't be able to get offended.
Why? Because the Bible says that
great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend
them. Oh, must be not be in God's book
then. Peace is something that this
world has no idea about #10 God will give you sleepless nights.
Oh time out I don't like. That's not a benefit got to give
you. Look at verse one 848 Mine eyes
prevent the night watches, meaning I, I, I can't get to
sleep. I've tried.
I I can't even get to sleep. Why?
That I might meditate in my word.
Sometimes God doesn't let you sleep because he has something
he wants to tell you in his word.
Have you ever had trouble sleeping or or woken up in the
middle of the night? God might be trying to get you
to His Word sometimes. You know, if you're like me,
sleep is hard to get quickly. My wife can hit the pillow and
she's out. I can hit the pillow, I can hit
the bed, I can hit the floor. I mean it.
It takes me a little while to get to sleep.
Talking about peace and about sleepless nights.
God's Word can give you the rest in the stillness in your mind to
let you sleep some extra. So there's the 10.
Here's some extras just because I was feeling extra studious.
Verse one O 3. How sweet are thy words unto my
taste? Yeah, sweeter than honey to my
mouth. Jeremiah 1516 says Thy words
were found, and I did eat them, and they were.
And that word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.
For I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.
Verse 162 of Psalm 119 I rejoice that thy word as one that
findeth great spoil. Not only does God's word say,
read it and I will bless you. The fact of what it cost to have
this through the years through, through the many, many years.
We, we watched Polycarp not too long ago, maybe it was a long
time ago, I don't remember. But we watched the, the
documentary film about Polycarp and after many things happened
and they outlawed it and they finally capture him and, and
they tell him to recant, standing him before the fire and
say, if you recant, we'll let you go.
If you don't, you're going at the stake.
And Polycarp says this 80 and six years have I served him, and
he never once wronged me. How then shall I blasphemy my
king who hath saved me? All the Christians that that
were burned at the stake, that were mutilated, that were
drugged through the streets that went through the Colosseum, We
have that picture in the in the hallway of, of a Coliseum of
Christians that are going to be killed because of their faith,
because of this Bible. Can you imagine being the
Christian that's not a part of them that didn't get captured?
How, how do you continue? I, I just watched my friends get
destroyed by lions. And if I keep doing it, I'm
going to find the same fate. But over and over and over
again. They were willing to give their
life for this book. If you or I were in that
situation, would we still have God's word today?
Would we have the boldness, the conviction, the faith that said
my life means nothing compared to this book?
Because I understand that this book is above even God's own
name. That's why they were willing to
be tortured and destroyed for this book.
We, we, we have a chorus that we sing just the chorus of this
blessed old book that I hold in my hand is is true from
beginning to end. It's a solid foundation where I
firmly stand. Sin kept me from it.
Now it keeps me from sin. But the the 1st and 2nd verses,
the first verse says it is well. It's a well of pure water when
I'm thirsty and dry, and bread when I'm hungry and worn when
the battle is raging. It's my faithful sword, a
shelter from life's trouble storm.
It's a light to my pathway, a lamp to my feet when this world
gets so dark I can't see. And I've not made a change in
one word that it said, but it sure made a change in me.
And then verse 2, when I think what it costs just to hold in my
hand, it reminds me that I owe a great debt to all of the martyrs
who's gone to the stake and quoted with their Brying debt.
Dying breath. Now its critics are many,
believers are few. But one thing I found to be
true. If you find when you read it
that there's something wrong, there's something wrong with
you. This blessed old book, we have
so many copies of it. You have one here at church, you
have some at home there. There's places in this world and
pastors talked about it that, that they, they get a Bible and
they, they cling to it like it's the lifeline to keep them alive.
There's some places where they only have single pages, one copy
of the word and they, they give brother Brian verse one through
5 and and and doc gets another page for the week and, and, and
somebody else gets the page and they they circulate that around.
We have the entire thing and we don't even read it and we have
multiple copies and we don't even read it.
So how about you? Are you in God's Word every day?
Do you read it? Do you study it?
Is it important to you? That man, I'm going to be late
for work, but it doesn't matter. God's Word is more important
than my being late to work. The world may not understand it.
To the world, it's foolishness. Why would you?
Why would you be late to something?
To read a book, Read the book later.
Listen to it on audio while you're driving into work.
Get in God's book Fun Facts, There's 5300 and Let Me try that
again. 535,600 minutes in a year and it takes 4240 minutes to
read the entire Bible. That leaves you with 531,360
minutes to do whatever else you need to do.
There's 365 days in a year. It takes little, a little under
3 days to read the Bible. I, I would challenge that.
It might take me a couple more days than three, but still it
leaves you with 362 days to do what you want.
Here's your challenge. Would you add five minutes to
whatever time you have to read God's word?
Maybe, maybe you're somebody that doesn't have any time,
doesn't know where do I even start?
I wish you would have done that whole How do I have devotions?
Here's a good way to start. There are almost the same amount
of days that there are proverbs. Read a proverb every day, then
read 5 chapters of Psalm. That'll give you that'll
complete Psalm in a month and Proverbs in about a month.
And then after you do those two, start with Matthew to start with
Matthew and start reading. Maybe it'll only take you a
couple a couple chapters. Maybe it's only the first couple
verses in Matthew and think about them.
You know, we think we think about cows.
They have 4 stomachs. I have one that might be as
equal to two of those, but cows regurgitate their food and and
that's what meditating on the word of God means.
It's it's taking in what God has allowed you to read and, and
meditating and then thinking of it and then swallowing it and
then throughout the day, as gross it might sound, bring it
back up. Think about what you just read
this morning. If you're like me, sometimes it
takes you a couple times reading the same thing for you to
remember what you even read. Because sometimes in the morning
you're reading it like this and you're calling it falling asleep
while you're reading it because you're just woken up and you
haven't had a shower to wake you up.
And it takes you a couple times reading the same thing over and
over because you can read it and then get your shower.
And as soon as you get out of the shower, you're like, did I
do my devotions? I think I read my I've read the
Bible. Yeah, sure.
I did the check mark. Yeah, I did that today.
That's not what having devotions is about.
It's not about being able to check something off the list and
say, Yep, I read my Bible, did it, done.
I even added 5 minutes. Done.
What did you read? Well, I was in.
What's today's date? Of course it's going to make me
have a password to open up my watch to see.
It's the 8th. So that means I read Proverbs 8.
OK, what did it say? Wisdom.
Something about wisdom and get understanding somewhere in that
chapter is probably something good about that.
If that's what it means after you read God's Word, then you
didn't read it. Oh, yes, you, you, you
physically looked at words that were on a page, but nothing went
in here. It went through here like, you
know, like kids goes in one ear and out the other.
I think a lot of Christians read the Bible the same way, Goes in
one ear and out the other. You read it.
Who knows what I just read? I can't apply it to my life
because I don't remember anything about what I just read.
That's why it's important not just to read it, but to study
it. Regurgitate that word.
But when you hear Pastor preach on Sunday, Monday regurgitate
what you heard. Think about what Pastor talked
about. Rethink about that.
Remind yourself what Pastor just said.
And you'll get into the habit of doing that every time you read
God's Word. And then you'll be able to apply
what you learn from God's Word to get the blessing, to get the
protection, to get the words to say, to get the benefits from
reading God's Word. That's it.
That's all I got. Let's bow our heads.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for tonight, for for your word.
God, we don't, we don't love this book enough.
God, I'm ashamed to say that I'm one of them.
God, I just pray that we we get an understanding of how
important this book is to you. And because of that, it can be
that important and even more so to us that we're in it, that we
want to be in it. Some of us may not like to read,
but God I pray that you give us hunger for your word to to be in
it every single day, even just for a little bit to start our
day right with you. I thank you again for your word
and what it cost and how precious it is.
I pray that you give us a challenge and hunger to want to
read it. I thank you again for all that
you do. In Jesus name I pray.
Amen.