Psalm 119:17-24

Psalm 119:17-24

Bountiful Life

I.                    Only God’s grace provides a bountiful life in a sin troubled world, so we must be consumed with a desire to seek His grace revealed in His Word (Vv. 17-20)

a.       God’s Word reveals that a life that is full and overflowing in contentment and satisfaction, is a life which is growing in faithfulness and completeness by living obediently to God’s Word by His enabling grace. It is this abiding grace, which is the source of true bountifulness in life, for which the psalmist now asks by petitioning God to facilitate his ability to understand and apply His Word to his life. As God sheds His grace in the psalmist’s life, he grows to realize that he’s different from the rest of the world around him, “a stranger in the earth”, and needs God’s Word to be clear and abundant in his life to give him the proper direction and avoid the pitfalls of life in a sin troubled world. As he continually looks to God’s Word for direction, his appetite for the sustenance, nourishment, direction, and bountifulness available in God’s Word also grows. He develops a fervent desire for God to speak to every area of his life through His Word. So true bountifulness, blessing, abundant favor, and the bestowing of God’s overflowing and abundant provision, is the ability to understand God’s Word, apply it to our lives to see things His way, and the insatiable desire for more of Him through His Word. Have you grown weary and worn out with the world, it’s empty promises, and it’s bitterness? Only God’s grace provides a bountiful life in a sin troubled world. God doesn’t make empty promises. He doesn’t promise a trouble free existence, but He promises that we can be eternally saved by His grace through faith in the Person and work of His Son Jesus Christ, who paid the just penalty for our sin, setting us free from enslavement to sin and death, and free to live bountifully in His grace today. Only in serving Christ and walking obediently in God’s Word, can we live right-side up in an upside-down world (Vv. 17-20; 1 Sam. 3:9; Ps. 13:5-6; 16:11; 116:6-9; 119:1-8; Jer. 15:16; Matt. 4:3-4; 7:13-14; Mark 8:22-25; Luke 18:35-43; 24:13-32; John 14:6; 15:1-11; 17:3, 17; Rom. 8:32; 1 Cor. 2:12-16; 2 Cor. 4:3-6; Gal. 6:7-10; Eph. 1:17-18; 2:8-10; Phil. 3:2-21; 4:19; Heb. 11:8-10; 1 Pet. 1:1-2, 23; 2:11; 1 John 2:15-17)

II.                 Only God’s grace provides a bountiful life in a sin troubled world, so we must trust and delight in the gracious promises of His Word (Vv. 21-24)

a.   The psalmist was seeking God’s grace in his life because he was suffering a time of trouble. But what was his difficulty and why was he experiencing it? Apparently there were prominent men in society, who wholeheartedly rejected God’s Word, and were finding fault with the psalmist, criticizing him, and making his life difficult because he loved God’s Word and lived according to it. The source of his bountifulness and the source of his trouble were both found in God’s Word. But because the psalmist was an obedient servant of God’s Word, meditated on God’s Word, and delighted in God’s Word, God directed him and reassured him in his uncertainty, through His unchanging grace and truth. The psalmist found peace, hope, fullness, and blessed bountifulness in the only place it is available, God’s grace revealed through His Word. The world will reject God’s Word, and will reject God’s people, because they reject God’s authority over their lives. But that doesn’t change who God is or His rightful Lordship over His creation. Those in the world seek to hide from their own inescapable trouble by making trouble for others as a distraction to themselves. But when we become the target of the world because of our delight in God and our desire to live obediently to Him, we can enjoy a bountiful life in His grace, even in the face of trouble, because we trust that He’s overcome the world. We’ll all experience trouble in life. There is no escaping the consequences of sin which have broken our world and resulted in difficulty. But when we trust and delight in God’s Word and His gracious promises, and live obediently according His commands, we can have peace in the storms of life, and even know that they bear eternal fruit. Is that the way you feel about God’s Word? Do you have an insatiable appetite to grow in His Word and live according to it? Do you have an insatiable appetite for the promises of His Word? Do you evaluate your life and all decisions you make through the truth revealed in His Word? God has made His life giving and life sustaining Word bountifully available to all people, are you truly walking in the bountiful life His grace provides in this sin troubled world? (Vv. 21-24; Ps. 10:2-11; 11:1-6; 19:14; 73:23-28; Matt. 5:10-16; 7:24-27; John 15:18-19; 14:27; 16:33; 2 Cor. 4:7-10; Phil 1:12-18; 4:4-8; Jas. 1:5-8; 13-25; 1 Pet. 2:9-12, 20-25; 4:12-19)