Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Climbing Mt. Everest

This evening, in the Midweek Worship Service at MSMBC, I will begin a verse-by-verse exposition of Psalm 119, "the Mt. Everest of the Psalms." It is both the longest psalm of the Psalter and the longest chapter of the Bible. It contains 176 verses, divided into twenty-two eight-verse stanzas. And the sections of the psalm are poetically arranged into a beautiful acrostic using each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The theme of this psalm is the total sufficiency of the word of God in the life of the believer.

I intend to preach through the psalm stanza by stanza (or twenty-two messages). I will start tonight with 119:1-8. I am calling the message "Living by the Book." I pray that the the Lord would cause my devotion to be deepened, strengthened, and intensified as I study this glorious exaltation of God all-sufficient word. And, as pastor of Mt. Sinai Church, I pray that the Lord would cause the word to become even more central to our fellowship, service, and witness of our congregation. And I pray that for you, too - whoever you are that may read this. May God so work in your life that your personal testimony becomes "Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord!" (Psalm 119:1, ESV)