Sermon: Loyalty to God and His Word

Loyalty to God and His Word
Psalm 119:113-120
December 29, 2019

Pastor Matt Woodley tells the story of a softball game he played in a number of years ago:

…the   umpire   made   a   call   that incensed  our  coach.  My  coach  didn’t  agree  with  the ump’s  interpretation  of  a  specific  league  rule. The  game stopped,  and  a  heated  discussion  ensued.  Finally,  the ump sighed as he pulled a rulebook from his back pocket and proceeded to read page 27, paragraph 3b, section 1.  “As you can clearly see,” he concluded, “this rule means that my call must stand.” Unconvinced, my coach yelled, “But  you’re  not  interpreting  that  rule  correctly.”  To  which the ump replied, “Uh, excuse me, I think I should know: I wrote the rulebook.” After an awkward silence, my coach walked back to the bench, shaking his head and pointing to the ref as he told us, “Get ahold of that guy. He wrote the rulebook!”

Isn’t that so like us?  We are prone to dispute the rules of our lives and then argue against those who wrote the rules.  That’s true spiritually as well.  It might be particularly true spiritually.  Even when we have been saved from sin by Christ and even when we love Christ and want to be obedient to Christ, we still have the flesh and remaining sin, and it is the continual work of the flesh to push against God and His Word and entice us to rebelliously sin.  Our spirits — our inner man — want to obey, follow, and be loyal to Christ and our flesh wants to destroy our loyalty to God and make us loyal only to ourselves.

The world, the flesh, and the devil are constantly enticing us to be disloyal to God and loyal to ourselves.

Is it possible to remain loyal to God?  Is it possible to be faithful to God?  Is it possible to resist the flesh?  Yes!  Psalm 119 continually and repeatedly affirms that the Bible is powerful and authoritative to help the believer in his fight against sin.  In the 15^th stanza, (Psalm 119:113-120) the psalmist explains the hope for our relationship to God, Scripture, and sin this way:

When opposed by sin and the world, remain loyal to God.

In this passage, we see three ways to maintain loyalty to God and His Word:

1. Be Loyal to God by the Way You Fight Sin (vv. 113-115)
2. Be Loyal to God by Seeking His Help and Protection Against Sin (vv. 116-117)
3. Be Loyal to God by Recognizing and Fearing His Wrath Against Sin (vv. 118-120)

Download the rest of this sermon on Psalm 119:113-120.

The audio will be posted on the GBC website by tomorrow.