Delighting in God’s Law

This sermon was preached for Capital Pres Fairfax on Palm Sunday, June 8, 2025, as a part of our sermon series “That You May Live: The Ten Commandments.” The Ten Commandments are foundational for loving God, loving our neighbors, and finding the freedom and life we long for. This Summer we will study the great blessing of God’s law as it reveals his perfect character and empowers us to live lives of freedom and integrity. This week we focused on Psalm 119:33-40, 97-104. A recording of this sermon will be available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Hey

33 Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes; 

and I will keep it to the end. 

34 Give me understanding, that I may keep your law 

and observe it with my whole heart. 

35 Lead me in the path of your commandments, 

for I delight in it. 

36 Incline my heart to your testimonies, 

and not to selfish gain! 

37 Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; 

and give me life in your ways. 

38 Confirm to your servant your promise, 

that you may be feared. 

39 Turn away the reproach that I dread, 

for your rules are good. 

40 Behold, I long for your precepts; 

in your righteousness give me life! 

 

Mem

97 Oh how I love your law! 

It is my meditation all the day. 

98 Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, 

for it is ever with me. 

99 I have more understanding than all my teachers, 

for your testimonies are my meditation. 

100 I understand more than the aged, 

for I keep your precepts. 

101 I hold back my feet from every evil way, 

in order to keep your word. 

102 I do not turn aside from your rules, 

for you have taught me. 

103 How sweet are your words to my taste, 

sweeter than honey to my mouth! 

104 Through your precepts I get understanding; 

therefore I hate every false way. 

If you were with us last week, you know we’re starting a Summer sermon series on the Ten Commandments. Last week we read the whole list of commandments but focused on the two introductory verses. That’s because before we can begin to understand the content of God’s law, we have to understand the context of the law. Pastor Rob noted this last Sunday: where was Israel when God gave them the Ten Commandments? Were they in Egypt? No! They were on the other side of the Red Sea. 

That’s important for us to know. These laws aren’t a means of earning God’s favor, they’re a gift from a God who already loves us. We don’t obey to earn our freedom, we obey to live out our freedom. If we don’t understand that, we will never understand the Ten Commandments. 

This week, we’re still not getting into the commandments yet because as Rob put it, we’ve still got some debris left to clear. I was reading a book this past week by a pastor who said there’s three different reactions people can have to God’s law.¹ The first reaction is to treat it like poison: it’s a threat to your life, it kills your joy, it limits your freedom, and so you want nothing to do with it. The second reaction is to treat it like vegetables: it’s important, but it’s still a bit of a drag; you just have to swallow them because they’re good for you. The third reaction is to treat God’s law like honey: rich, sweet, golden, precious, delightful. 

I’m not sure where you’re coming from today, or which of those three reactions resonate with you. If I had to guess for most of us in here, we’re probably in that second camp. God’s law is not at the top of the list of our favorite things about Christianity. There’s not too many of us flipping to Leviticus as our default quiet time reading. That’s why were taking a detour to consider Psalm 119. Of all the things that can help us understand God’s law, the most helpful thing is a poem. It invites us to delight in the law, to say with the psalmist “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” 

We’ve got three things to consider this morning. First, we’ll start with a very simple claim: God’s law matters. It is relevant to our lives, it’s important. Then we’ll consider two ways the law matters: the beauty of the law and the benefit of the law. 

God’s law matters 

If you were to read through all of Genesis-Deuteronomy and count all the laws you find, you’d find 613 different laws. They cover a lot of ground, from property rights to dietary restrictions to ethical codes to building instructions. Which still apply? Which are relevant to you and me today? 

Let’s start by talking about the different kinds of laws we find. When we read the New Testament, we see Jesus talk about three kinds of Old Testament laws: moral, civil, and ceremonial. I know this feels like a bit of a lecture, but these will be helpful categories for us this Summer as we unpack the Ten Commandments together. Let’s look at each kind of law. 

• Moral law: These are things God commands as universal moral imperatives—for example, the commandments “you shall not murder” and “you shall not steal.” 
• Civil law: These comes out of the reality that God’s people were a nation in the Old Testament which required government and regulation. They gave specific directions on how to carry out the moral law. For example, Numbers 35 gives different penalties for murder and manslaughter, and clarifies how many witnesses are needed to prove murder. 
• Ceremonial law: These were laws which guided Israel in worshipping God and witnessing to the nations. For example, Leviticus 1 specifies that a lamb without blemish must be sacrificed as a burnt offering. 

So—moral, civil, ceremonial—of those three categories, which do you think still matters for you today? You might be tempted to think, “Well, we worship in a high school and not a temple, I don’t see a lot of animal sacrifice happening, so the ceremonial law probably doesn’t matter anymore. And here in America we have church-state separation, so it doesn’t seem like the civil law matters all that much. So maybe just the moral law?” I could see how you might think that, but that’s not the answer Jesus gives. 

Our Adult Christian Ed Class is working through the Sermon on the Mount right now, and right at the start of his Sermon, Jesus says this: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Mt 5:17) According to Jesus, the whole law matters—we’ll unpack that more in just a minute. 

Why say all this? Even when we come to the Ten Commandments, we might be tempted to think “Only some of these are really important, the rest don’t really matter. Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t lie—those are good. But all that idolatry business, or taking the Lord’s name in vain, or resting on the Sabbath—those don’t apply anymore.” Let me disabuse you of that notion right now. Over the course of this summer you’ll see how each and every one of the Ten Commandments is in fact a moral law, and has the utmost relevance for you today. But broadly speaking, even the most obscure ceremonial law still matters to us. 

We then ask “How does the law matter?” Because different things can matter in different ways. Maybe some of you are planning on going to the beach this summer. My wife and I are going to the beach in a few weeks. Here’s some things that matter to us for our beach trip. Having a reliable car that can get us to the beach matters. Having sunscreen and an umbrella to keep us from roasting matters. Having a shower to rinse off all the sand before we go to bed matters. 

But there are other things that matter to us for different reasons. A beautiful sunrise over the ocean—that matters to us. Collecting sea shells with our son—that matters. Eating delicious fresh seafood at our favorite restaurant—that matters. Those are the reasons we go to the beach at all. 

So which way does God’s law matter to us? Is the law just useful, like sunscreen? Or does the law matter like a sunrise? Psalm 119 shows us we don’t have to pick—it’s both! That brings us to our next two points: the beauty of the law, and the benefit of the law. 

The beauty of the law 

Let’s now turn our attention to Psalm 119. As we noted before, of all the things that can help us understand God’s law, the Bible gives us a poem. Kids, you have to write poems in English class. Think about the last poem you wrote, what was it about? My wife was a fifth grade teacher for seven years, she was reading some of her students’ old poems. Here’s a short list of what they wrote about: Oreos, Minecraft, one student wrote about her cat “Brookie,” another student wrote about squirrels. 

We write poetry about what we love. You know what none of her students wrote about? The constitution, or civil procedure, or ethical codes. We don’t normally think about the law and poetry together. But when it comes to the Bible, out of all the its poems, out of all 150 Psalms, the longest by far is a love poem about God’s law. 

So let’s chat a bit about Psalm 119. It’s an alphabetical acrostic poem—one stanza for each letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and each verse begins with that stanza’s letter. Twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet, so twenty-two stanzas, eight verses per stanza, that makes 176 verses. We only read two stanzas instead of taking twenty minutes to read the full Psalm, but the two we picked give you a sense of the whole Psalm. Look at what the author says about God’s law. 

35 Lead me in the path of your commandments, 

for I delight in it. 

40 Behold, I long for your precepts; 

in your righteousness give me life! 

97 Oh how I love your law! 

It is my meditation all the day. 

103 How sweet are your words to my taste, 

sweeter than honey to my mouth! 

The whole Psalm goes on and on just like this, here’s a few other highlights. 

“My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times.” 20 

“It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” 71

“I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commandments” 131 

There is a desperation in this Psalm—a desperate desire for God’s law to be known, studied, loved, and upheld. How could this be so good this author could say with full conviction, “It was a good thing I suffered because it taught me more about God’s law.” What’s so great about God’s law? In short, God himself. 

All through the Psalm we’re given this parallel relationship of seeking the Lord and knowing his commandments. In the opening stanza of Psalm 119, the author writes this: “Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart…I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules” (119:2,7). 

This is where we see the beauty of the law: it’s a window into the heart of God. When God commands us “You shall not murder,” that’s not just a rule we have to follow; it’s a window for us to see God’s great love of life and his zeal for preserving it. The same is true for the ceremonial law: the book of Hebrews shows us how all the various sacrifices and rituals of the temple were meant to point us to Jesus. And this is what Jesus gets at when he says he fulfills the law. 

Look at the kind of life Jesus lived. In everything he did, Jesus lived with perfect moral integrity. He loved his Heavenly Father with his whole being—heart, soul, strength, and mind—and he loved his neighbor as himself. And that led to a full, rich, beautiful life—not just defined by the things he didn’t do, but by the things he did do. He spoke the truth and corrected error, calling out those who twisted the truth for their own gain. He resisted every temptation (Mt 4:1-11; Heb 4:15) and refused to abuse his power. He valued every human life he encountered, from the poorest and most marginalized outcasts to the most arrogant and self-righteous religious leaders who crucified him—even on the cross he cried out “Lord forgive them” (Lk 23:34). And in his death, he fulfills all of the signs and symbols of the ceremonial law. He is the spotless lamb whose blood is spilled to cover our sin. That’s why the ceremonial law matters: it’s pointing us to our Savior. 

In every way, Jesus lived out the beauty and integrity the law was meant to produce, revealing what true humanity looks like under God’s reign. So this Summer, as we study the Ten Commandments, recognize that we are putting our finger on the very pulse of our Savior’s heart. The law matters like a sunrise—we are invited to admire it, and to admire the God who reveals himself through it. 

The benefit of the law

Let’s come to our last point: the benefit of the law. We’ll be focusing on two benefits, or two uses.² It’s not just beautiful, it’s useful! The Ten Commandments are commandments, after all. We’re called to action. But there’s the rub. If it were just a matter of studying the law, of admiring the way it reflects God’s heart, that’d be all well and good. The problem is, we’re commanded to do it. And quickly we realize we don’t have what it takes—if God’s law requires our moral integrity to match Jesus, we fall woefully short. We can’t even make it through a week without failing. 

This past week, did you hatefully yell at the car in front of you on your way to work? Jesus says that breaks the sixth commandment to not murder. Did you glance at that person you think is attractive, letting your mind wander, opening up the laptop when you get home to let pornography fuel your lust? Jesus says that breaks the seventh commandment to not commit adultery. This past week, did you love anything or anyone more than God? Jesus says that breaks the first commandment to have no other gods before the Lord. Forget a week—we can’t make it through a single day without totally going off the rails. 

Friends, this is actually the first benefit of the law: it functions like a mirror. It reflects back who we really are, moral failures and all, it forces us to wrestle with the fact that left to ourselves we don’t have the hearts required to keep it. That, more than anything else, prepares us to receive the gospel. Jesus Christ came into the world to show us how utterly hopeless we are without God’s grace, and to provide all the grace we need. It’s exactly what we said in our assurance of pardon: “In [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight” (Eph 1:7-8). 

This is what we receive when we put our faith in Jesus. He takes away our guilt and gives us his own righteousness. More than that, he breaks our hardened, lawless hearts and fills us with his Holy Spirit so that we can walk in Jesus’ footsteps. That brings us to the last benefit of the law: it functions like a lamp. It shines a light that illuminates those footsteps for us to follow. That analogy comes straight from Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” 

What does this mean for us? We don’t have to stumble around in the dark trying to figure out how we should navigate our dating lives. The light of the laws shows us what we should do and what we should not do in the world of government contracting. The light says “here’s how you respond when your spouse says something that hurts you and here’s how you don’t respond.” The light of the law shows you how to life in ways that may be hard but lead to the life and peace we long for. For Christians, we’re empowered by the Holy Spirit to live like Jesus, to be the “salt and light” he calls us to be. 

That’s why, as we study the Ten Commandments together this Summer, we don’t have to treat it like poison or like vegetables. It’s not just a burden. It’s a window into the heart of our perfect, gracious God. It’s a mirror that exposes our need of his grace. And it’s a lamp that shows us how to follow Jesus in living with moral integrity. So here’s your invitation to keep coming back each Sunday. Come fall more in love with Jesus and come learn how to live more like him. 

 * * * 

¹ J. Stephen Yuille. The Path of Life : Blessedness in Seasons of Lament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Reformation Heritage Books, 2019), eBook. Yuille cites a book by Kevin DeYoung in which he describes three reactions to Psalm 119 specifically. He does not use the analogies of poison, vegetables, and honey but communicates the same idea. 

² The Reformed tradition historically speaks of the three uses of the law. This sermon addresses the first and third uses of the law as described by John Calvin. The second use of the law is to restrain sin in society by promoting justice and order, serving as a curb on evil through external consequences. For a helpful breakdown of the three uses of the law, read this article by Tabletalk: https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2023/07/the-three-uses-of-the-law/