Note: This transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for the most accurate information and meaning.

Last week we looked at conduits of grace, means of grace. A mean is a pathway, a method, or a conduit—a process by which God communicates what Christ accomplished to humanity. Last week we saw that prayer—us talking to God—is one of the predominant places. This week we’re going to look at another place: hearing God.

I was headed to visit my mom in a new rehab center a few weeks ago as she was recovering from an illness. I didn’t know how to get to it, so I left my previous appointment, and I’m at the traffic light, waiting for the Google location to render. I said to myself, because I’m at the traffic light, “Do I go straight? Do I turn right? Do I turn left? Which is the best way to get there?” I need something right now.

There’s a sense where we’re all going, “God, I need something from the cloud; I need something from You right now.” He has encapsulated all of His best words in a book written over centuries so that you and I can go back and refer to it. God does intervene. There is a word from on high. He has spoken, and one of the predominant ways that God communicates His grace to us is in His word.

Let’s look at Psalm 19 as it relates to the word of God. This is one of David’s psalms. He was a songwriter, warrior, king, and poet.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.

The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.

By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward. But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May these words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Music is a powerful media. I was at a concert last night and I learned in song about a woman who lived near Gettysburg who was a kidnapped slave. When the man who she was the slave of died, his wife provided for her freedom and then walked her to the Mason-Dixon line and to the hills of Adams County where she lived out the rest of her life. I never heard her story, but I heard it through song.

Music evokes great emotion. It evokes a sense of excitement and enrichment. While that’s happening, I’m learning something I didn’t know before. Music teaches us. David, in this process, is evoking our emotions and captivating our senses with his poetry. This psalm was given to the director of music. What is he singing about? He’s singing about all the ways that God has communicated Himself to us.

David examines three things:

The Heavens

The Word of God

Himself

The heavens declare the glory of God. God has been speaking to us and revealing Himself since creation. He wants to connect; He’s not trying to hide. God’s not trying to play hide-and-seek with us. The heavens declare it. All of creation was made to show you Himself.

As an example, think of the sun. David says the sun is like the bridegroom or the champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises from one end of the heaven and runs to the other. God made the heavens and the earth—He made the sun to care. He’s a God who provides warmth, light, and help. The glory of God is in the heavens. We can see Him, we can know Him, and we can understand Him.

When sin came, our filters and our grid became uncalibrated. Now when I see the sun, I don’t see the glory of God. We see everything through the lens of not God, but ourselves. It wasn’t until Galileo that we learned about this. Science and all the “ologies” are so vital because creation shows us more about the glory of God.

Before Galileo, people believed that everything revolved around them. But since the Garden of Eden, we’ve felt like we’re the center of the universe. Satan was offering Adam and Eve the opportunity to have the world revolve around them for the rest of their lives. Since then, we’re curved in on ourselves. Most of the problems stem from our own curvature inward. David says we don’t understand creation until we understand it’s meant to point us to God.

The created world is like the rose petals and the scent of perfume and the flickering candlelight which is meant to lead us to explore those places to discover the glory of God.

God has been speaking since creation, but He’s also given us His word. Verse 7 transitions to the particular: the law of the Lord, the statutes, the precepts, and the commandments.

Why has He given us His word?

To refresh the soul

To make us wise

To give joy to the heart

To give light to the eyes

He’s aiming at the inner man and woman. He’s trying to bring a paradigm shift in ourselves: stop making yourself the center of the universe. Most of the problems I face when people come to my office—marriage troubles, depression, anxiety—are because we’ve become too curved in on ourselves and we don’t see the hand of God.

What creates a reaction? Circumstances have to pass through a big black box in our heart. What goes on in that black box is everything—what we believe, think, and value. The word of God is trying to change the inner curvature of the soul. Many people think Christianity is about getting it right on the outside, but Jesus says the only way you’re ever going to get it right on the outside is if you have Him change the inside of you.

David envisioned a day when he could be blameless if the word of God was in him. John took up this song in the first chapter of John when he says, “the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”

The Word—capital W-O-R-D—who is Jesus, died. The Word that these precepts have always meant to reflect, embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, sacrificed Himself for us. God didn’t just give us an answer to our dilemma; He gave us a person.

When Jesus reflects the very center of our paradigm, everything else changes and the world becomes new. Then we begin to think: “He spoke to me. He sees me. He wants me. He loves me.”