20260816 Psalm 119 Part 2 God’s Word for Comfort

The world we live in is chaotic. On any given day, the news reveals the chaos in the world, whether it be a celebrity who died too young, a natural disaster that takes lives, or the wars going on. There is violence on a local and international scale. We read it on the news, but our lives on a smaller scale tell similar stories of chaos. We all need comfort in our chaos.

Psalm 119 teaches us where comfort can be found. Psalm 119 describes the plots, slander, and taunts (Ps 119: 23, 42, 51, 150), persecutions (Ps 119:61, 86, 95, 110, 121, 134, 157, 161), and afflictions (Ps 119:67, 71, 143, 153) of the godly. Psalm 119 presents God's Word as God's means of comfort for his people.

In this four-part topical sermon series in Psalm 119, we are answering the question, “What is God’s Word For?” We are seeing that according to Psalm 119, God through his Word gives life, comfort, instruction, and delight.[i] In this message we will look at the way God’s Word and his Law offers comfort.

We will see in Psalm 119 that God uses his word to comfort us by his love, his power, and his truth.

Through His Word, God Comforts us with his Love

Psalm 119:76 reads, "May your unfailing love be my comfort." Love is other-person centeredness. Love inclines us to care for others and to want what is best for others. When people love us, we have people who are committed to our well-being. When we are lost and alone and then encounter one who loves us, their care and disposition to work for our good brings us comfort. This is how God's love comforts us.

Psalm 119:76, 124, 149, 64

There is a Hebrew word that appears numerous times in Psalm 119. It is translated in different ways in our Bible because it is hard to translate. This word, Hesed, is sometimes translated “steadfast love,” or “unfailing love” or “covenant loyalty,” “loving kindness,” or “merciful kindness.”

In Ps 119:76 the Lord’s Hesed or steadfast love is connected with comfort because God’s love is connected with promises to care for us. In Ps 119:124, the Psalmist connects God’s love with the way God will deal with him. It is comforting to know we will be dealt with according to love rather than hostility. In Ps 119:149, he says, “Hear my voice according to your steadfast love.” When those who love us hear us, we do not face our hardships alone. The Psalmist says in Ps 119:64, “The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love.” The Psalmist views God’s unfailing love as a personal companion that prevents him from being consumed by his enemies.

Application

God’s word comforts us because it reveals God’s love for us.

In the late 1970s, there was a young sailor named Antwone Fisher. He was born in a prison to a mother who did not want him. He was raised in a foster home where he was beaten. To him, the world was a battlefield. As an adult, he was violent and explosive. To the outside world, he was a problem to be solved.

His outbursts landed him in the office of a Navy psychiatrist, Dr. Jerome Davenport, played by Denzel Washington in the movie. At first Antwone met him with silence. He waited for the judgment and rejection. He waited for the "expert" to tell him how broken he was. But Davenport didn’t do that. Instead, he did something radical: He stayed.

He didn’t meet Antwone’s anger with authority; he met it with a quiet, persistent presence. There is a moment in their journey where Antwone realizes that for the first time in his life, someone is looking at him not as a "case file" or a "failure," but as a son. It was the comfort of being seen that finally allowed him to stop fighting.

Dr. Davenport’s love didn’t just change Antwone’s behavior; it changed his identity. Antwone eventually left the Navy, and became a man of peace, a successful writer, and a father.

The most important application for us is not to go be a loving presence to offer others comfort. I hope we can all be those kinds of people, but the first application is, we have a God who knows our anger, our lust, our pride, our greed, and he stays with us. He showed his love by sending Jesus to die for us. This does not make our present pain go away, but we can experience it differently knowing God loves us and we are not alone.

Through His Word God Comforts us with his Power

In Ps 119:114, the Psalmist writes, “You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word.” Our stress, anxiety, and fear are often connected with not knowing what the future holds and more importantly, fearing the future will not be the future we want. This is where God’s power, combined with God’s love, comforts us. If our powerlessness leads to anxiety, God’s power comforts us. Ps 119 reveals God’s power and the power of his Word to comfort us.

Text Psalm 119:91, 90, 68, 75

Psalm 119 presents the power of God to comfort us.

The Psalmist writes in Ps 119:91, “By your appointment they stand this day, for all things are your servants.” If all things in creation are God’s servants, God is the master, he is the sovereign one. Power on its own is not enough to comfort, but God’s power is combined with God’s goodness (Ps 119:68), and righteousness (Ps 119:75). God comforts and protects those who turn to him.

Ps 119 also reveals The Power of God’s Word to comfort us.

In Psalm 119:50, The Psalmist writes, “This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.” The Psalmist expresses the power of God to give peace, strength, understanding, freedom, courage, and power to fight against our sin.

Ps 119:165 teaches us that God’s Word has the power to give us peace. The Psalmist writes, “Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.”

Ps 119:28 comforts the disheartened and the weary and promises strength through God's Word. The Psalmist writes in Ps 119:28, “My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word!”

According to Ps 119:130, the word of God has the power to illuminate us or give us understanding. The Psalmist writes, “The unfolding of the Word imparts light to the simple.”

The Word of God has the power to grant freedom. Ps 119:45 seems counterintuitive. The Psalmist writes, "I will walk about in liberty, for I have sought out your precepts." We may view freedom as the absence of constraints; Ps 119:45 teaches it is agreeing with the right rules that lead to the most freedom.

Ps 119:45 teaches that God’s Word gives us courage to face worldly power. The word of God is so powerful; it is power from on high that emboldens individuals to challenge societal powers to speak up against injustice in this world. Ps 119:46 reads, “I will also speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame.” Ps 119:23 reads, “Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes.”

Finally, Ps 119:11 teaches that God’s word has the power to help us fight against our sin. The Psalmist writes, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

Taken together, the Psalmist presents the power of God’s Word to minister to us and shape our character and comfort us in our affliction. It has the power to give us peace, strength, understanding, freedom, courage, and power to fight against our sin. We have every reason to turn to God when we are distressed and to turn to his Word. 

Application

Today, God’s Word has the power to make a real difference in our lives.

A few years ago, the church I was part of had prayer meetings on Monday mornings. We tried to structure our prayer meeting around the movements of the LORD’s prayer. We began our time by sharing our prayer requests, paying little attention to God. As people shared about their unbelieving family members, the political chaos around the world, and people’s medical situations our stress would build but everything changed when we started to pray.

We began with "Our Father in Heaven," which took our thoughts away from ourselves and the world’s chaos and onto God. Then, "Hallowed be your name.” This humbled us. Your will be done." We were convicted. We had only been thinking about “Our will be done.” These words completely changed our mindset. As we meditated on God's holiness, righteousness, reign, his will and purposes, rather than our powerlessness to change our suffering,

God's power through the power of his word, soothed us. We left these prayer meetings comforted. 

Through His Word, God Comforts us with his Truth

When I am distressed, my mind is all over the place and I can be quite irrational. Sometimes, what I need for comfort is objective truth to be soothed. God's love and power help, and so does God's truth. New insights can correct our irrational fears.

Psalm 119:43, 142, 151, 160, 50, 130, 52

According to Psalm 119, God's Word offers us truth to comfort us. The following are a sample of verses on the truth of God's word. We read in Ps 119:43, "And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your rules." Or again in Ps 119:142, "Your righteousness is righteous forever, and your law is true." And Ps 119:151, "But you are near, O LORD, and all your commandments are true" (c.f. Ps 119:160). The truth of the Bible comforts us. The Psalmist writes in Ps 119:50, “This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.”

God’s truth offers comfort in the following ways.

One way is by offering wisdom. When we are lost and anxious about the future, wisdom gives us agency and confidence to move on. The Psalmist writes in Ps 119:130, “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.” God’s word offers us a path forward when we are uncertain.

A second way God's truth offers comfort is by connecting us with ancient truths that have helped generations of people before us. In contrast to the instability of our anxiety, timeless truths are the foundation for a stable life. The Psalmist writes in Ps 119:52, “When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord.” Then the Psalmist writes, “I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad.” The broadness of the Scripture's wisdom goes beyond a quick fix for our temporary struggle, the truth of Scripture is for all of life.

Application

According to Ps 119, through his Word, God comforts us with his truth. Biblical and divine truth comforts us. The Bible is full of promises to give us life, it gives us understanding for greater clarity on our hardships. The truth of Scripture must become our Hope in times of trouble.

William Wilberforce, the renowned British politician and abolitionist, recited the entire 176 verses of Psalm 119 while walking from Hyde Park Corner to his home. He noted in his diary in 1819 that he did so in "great comfort," illustrating how the Word offers comfort to a high-profile person under political and social pressure. If it can sustain a stressed politician, it can help us as well.

Our world is complex. There are wars. Financial markets can go up and down. Fields change, some jobs disappear. But greater than anything we can read in the news is the interpretation of the World the Bible offers us.

There are many competing narratives and worldviews, but it is the Bible that offers us hope and comfort. The Bible’s truth does not just change individual belief. It changes our approach to the whole world. The truth is that God created the World and he is in charge. The truth is that our real problem is our sin, and God offers a solution that offers eternal security. The truth of Scripture is that in the person of Jesus, God offers the forgiveness of sins. Our sin separates us from God but those who turn to God and believe are born again and enjoy the harmony our hearts long for with a relationship with God, others, and even inner peace.

With this truth, no matter what comes our way, God promises to be with us, and he promises there will be a day, when the harmony we long for and already experience in Christ will be fulfilled truly and fully forever in the New Heavens and New Earth. Nothing in this world can ever take this Hope away from us. This is why the truth of the Bible is so precious and so comforting. Our society throws narratives at us and creates new fears that can unsettle us. The Bible doesn’t try to settle our fears as we keep false narratives, it changes the story we believe about the world to offer lasting comfort.

Conclusion

The world is chaotic, and our personal lives are often no different. As we have seen throughout Psalm 119, the Psalmist was no stranger to this chaos. He was the victim of slander, affliction, and was pursued by enemies. In the midst of hardship, anxiety, and the unknown, the Psalmist finds comfort in God and His Word.

God’s word comforts us in different ways. God comforts us through his love, his power, and his truth. No matter what comes our way, we know, God knows us, delights in us, and cares for us. He loves us. We know that God is the sovereign master who rules over creation, and his word is powerful – it gives peace, strength, freedom, and power to fight sin. God’s Word also comforts us with truth so that we would interpret our hardships differently in light of God’s redemptive plan in Christ and the glory that awaits in the Heavens and New Earth.

The Psalmist says in verse 114, "You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word." A hiding place isn't somewhere you go when life is easy; it’s where you run when the storm is at its peak. We find this shelter when we turn to God’s word. It offers us the comfort we need.

We must turn from meditating on the chaos of this world to meditate on God’s Word. We will find a Father who loves us, and a Savior who embodies God’s love, power and truth, and we learn that we benefit from God’s saving benefits through the Spirit who comforts us with God’s love, empowers us to live for God, and guides us in all truth.

 

---

[i] There is overlap with the three uses of the Law expressed by Protestant, I diverge a little bit as well. Psalm 119 speaks to the second use of the law, where God gives his law to muzzle or limit or restrain sin. In this Spirit of this second use, I broaden this use. According to the second use of the Law, God gives his law to care for us and to protect us. God appoints governments for Law and Order to protect the innocent and restrain evil in the world. Ps 119:21 makes this use explicit, "You rebuke the arrogant, the cursed, who wander from your commandments." I’m broadening this category to speak to God’s law to limit sin and limit suffering, to care for us and to comfort us.