Text: Psalm 119:65-88 | Embrace Affliction as Your Tutor

Main Idea: God brings affliction to train us in his word and find comfort in His love as we learn to long for home.

1. PURPOSE: GOD’S GOOD PURPOSES IN AFFLICTION.
   1. Kinds of Affliction
      1. Common to everyone
      2. Corrective affliction (67, 71; Heb 12)
      3. Constructive affliction (Rom 5:3-5)
      4. For the purpose of glorifying God to man (Jn 9)
      5. For the purpose of glorifying God cosmically (Job)
   2. God uses affliction to train us to understand and obey His Word
      1. “You are good to your servant” (65)
      2. Affliction trained the Psalmist (67, 71)
         1. It is good that I was afflicted (71)
         2. In good judgment, knowledge, understanding (66, 73)
         3. As Christ “learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb 5:8)
         4.  In endurance, character, hope
      3. Affliction gave opportunity to teach others (74).

2. SOURCE: AFFLICTION FLOWS FROM GOD’S FAITHFULNESS
   1. God is good (76) and his law is worth delighting in because He is worth delighting in (Ps 37:4).
   2. God is faithful even in affliction (75)
   3. God’s unfailing love is the comfort we need (76)
   4. God is compassionate (77)
      1. Merciful = God’s grace shown to those who are not only undeserving of grace, but deserve wrath
      2. Psalm 119:77
   5. Out of God’s faithful love to others, God uses our affliction to comfort and encourage others (74, 79)

3. OUTCOME OF AFFLICTION: LEARNING TO LONG FOR OUR ETERNAL HOME (81-88)
   1. Hope (Rom 5:3-5; Phil 1:18b-28)
   2. We learn to long for home by understanding the fulfillment of God’s past promises (knowledge 🡪 wisdom when rightly applied) and using it as fuel for faith as you look to God’s future promises amid present affliction
   3. Spurgeon, “This octave is the midnight of the psalm, and very dark and black it is.” He also noted, however, that even in the blackness, “star.… shine out, and the last verse gives promise of the dawn.”

DISCUSSION

1. Skim the passage and identify:
   1. Statements of praise and adoration
   2. Requests for knowledge, understanding, or some kind of help
   3. Statements of discouragement, confusion, fear, etc.
   4. Contrast of falsehood vs truth
   5. Resolve to obey
   6. Motivation to obey
2. What aspects of this passage are hard for you to believe (i.e. believing, but not knowing how to obey (66); God faithfulness brings affliction (75, 76); feeling like an old wineskin yet remembering God’s statutes (83))? [Think of more examples/answers.]
   1. Why do you struggle to believe?
   2. How do you see the Psalmist battle unbelief?
3. In what ways, or what specific commands (or kinds of commands), do you need to join the Psalmist’s prayer, to “teach me good judgment and knowledge?”
4. How do you need growth in discernment/understanding of the Word, God, and/or His ways?
5. Are you more prone to find comfort from other people, yourself, or God through His Word? Why do you think that is?
6. Without gossiping, how do you struggle with those who seem to be disingenuous in their friendship because your friendship isn’t grounded on God’s Word.
7. Are there ways you are incomplete, or divided, in your requests to the Lord (80, James 1:6-8)?
8. Discuss what it means to have a healthy longing for Heaven.
9. What one or two ways will you apply in your personal life this week? How will you invite specific accountability or help?