Psalm 119: Loving the Word of God, Not Just Reading It

Introduction

"Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day." This verse from Psalm 119 gives its title to the message preached on October 4, 2026 at La Porte Ouverte Chrétienne in Mulhouse: "I Love Your Word." Since the beginning of the year, the church has been returning to the foundations of the Christian life. After faith, wisdom and the new creation, here is the Word of God.

The preacher points out one detail in the text. The psalmist does not say how much he studies the law, or how much he respects it, or how much he believes it. He says how much he loves it. So instead of repeating "you need to read the Bible more," he prefers to ask: why don't you read it more? His answer: often, we do not realize what it is. And if the enemy of souls dislikes sermons on the Word, it is because he knows its power in the life of a fervent disciple.

To show this, he draws on four biblical images: the Word is a seed, a scroll, a sword and a lamp.

Outline of the Message

1. Houses Full of Bibles That Nobody Opens

Psalm 1 describes the person who meditates on the Word: he is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither.
After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, French Protestants met in secret in ravines, ditches and barns, sometimes as many as 3,000 people, to read and meditate on the Word. Sermons were written down and then read again in their homes.
During the dragonnades, Bibles were hidden in cupboards. Some women hid small psalters in their hair buns. "There was such a devotion to the Word of God."
Today, our houses are full of Bibles: large print and small print, Segond 21, the Jerusalem Bible, bilingual, audio, illustrated. "And yet, nobody opens it anymore. What happened?"
The preacher describes his morning coffee, always accompanied by the Word. His joy is when the whole family reads in silence around the table, each with a Bible, including an illustrated Bible and a comic-book Bible for his sons. He encourages parents: "You are the first actor in passing it on." Sunday school is not enough.
Between May and August, he read the whole Bible in three and a half months, partly with an audio Bible. The people of Israel, he reminds us, listened to the law for a long time rather than reading it. The real question is not how to read, but: are you truly thirsty to read it?

2. The Word Is a Seed

"Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God" (Luke 8:11). It is God who sows: the Word is not a human invention, it is the Father's gift, and he desires that it bear fruit in our hearts.
A seed is small, but all the potential for life is in it. Faith comes from hearing (Romans 10:17), and we have been born again of an incorruptible seed, the living and abiding word of God (1 Peter 1:23).
The path (Luke 8:12): everything passes over it, work, messages, obligations, emergencies, in a society moving at a thousand miles an hour. Do you remember the message from a month ago? The verse you read ten minutes earlier? If you do not give the seed time to rest, it ends up trampled.
The rocky ground (Luke 8:13): the roots lack moisture and dry up. To stay moist, you need daily contact with living water.
On Instagram, 271 people answered him: 134 read the Bible every day, 90 a few times a week, 23 a few times a month, 24 a few times a year. That makes 49% daily readers. A Lifeway Research study of 2,130 American Protestants gives 31% daily reading, while 74% say the Bible is authoritative in every area of their lives. "How is that possible? It is an illusion."
The thorns (Luke 8:14): worries, riches, pleasures, and today, screens. The preacher mentions Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: open-access libraries where nobody goes anymore, because the distractions are so strong. "If so many things keep us from reading it, it is because it is powerful."
The good soil (Luke 8:15): those who hear the Word with an honest and good heart, hold it fast and bear fruit with perseverance. Hearing is not enough, you have to hold on to it.

3. The Word Is a Scroll You Eat

"Son of man, eat what you find. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel" (Ezekiel 3:1-3). God could have told him to look at it, copy it, proclaim it. He tells him first to eat it: the Word must enter within.
Jeremiah says: "Your words were found, and I ate them" (Jeremiah 15:16). The Bible says little about "reading" the Word. It speaks of clinging to it, eating it, devouring it, loving it. "Stop saying 'I need to read it more' and start saying 'I need to love it more.'"
Look at a hungry child: no more rules, no more politeness. That is the kind of hunger this is. The preacher is glad that the room for the new Bible study turned out to be three times too small: he wants a church known for devouring the Word.
He compares it to digestion: ingestion, digestion, absorption, distribution, assimilation. The Word is ingested through reading, preaching and listening. Then it is chewed and digested, even after the Bible is closed, through meditation.
It passes through the wall of our doubts, our intellectual limits, our fears, and feeds joy, the fruit of the Spirit, gifts, words, decisions, relationships, resistance to temptation. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" (Colossians 3:16).
He invites us to bring paper Bibles back to church and to the youth group, and to read all of Psalm 119, "an ode to the Word of God."
The Word has the sweetness of honey (Psalm 119:103). The goal is not first to touch the intellect, but the soul and the spirit.
Yet in Revelation 10:10, the little book is sweet in the mouth and bitter in the stomach. As we discover what God thinks of sin and the distress of the lost, the Word creates a burden. This bitterness must not make us bitter Christians, but Christians who carry a burden for those they are called to speak to.

4. The Word Is a Sword That Works in You First

"For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword" (Hebrews 4:12). We think of an offensive weapon, but the text says it works first on the inside: it divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and judges the thoughts of the heart.
Why? Because our first enemy is often ourselves: our reasoning, our pride, our compromises, our excuses. The heart is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9), and Paul admits it: "For the good which I desire, I don't do; but the evil which I don't desire, that I practice" (Romans 7:19).
With humor, the preacher tells of the misunderstandings in the early years of his marriage: his wife sensed that something was wrong, and he answered "no" because he could not yet put his finger on it. We are complex beings, and that takes inner work.
He says he is in favor, in some cases, of therapy, psychologists and counseling, which he has experienced himself, always accompanied by the Word. But the Word remains the first step, because "nothing will surpass the power of the Word of God to put your heart in order." It corrects us so that we do not sin against God (Psalm 119:11) and so that we stay on the path of sanctification.

5. The Sword of the Spirit for the Fight

"Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Ephesians 6:17). The same Spirit who hovered over the waters, who raised the Son and filled the first church, entrusts his weapon to you.
Jesus used it when facing temptation (Matthew 4). And you? The preacher admits he is "hopeless with references." References are useful, but what saves you in the fight is knowing the Word from the inside.
Like Nehemiah's builders, who worked with one hand and held the sword in the other (Nehemiah 4:17), we need to be ready. Satan is an enemy, but there are others: illness, a threatened divorce, a son's atheism, doubt, fear, wars.
He tells of a visit to the hospital in Strasbourg, to a mother from the church and her baby who had heart surgery. Sitting by the cradle, he took Psalm 18 as a sword: "You have also given me the shield of your salvation. Your right hand sustains me." The hospital room became a spiritual place. The operation went very well and, according to the doctor, if she keeps recovering like this, the little girl should never need heart surgery again.
"There is a time to weep, but there is a time to fight." Facing divorce: let no one separate what God has joined, and a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Facing a child far from God: "As for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh" (Joshua 24:15).

6. The Word Is a Lamp for the Next Step

"Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path" (Psalm 119:105). In a world that calls evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20), it lets us tell true from false. Satan, for his part, disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).
When he is asked about social issues, the preacher begins by saying what he stands on: "Before I tell you what I believe, I have to tell you what I rely on to believe it." His view of the family, of men and women, of current events, rests on the Word. The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable (James 3:17).
He shows an oil lamp his mother brought back from Israel: it does not light up far. Not "a construction-site floodlight," but a light for the next step. "I am not asking what I will do in ten years. I want to walk today and tomorrow."
He wants the church to be like the Jews of Berea, who received the word with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily (Acts 17:11). "If you are not close to the Word today, what will happen the day you are forbidden to be?"

7. Pearls Hidden in the Word

Spurgeon said that every verse is like a diamond with many facets.
The oil of the lamp leads to Christ. According to the preacher, Gethsemane means the place of the olive press, where olives were pressed several times. Oil was used to purify and to anoint kings, prophets and priests. Jesus, pressed to the point that his sweat became like drops of blood, is the King of kings, the great high priest after the order of Melchizedek, and the one who fulfills the prophecy. On the cross, this oil is poured out to purify us. "Christ," by the way, means "anointed."
Another pearl, for families grieving the loss of a child. As a pastor, he never doubted that a child who dies is with his Creator, but he was looking for a verse to give. God showed it to him in the words of Jesus: "Allow the little children to come to me. ... God's Kingdom belongs to such as these" (Mark 10:14). "These little children are in the Kingdom of God, and it is the Word that declares it."
He concludes: no resolution to read more, "it is useless." His prayer: "Lord, give us again this love for your Word." Can you say "I love it as I love my spouse, as I love my children"? Or are the distractions of this world stronger?

Key Takeaways

The psalmist does not say how much he reads the Word, he says how much he loves it. The real issue is not method, it is thirst.
The Word is a seed: it gives life, but it can be trampled, dry up or be choked if you do not make room for it every day.
Like Ezekiel's scroll, it must be eaten and digested. It keeps working after the Bible is closed, and it places in you a burden for the lost.
The sword of the Spirit works in you first to untangle your heart, then it serves you in fighting illness, fear or division.
The lamp lights the next step, not the next ten years. You have to keep it close to move forward.

Personal Application

If someone asked you how often you read the Bible, what would you honestly answer?
Which thorns (worries, screens, distractions) are taking the place of the Word in your days right now?
What did you meditate on this morning? Do you remember the last passage you read?
What battle are you fighting right now, and which passage could you take up like a sword to declare over it?
Could you sincerely say: "Lord, I love your Word"? If not, ask him to give you that love.

Verses Quoted

Frequently Asked Questions

Why not simply tell yourself "I need to read the Bible more"?

The preacher considers this resolution useless if it remains an effort. In Psalm 119, the psalmist does not say how much he studies or respects the law, he says how much he loves it. The Bible, in fact, speaks less about reading the Word than about clinging to it, eating it, devouring it. His prayer is therefore: "Lord, give us again this love for your Word."

What does it mean to eat the scroll in Ezekiel 3?

God could have told Ezekiel to look at the scroll, copy it or proclaim it. He tells him first to eat it. The Word must enter within before one can fulfill one's role. Like food, it is ingested, digested, absorbed and then distributed throughout the whole being, and it keeps working after the Bible is closed.

Why is the Word compared to a lamp and not a floodlight?

The oil lamp of antiquity did not light up far. Psalm 119:105 speaks of a lamp to my feet: the Word lights the next step. The preacher does not expect God to show him the path for the next ten years. He wants to walk today and tomorrow, staying close to the Word to move forward step by step.