I met hello and welcome to Amen podcast where we preach the good news of Jesus Christ and how it applies to every day life. My name is look Imani your host and today my husband Alex is preaching about being hooked on God's righteousness.

Yes well on Sunday we encountered a two-foot black tip reef shark at the beach and hundreds of people flood the water as kids on the pier yelled shark Alex jumped on his surfboard to go and get a better look and as he paddled to and fro over the baby shark he kept saying I wish we had a net.

He wanted to catch and release it check it out show it to the kids and send it back.

But if he had the ability to take it home and provide it with an even safer and better life he would.

And we are like fish God hooks us with his righteousness which is his commitment to his covenant people and he takes us home a safe place away from the deep dark waters of death and sin.

And he gives us endless spiritual food which nourishes and energizes us to live for him and abide with him and his peaceful joyful living waters.

Though the evil one may try to hook you in with wickedness and throw you back into the waters of death and destruction you can learn to avoid Satan's evil hooks and to swim towards your father with the help of today's message.

I'm going to read the text which is Psalms 119 verses 137 through 144 and then Alex will take it from there.

Thank you guys for always supporting us and keeping us going amen podcast.com if you want to donate thank you guys means a lot and rating and reviewing the podcast if you want to do that on Spotify Apple Google wherever you're listening that would help us to thank you guys.

Thank you guys yeah thank you.

You are righteous Lord and your judgments are just the decrees you issue are righteous and all together trustworthy my anger overwhelms me because my foes forget your words your word is completely pure and your servant loves it.

I am insignificant and despised but I do not forget your precepts your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness and your instruction is true trouble and distress have overtaken me but your commands are my delight your decrees are righteous forever give me understanding and I will live.

Amen we are in the 18th part of this series each series and season four for each sermon is eight verses at a time which is how it's broken up in Psalms 119 of Psalms and this letter is Sade it's T S A D E is how we spell it in English but in Hebrew it looks like a little hook.

And so that's where we got the name of this message because God hooks us in with his righteousness this word and this letter they are reminiscent of righteousness what does it mean to be righteous righteousness is God's commitment to his promise that he's made to his people that they will be his and he will be ours if you look at this letter in Hebrew it looks like two arms outstretched towards the sky and it looks like knees that are kneeling in prayer and so the

scholars of Hebrew they've noticed that this particular letter it looks like two Hebrew letters mixed together which is the letter God which is the arm stretched up like in a Y Y of YMCA and then it also looks like a kind of a Z type thing where it has legs and knees which is the Vav letter so YOD and Vav together Vav representing humility

YOD representing uprightness commitment worshiping to God those two things make a righteous person a person that is bent in submission and humility to God who was also a person who upright stands their hands up towards God that is the picture of a picture of a righteous person and so God is that way Christ is that way he lived always bent in submission to God the father with his hands whether they be physically at the time or metaphorically

outstretched towards God and worship to God the father and so that is the way we want to be and it's through seeing God's uprightness as righteousness that we're hooked in and we're brought in.

So we're going to unpack this what does it mean to be hooked on God's righteousness what is his righteousness look like in our life and how can we live that way and how can we not be hooked on to the wickedness of the world versus 137138 talk about the right path.

We're going to be talking about the righteousness of God and explains it further and then the rest of the verses show us what it looks like to be hooked on that righteousness.

If you're hooked on that righteousness you'll be heated.

Now I want you to remember this word because we're going to break it down in two different ways or three different ways.

He did and then he did.

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