Psalm 119. And this morning we're beginning at verse nine. Verse nine. You probably know this,
we're wrapping up our four and a half week journey. We started at the beach. You guys
remember the beach? We started at the beach and we are sort of wrapping up our four and a half
week journey into this amazing Psalm, this wisdom Psalm. And I pray that it's been helpful to you
guys and challenging to you as well. It has been for me. I can tell you that it's been very
challenging for me and I have loved walking through it. So far we've looked at four themes
that come out of this Psalm. Number one, we talked about meditating on the word. We talked about
number two, being doers of the word. Last Sunday we looked at being revived by the word. And today
we're going to talk about being purified by the word. And as we go through this section, you're
going to hear some of the same principles that we have covered over the last couple of Sundays.
They're going to come out again in this text as well. And by the way, that's a good thing, isn't it?
Because we've seen this throughout the Psalms. God uses repetition,
principles that come up over and over again, because he's trying to get through important
things into our mind and to have them lodged in our hearts. So he talks about things over and
over again. So we'll see that happen again this morning. Before we're done, what I want to do is
sort of summarize our time in Psalm 119, put a bow on it. And that way next Sunday we can look
forward. We're moving on next Sunday to Psalm 127. All right? Okay. Look at your text. You see it's
under the heading of bet, which is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And here's what
God's word says. How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to your word.
With all my heart, I have sought you. Do not let me wander from your commandments. Your word I have
treasured in my heart that I may not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your
statutes. With my lips I have told of all the ordinances of your mouth. I have rejoiced in the
way of your testimonies as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and regard your
ways. I shall delight in your statues. I shall not forget your word. Now we did this last week. I'm
going to do it again today. Just look at this section and look at all of the references to
God's word in it. It's literally in every single verse. There's no way you can miss the theme of
Psalm 119. As we saw last week, as we see here, it is in every single verse. Your word, your
commandments, your word, your statutes, the ordinances of your mouth, your testimonies,
your precepts, your ways, your statutes, and your word. Now the theme of this section comes out of
the very first verse here, verse nine, and it's a very well-known verse. It's a very often quoted
verse, but I have found it's often misunderstood. It's not understood in its entirety. How can a
young man keep his way pure? So we're going to walk through the flow of this as we go along.
And verse nine, of course, is the way of purity. Now the Hebrew word here is zacha, and it means
exactly what all the English translations agree on. It means to be clean or to be pure. And it's a
word that's regularly used as a contrast in scripture to the polluting effects of sin, to be
clean or to be polluted by sin. So biblically, to be pure is to be free of anything that pollutes or
contaminates. So you can think about having pure mountain spring water. You drink it as no other
substances to it, that beautiful purity to the water. Or we think about what pure gold is. Gold
that's been refined over and over and over again so that all of the dross is removed from it. That
is what any true worshiper of God desires in his or her heart, to live a life of purity, to live
a life that is free from the pollution of sin. And that is what God has called us to. It's a
high standard. We heard this in the call to worship that Adam read just a bit ago, 1 Peter chapter
one, as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he
who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be
holy for I am holy. And because impurity and unholiness is something that will prevent us
from being in the presence of God, the psalmist here in verse nine is interested, deeply interested
in knowing, well then how can I keep my way pure? How can I keep myself from sin? Now before we get
into the exegesis on all this, I'm going to take a quite a long rabbit trail on this because of the
notoriety of this verse and some of the controversies that go with it. I'd be doing you a
disservice if I didn't talk about two consequential issues that have grown out of what appears to be
a very short, very simple statement in verse nine. First, we need to talk about young men.
And then second, we need to talk about purity in the church. So stick with me. I'm going to
talk about the purity of the church. So stick with me. We're going to walk through something that has
in recent years become something of a cultural minefield in the church. So let's start with this
idea of young men. Why would the psalmist here single out young men? Well, the consensus among
Hebrew scholars is that the psalmist is likely talking about himself and it may be that he's
older as he writes, but he's looking back at his younger, more foolish days and possibly with a
little bit of a sense of pride, saying, I wish I had known better back then what I know now.
If only I could apply all of the wisdom and understanding that I have now back when I was
younger, that would have made a huge difference in my life. And honestly, if you're older,
if you're my age, this is not a surprise. I cannot tell you, I cannot even count the number of times
I have thought this very thing. If only I could go back to my early twenties and get a do over
the years, and take all the things that I've learned over these years, all the wisdom and
experience and apply them in that day. What have you, maybe you've seen articles like this. What
would, what advice would I give to 21 year old Jeff? It's an interesting thing to think about
because with age and maturity comes reflection and oftentimes with some regrets, but also a desire
to give counsel and to give warnings to the young men of the next generation so that they don't
have to be made. By the way, I'm not going to ignore the young ladies here today. So ladies,
don't check out on me. I'm going to bring this back. We're going to talk about you as well,
but let me say this committed, faithful young Christian men are an endangered species today.
Now I know we have quite a few of them here at Oak Hill and I praise God for that. I know
there's a lot in this Valley because of our proximity to master's university, but you have
to be careful. I know there's a lot of people here in the parts of the country. It is not like this.
It is not like this young men who love Christ, who really, really loved the local church
and have a desire to die to themselves in service of others. That is a very rare thing.
By the way, we had a chance yesterday at the wedding to see one of those young men
and to hear miles and Zariah, both of them share some of the most beautiful personal
on our church, our church family, because the way they express such biblical Christ centered
vows to each other, it was very, very special. So I would put miles in that category, but again,
this is not normal. It's not like this all over the country. Let me give you an even broader picture.
Men in general today are in crisis. Men are in crisis today. Every statistical category over the
last 30 years bears that fact out. Men are being outpaced right now by women in almost every category
across the board. And some of them very negative in the rate of suicide, in the rate of drug
overdoses, in the rate of homelessness and criminal activity and mental illness. Women are now outpacing
men in this new workplace environment. More women are going to college than men. And this is happening
in every category. Men are in crisis. The message being communicated to young men today is this,
you are the problem in society and you're not really necessary. That message is coming at us.
There was an article in the New Yorker I read recently and the subtitle was this, quote,
men face an existential crisis, confused over their place in the world, lost at home and at work,
suffering from an epidemic of loneliness and plummeting self-image. Even secularists recognize
this, this trend. And this is a huge deal. We shouldn't ignore it because God's plan for families
and his plan for the church depends on young men of character and commitment who will serve the Lord
and in time raise up and lead their own godly families. So this is important. So we have a lot
of work to do. And by the way, it's incumbent upon older men in this body to recognize these facts
and to commit themselves to come alongside the younger guys and to encourage them and to build
them up in the Lord and to give them wise counsel from your time and your experience.
As the psalmist does here, to be able to say to a guy, look, here's how you can keep your way pure.
Here's the mistakes I made. Here's what I would counsel you. This is the way the church operates,
right? The older counseling the younger, raising up that next generation. So we need to pay attention
to that. Now, let me give you something else to consider. By addressing young men, again, Hebrew
scholars have looked at this and it's possible that the psalmist is not really referring so much as to
a particular age range. It's possible that he's talking about a particular season in any human
life, be it male or female. And ladies, this is where I want you to jump back in and pay attention.
Because this particular age range that you might find yourself in right now, many of the choices,
decisions and commitments that you make from your late teens to your twenties will set you on a
course down this path or that path or another path. And it's hard to realize that when you live in the
moment and you're young, but yes, the choices and decisions you're making right now, you're at a
proverbial crossroads in your life. A few good decisions here, a few poor decisions there,
and the trajectory of your life looks very different. And you may not even realize it. See,
when you're young, a number of things are true about you. And I'm not, as I lay these things out,
I'm not trying to hurt your feelings or insult you. These are just facts. And I know they're facts
because I've lived it myself. And now I have age and experience to look back. And I know that
when you're young, you lack wisdom and experience and just the basics of life.
When you're young, you tend to be more self-confident than you should be. You think you've got it all
figured out right now. You tend to be impulsive and overly self-focused and too concerned about
what other people think of you. When you're young, your passions are strong, but your guiding
principles are still being formed. Your desires are many, but the knowledge of your own heart is
underdeveloped. Your will is stubborn. Your power of restraint is not what it should be. And your
physical and sexual maturity often runs ahead of your spiritual maturity. Those are just facts.
Been there, done that. Every older person in the room could say, yep, that was me too. But you
should realize all those things. And in light of that, this idea of youngness, this idea of being
at a crossroads in your life, the psalmist wants to give you counsel because he wants you to avoid
falling into bondage to sin. You have to know that his motive is very, very good because the
natural path of man is always going to lead towards not purity, but impurity. And every successive
experience of walking on the wrong path will build a habit in your life and lead you into deeper
levels of slavery to sin. So finding the way of purity has to be sought after. It's not going to
happen by accident. You have to be intentional to find the way of purity. And so this is why the
psalmist is singling out young people, both male and female, and saying, pay close attention
because the path of purity is essential if you want to live a life that glorifies God and produces
in you a life of blessing, a life of overwhelming happiness. So we need to pay attention to this.
Okay, so that's one issue, youngness. And it's important. Let's talk about purity now. For some
of you, because you're children of the nineties, when I say purity, it triggers all kinds of
emotions in you. Because back in the 1990s, there was a huge culture war going on in America at large,
and also a culture war happening in the church. During that decade, new boundaries were being
pushed in the world, mass marketing of sexual content all over the place. And it was the first
time we'd seen it in this volume, in print, on TV, in the movies. And statistically, some real world
consequences came out of it. During the nineties, more and more, and the shift was very clear in
my mind as a young parent. Suddenly, premarital sex was not being frowned upon by our culture.
Now, if you're younger, you're like, that's always been the case. No, that hasn't always been the
case. That happened when you were children. Premarital sex was no longer frowned upon.
This was a time when AIDS was spreading and STDs were becoming commonplace. The teen pregnancy
rates skyrocketed in the 1990s. And then, of course, there's the introduction of the internet,
and suddenly pornography was more accessible than it ever had been before. So in that cultural moment,
the church reacted, and they leaned into what is known today as the purity movement. And listen,
given the conditions at that time, it was an understandable reaction. The church put out a
call for church-going parents to help their children turn away from all of this sexual
content that was suddenly being foisted upon them. It was now surrounding them. So book after book
was written about this, right? And Bible study curriculums were created, and entire youth
conferences were organized. There was this whole movement of promoting courtship over dating,
right? Then you had this thing called purity pledges, and you had purity rings and talk of
abstinence and waiting until marriage. Remember, true love waits was this one stream of this
movement, and books like I Kissed Dating Goodbye was on the shelf of every evangelical parent in
America. Some of you are nodding and you're smiling. You're like, yep, I remember this time.
Now here's the thing. The passage of time has a tendency to reflect on things and say, well,
was this really effective or did it do more damage than good? It was well intended. You have to
understand that. But there were some significant problems in this movement built into it from the
start. By the way, you're asking, why am I talking about this? Because this issue of purity, we have
to get this straight in our minds. If you've been wounded by this and it's still something that
is sort of lodged in your heart, we'd love to help you work through it. But I want you to know it was
well intended, but flawed. And the most important problem was simple. It was based on moralism.
Moralism emphasizes good behavior to the exclusion of grace, the exclusion of genuine faith.
So the emphasis on the purity movement was on the power of the human will to say, I pledge to do
this or not to do that. And there was a hyper focus on this one issue, sex. And the highest
possible standards were set and the whole litany of boundaries and rules were laid out. But here's
the thing. When the guardrails of human willpower fail, as they always do, as they always do, a lot
of young people who had made pledges fell short of those pledges. And many, especially young women,
were left devastated by the guilt and the shame that ensued because nobody gave them the answer
to that. Nobody brought healing into their lives. And a good percentage of young women ran from the
church and they ran into the arms of the world. And many of them will still not come back
because of this movement. Now, subject of moralism, I'll talk to the elders. That'd be like a six week
preaching series that we could walk through. So I can't share with you a massive teaching about
this, but I can summarize for you some of the missing pieces to this purity movement concept.
Again, well-intended, right? And yes, biblical principles about sexual purity, well-intended,
but flawed. Let me give you some of the reasons why it was a problem. Number one, what was missing
was balancing sound teaching about the importance of sexual purity with sound teaching about grace
and about what happens when we fall short of God's glory and about the washing and forgiveness that's
found in Christ. It was just way out of balance. Number two, what was missing was the proper
motivation for purity. It's not just about succeeding in abstinence. It's about presenting
our bodies as living sacrifices, as worship to Christ. And that was not emphasized. Number three,
what was missing was addressing where our desires and lusts come from in the first place. The focus
was on external behavior, not on the heart, which is where we begin to peel back the layers to say,
well, why do I feel this way? Why do I do what I do? But the emphasis was on the external. Number
four, what was missing was a right valuing of the opposite sex. The idea that we see them as dangerous
or we see them as one-dimensional objects and not as fellow heirs with Christ and fellow members of
the body. And finally, number five, what was missing was the overall truth that while in a biblical
sense, purity includes our sexual lives. Purity is not limited by just our sexual lives. There's so
much more to purity than just that one issue. We need to have a more holistic view of what it means
to be pure, connected to the idea of what it means to be conformed to the image of Christ.
So that's what we want to do this morning, because I know that I had this feeling that as we preach
this verse, everybody was going to be solely focused on that one issue, but it's bigger than
that. Purity is so much more than just your sexual life. It's included, but it's not limited to that.
Does that make sense? Okay. So in light of that, let's go back now. Let's try to answer the question
that the psalmist has. How can a young man, how can anybody here this morning keep our way pure?
Well, the second phrase in verse nine begins to answer the question, right? What does it say?
By keeping it, keeping the path or better, a better translation is guarding, guarding your path
according to the word. So interestingly, the first line of attack against impurity is actually a
defensive posture. The Hebrew verb there for keeping is shamair, and it's a word that was often
used to describe a watchman, somebody, a man that was a century that was posted on the wall,
that watched over a city at night. So the word picture, word picture we have is simple. We're to
guard the path of our life using the principles of God's word. We're to guard the path of our life
using the principles of God's word. So daily we're to read the word, listen to the word, study the
word, chew on and meditate over the word. And as we do that, we ingest it. And then we post those
things that we're learning as a personal century along the path of our day. That's the word picture.
And as we walk and abide with the Lord, the Holy Spirit is then present in us to remind us of all
that we've read and heard and chewed on and ingested. He reminds us of those things and he
begins to work to sanctify us, shaping our decisions and our choices as we walk along the way.
This is the picture of the Christian life. We forget this. It's basic, but it's very clear in
scripture. This is how we walk into our day. We post a century. We post a guard according to what?
According to God's word. This idea comes through beautifully in Proverbs too. Look at this great
verse for wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
Discretion will guard you. Understanding will watch over you to do what? To deliver you from the way
of evil. Beautiful blend with what the Psalmist is saying here and all those things which protect
us from impurity, wisdom, knowledge, discretion, and understanding, where do they come from? From
time spent in the word and applied by the Holy Spirit in your life. And what you find over time
and with experience is that the truth of God's word applied by the Spirit to your mind and to
your heart is your best refuge against temptation. It is the most powerful tool that you have in your
tool belt to battle temptation, the world and the flesh. That's what the Psalmist wants to tell you
this morning. It's a light that clears away the fog of the lies and deception that come at you
all the time. You are being bombarded every day by lies from this world. The word clears away that
fog. It's a mirror that you can hold up and say, all right, what's the truth about me, Lord? And
make adjustments according to what you see. It's the key to the renewing of your mind so that you
start to think rightly about God. You start to think rightly about your own heart. You start to
think rightly about your own heart and about the world, everything you see around us. God's word is
also your hope and your salvation. We cannot leave this part out. We cannot overestimate this part.
God's word is all of those things, but it is also your hope and your salvation when you stumble into
sin. Cannot say that loudly enough because we like to talk about how the word protects us and guards
us. That's great, but it also shows us the path to confession of sin, to repentance, and how to come
back to that state of purity in the presence of God. It gives you the instructions to do that,
and it's very clear because at the end of the day, it's God's word that's going to show you
who you actually belong to. It's going to show you how to confess your sins, how to repent and turn,
how to come back to purity. It's very, very important. Listen, if you look at the word pure
and you automatically say to yourself, well, I'm not included because I've got a really sinful past
or I'm in a struggle right now, then you are forgetting your identity in Christ. You are
forgetting your status before God because it's rooted not in what you're going through right now,
but it's rooted in the finished work of Christ. That's another lie that we can believe. We've
got to come back to the truth. Listen, never forget what Paul wrote to the Corinthian church.
He lays out this long list of the types of people who will never enter the kingdom of God. Do you
know the passage on 1 Corinthians 6? You know what I'm talking about? All these people, they don't get
into the kingdom and you're like, oh boy, I better pay attention to this. And then he says this,
such were some of you, but then something happened. This is such an important passage.
You were once one of those people who had no chance to get into the kingdom, but then something
happened. You were washed by who? Not by yourself, but by Christ. You were sanctified by who? Not by
your own efforts, but by the spirit. And you were justified, declared righteous in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and the spirit of God. Wow. When God looks at his children who have been
washed and sanctified and justified, he doesn't see wicked sinners that somehow he's forced to
love and forced to save. He's declared us to be righteous saints for whom Christ willingly died
out of his great love for us and out of a passion for his father's will. Have to know that. Think of
this, speaking of the Corinthians, there is no more out of control rebellious culture than Corinth
back in the day. So when Paul writes to the Corinthian believers, how does he address them?
Dear sinners in Corinth. Could you imagine if he started his letter that way? Dear sinners,
he doesn't. He says to the church, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, get this now,
saints by calling. Saints by calling. That is their true identity. Found in Christ, washed,
sanctified and justified saints. And friends, that only happens by God's grace. You're not going to
earn that title. Imperfect people who fall short of holiness on a daily basis can stand pure before
the Lord because of Christ's finished work. That's what God's word tells us. We just have to believe
it and then become what God says of us, right? Strive diligently to be what God says you are
in him. So to recap, how can any of us keep our way pure? The Psalmist gives the answer by guarding
the path of your life with all of these aspects of God's word, which he now fleshes out as we
continue on. Let's look at verse 10. Verse 10, with all of my heart, I have sought you.
Do not let me wander from your commandments. Now, maybe you see or you heard when we first read it,
the problem in this verse. Maybe you didn't see it, takes a little bit of thought. But if you look
closely at it, you may say, wait, is this a contradiction? Because if a person is seeking
the Lord with all of his heart, he's not going to wander, right? Right? All of my heart is seeking
after God. I won't wander. Well, first you see that yes, the Psalmist is resolved to seek after the
Lord with all of his heart, not in a halfhearted way with all of his heart. That's a good thing,
right? And now I'm about to repeat what I have shared over two Sundays and I'm going to say it
a third time because it's so important. The principle of resolve and dependency that are
both so important to balance as a Christ follower, you and I are to be resolute in our commitment to
pursue an abiding relationship with the Lord, to seek after him, because that's what the Psalmist
says, to seek after him. And this resolve, as you see here in the verse, is a matter of the heart.
It's a matter of your inner man, your inner person. It's not just in the mind and it's not
external, right? As an act of human willpower, because neither of those things are sufficient.
If your pursuit of God is purely intellectual, I have a word for you this morning. You are striving
in vain if it's purely intellectual. And if you are just trying to present yourself as
biblically moral on the outside, you also are striving in vain. This is a matter of the heart.
The Psalmist has taken God's word into his heart, into his inner man, and he has internalized it to
the extent that it is now the controlling principle of his life. And that's the reason why
he's so determined to seek after the Lord. That is our goal. To take it in so forcefully
that it becomes the controlling principle of our lives. And then with Godly resolve,
he says, I am now seeking after the Lord. And yet with all of that,
here comes the second half of the equation. He still knows he's prone to wander.
And we have to understand this. With all of my heart, I have sought you Lord. And yet,
I still have to ask you this question. Will you not let me wander from your commandments?
This is the story of every person in this room. You're not the lone ranger.
And there's no contradiction here. This is just the truth about the fact that we are not yet
fully sanctified saints. And the fact that we all still need God's ongoing grace in our lives.
For me, this is incredibly encouraging. Because if you've sought to yourself, man,
everybody else seems to be totally pure and cleaned up in their lives. What's my problem?
Did you see it in this verse? This is encouraging. The Psalmist is not a Pharisee, is he?
He's trusting in his own righteousness. Quite the opposite. He knows himself too well. He knows that
he needs to constantly rely upon the power of God to keep him from sin. That is a healthy posture.
And again, going back to the possibility that the Psalmist is writing, looking back on his younger
years, my guess is he's learned some hard lessons along the way. He's figured this out. Lessons
about how he can't live out the commandments apart from the Lord controlling his heart. Apart
from the Lord, get this, making him able to keep the commandments. Causing him to be able
to keep the commandments. That's what we need. Friends, this is the inevitable tension of the
Christian life. We resolve in the heart to keep God's commandments. That is the starting point.
Don't get me wrong on this. That is the starting point. The Apostle John talks about this multiple
times in his first epistle, right? What does he say? To love God is to what? Keep his commandments.
That is the starting point. That is the resolve. And he goes on to say, look, if you're a professing
Christian, you say you love Jesus, but you don't keep his commandments, you're what? You're a liar.
So if you profess to love God and to follow after Christ, you must be resolved to love God
by loving the things that he loves, pursuing the ways that he tells you to pursue. But at the same
time, of all people, Christians are aware of how often we wander off the path like sheep gone
astray. We cry out, Lord, I want to do what's right. I want to please you, but I lack the ability
to do it fully. Friends, this is why we're saved by grace alone. This is why we say it all over and
over again. There's no other way. Anybody that tells you that, oh, no, no, no, I could do enough
good things to get there. Or if I just go to mass enough or take the Eucharist or I do this or I do
that, then I can fill up. No, you can't do it. You can't do it on your own. It's got to be grace alone.
And I know the pain of wrestling with the flesh in my life. Again, I'm one of those older guys
looking back. I know the pain of what it means to wrestle with the flesh. I know the pain of what
it feels like to lose more often than you want to. I know the pain of at times in my walk with Jesus
saying, I give up. I cannot win this battle. And those are the lies that we believe, right?
And the enemy whispers in our ear, you'll never do it. You'll never be good enough.
So what do we do? Do we just sit there with those lies? Do we, do we sit in the weeds and wallow in
guilt and shame and just say, I'm such a loser. I'll never be able to win this battle. Or, or do we
turn to the scriptures and see what is true. That is the theme of Psalm 119. Keep coming back to the
word to see what is true. And when we open the word, we see passage after passage that says to us,
in our Father's voice, listen, my son, listen, my daughter, I know your struggle.
And I know the desire of your heart. And I know that you want to walk faithfully,
but you have to understand that you cannot do it in your own strength.
And yet in the meantime, as you wrestle, my grace is sufficient for you.
I haven't stopped loving you. I'm not angry at you all the time. My grace is sufficient.
So trust in my promise. I will complete my work in you.
And we don't sit in the weeds and wallow. We look to the scriptures for truth.
So that's what the Psalmist is saying here in verse 10. He's saying you are not the driving
force of your sanctification. God is. You work out yourself in your own ways.
God is. You work out your salvation with fear and trembling, all the while knowing that it's God who
is at work in you. To do what? Both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Yes, he wants you to
aspire to godliness. Yes, he wants you to be resolved in your walk with him. He wants you to
long to obey his word, but then he wants you to trust him to complete the work.
So we declare this truth. What's one of our favorite songs?
Prone to wander, Lord. I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. That's half the story.
What's the rest of that verse? But here's my heart, Lord. You take and seal it. Seal it for thy
courts above. Beautiful balance. That's verse 10. Okay, we're only gonna look at one more verse this
morning. We only have time for one more verse, but it's a big one. Look at verse 11.
Your word I have treasured in my heart that I may not send against you. So he comes back now to how
the word of God guards our hearts and our lives. Listen, it guards us from within. It guards us
from within. The Hebrew word there for treasured has a range of meaning. Sometimes you see
translations say it's hidden. You're hiding God's word in your heart or you're storing up God's
word in your heart. Now, why would you hide something or store it up? Number one, because
it's valuable. And number two, because at some time in the future, you want to grab, want to grab hold
of it and make use of it. Did you catch that? That's important. Two reasons why you might hide
something or store it up. Number one, because it's valuable. You want to protect it. Number two,
at some point, you're going to want to grab hold of it. Go into the pantry and say, move the stuff
and go, there it is. Cause I need to use this. So here's the idea. The word of God comes to you
at all, in all kinds of forms. You read it, you study it, you hear it preached, you meditate on
it. That should be a regular pattern of your life. And as you do the truth of God's word enters into
your mind and the Holy spirit then writes those truths and those principles on your heart.
And it takes deep root within you over time. And then it becomes available to you. You reach down
and you grab hold of that truth and it guards you from sin and it directs you to the path of
wisdom and godliness. That's the principle that's being described here, but you have to store it
up. I mean, I keep talking about, it's not going to happen magically. There's no magic pill that you
can take to get all this stuff deep in your heart. It's going to take work. But if you haven't stored
up this treasure in your heart, then you're lacking those deep roots. And what happens on a daily
basis? You walk into the world with your heart unguarded. You have no spiritual armor on. And
what's the predictable result? You go out there in the world, you get knocked around. Because you
haven't stored it up in your heart. You don't have the resources to reach into when all that stuff
comes at you. That's what the Psalmist is saying. So friends, here's where we want to be. Lord,
I have hidden your word in my heart. I have stored it up deep inside me. I haven't left it outside of
me. I haven't left it on my desk at home. I haven't left it by my, you know, bedside. I haven't been
content to just make it an interesting book, an object of curiosity for my intellect. No, I've been
striving diligently to let it go deep into my heart, to let it penetrate into the places where my
intellect is, where my emotions are, where my feelings are, where my will is. And so let it get
down into those deep layers of my heart so that you, Lord, can transform those things in me.
This is part of the cooperative work of sanctification. Lord, I want to take this truth
and get it into the deepest layers of my heart so that you can complete that work in me.
Now, before we wrap up, let me just address another possible issue that's here this morning.
If you're sitting here and you're saying to yourself, Jeff, this is fine, but I'm not really
sure I want to be ruled by God's word. I'm not really sure I want to be restrained by God's word.
I'm not sure I really want the purity that you're talking about here. Let me share with you the
paradox that you should know. The more completely we're ruled by God's instructions, the more
free we become as human beings. I know that seems topsy-turvy, but the more that we're conformed to
God's commands, the more free we become. It's a lie from the pit of hell that obedience to the Lord
enslaves you or that it limits you unfairly or that it makes your life boring. It does the opposite.
It frees you up to become what you were originally designed to be. It frees you from the
way you were originally designed to be. It frees you up to become that spiritually healthy person
that God created you to be. And it comes at the end of life or at the end of this walk,
you get to this place where you are truly satisfied, where you are filled with overflowing
happiness because you're living in line with your purpose and how you were created.
When you're outside of that, you're in chaos. It's just my desires, my lusts, my feelings,
my emotions, and it's all over the place. There is no freedom in that. That is slavery.
Freedom is found in obedience to Christ. And you just have to, listen, you have to believe that
because God's word says it. So you've got to choose if that's your struggle, you got to choose,
am I going to believe my own sinful mind, my own sinful heart, my own sinful emotions, or am I going
to believe what the creator of your heart says about you? But that's true freedom.
All right. That's all we have time for today. Let's wrap up. Oh, look at that. I forgot to click.
I hate when I do that. Okay. I have an illustration of this for you foodies out there. Raise your
hand if you're a foodie. Couple foodies. I'm not. Have you heard that?
At the end of this section, look at the end of this section in verses 14 and 16, the Psalmist
uses two really descriptive words. He talks about rejoicing in God's word and delighting
in God's word. Those are really great words, rejoicing and delighting. And as we've seen
already in a previous place, he says, how sweet are your words? How sweet are your words?
In the previous place, he says, how sweet are your words to the taste? How sweet they are sweeter
than honey to my mouth. And I'm going to ask you the question again, is that the way you see your
Bible? Do you rejoice and delight in the sweetness of God's written word? And if not, I hope this
mini-series in this song will change your thinking. Here's what I hope. I hope it will
motivate you to change your palate, to change your palate, to embrace the sweetness of God's word.
When God calls you and I to purity, he has a better recipe than you do.
I know you think your recipe is pretty good. He's got a better recipe. What he sees is all the false
sweetness that the world has to offer. The saccharin sugary stuff that doesn't satisfy. And he's
warning you about it. He's saying, that's not the right palate. You don't want that. If you really
want satisfaction, I'm going to show you what it is in my word. In reality, if we'll trust him,
we're going to find that purity and holiness and obedience are actually delicious.
Actually delicious. We need to ask the Lord to transform our palates. And I thought about
this week because of something I have been going through for about a year. And I'll just share
briefly. You can ask me later. So about a year ago, I got convicted about trying intermittent fasting
just to manage my weight as I get older. And what I found was I needed to not have any breakfast.
I couldn't take in any calories before noon. And one of my great pleasures was coffee in the morning.
But I used to be a coffee guy with two Splendas and then a whole bunch of that really sweet,
like vanilla creamer stuff. Man, I'm like, I got to give that up.
Guess what? I now only drink black coffee. Now, okay. Now, you know what? All right.
I don't want to get caught later on. So on occasion, I'll add a little whole cream,
but, but not, not none of that sweet stuff anymore. And definitely no Splenda.
Here's why I bring that up. Over time, I committed myself to changing my palate
because it was good for me. It's good for my health. And guess what? Now the old way
of my coffee doesn't taste good anymore. I actually, if you made that coffee for me now, I'd say,
no, I don't want it. And so as we allow God's word to guard our paths, as we hide his word in our
hearts, our palate changes. The things that we desire, our affections change. Trust me, again,
if you're younger, trust me, over time, God will do this work. He will change your affections.
If you will pursue his face. And we come to see that the old way of living just doesn't sound good
anymore. It doesn't sound good. I don't want it. And that's how God works in us. So what we want
most is to taste more and more of the blessings of living a life in purity. It turns out that is
really where the sweetness of life comes. That's where spiritual health comes. That's where we,
we both get delight and rejoicing. And you again, this is a choice you're going to have to make.
Do I believe what God says about this or am I going to believe my selfish self? And I hope
you'll trust in the word. I want to, I want to wrap up by reading something to you guys that I
saw this week. How many of you guys know the Gideons? Gideon Bibles. I just found this out
this week in the, in the foreword of Gideon Bibles, there is this amazing statement about
the value of God's word. And as we finish up in Psalm 119, I thought we would just walk through it
slowly and just, I want you to meditate on this. I want you to chew on it. Are you ready? This is
what, this is what it says. First of all, the Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man,
the way of salvation, the doom of sinners and the happiness or blessedness of believers. Amen.
Its doctrines are holy. Its precepts are binding. Its histories are true and its decisions are
immutable. Read it to be wise. Believe it to be safe and practice it to be holy. It contains light
to direct you, food to support you and comfort to cheer you. It is the travelers map, the pilgrim
staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword and the Christian's charter. Here too, heaven is
opened and the gates of hell disclosed. Christ is its grand subject, our good, its design and the
glory of God, its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart and guide the feet. Read it slowly,
frequently and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory and a river of pleasure.
It is given you in life, will be opened at the judgment and be remembered forever. It involves
the highest responsibility, rewards the greatest labor and will condemn all who trifle with its
sacred contents. It is the word of God, treasure it in your heart. Let's pray together.
Father, we say amen to that this morning. We agree with those statements about just the beauty and
power of your written word. It's why we're a Bible church, Lord, as you know. It's why we put your
word at the center of all we do. And so this morning, as we wrap up our study in Psalm 119,
we want to thank you that you have revealed yourself in this book. You have not left us to
guess about who you are. You've not left us to guess about our problem and what the remedy for
it is. But you have told us in your word. And so I pray for myself. I pray for all of my brothers
and sisters here this morning that we would recommit ourselves to a study of your word,
to let its precepts sink deep into the heart and to allow your spirit, Lord, to transform us from
the inside by the power of your word. God may it be sweet to us more and more over the years as we
experience its power and its ability to change us. Lord, shape our affections by your word.
Cause us to have the ability to grow in purity, to make wise choices, to make good decisions that
bring glory to you and bring blessing to our bodies and to our lives. Make us a pure people,
Lord, by the power of your spirit. We thank you for this time together this morning and pray all
these things in the name of the one who has made us clean, Jesus Christ. Amen.