And well, please open your Bibles again to Psalm
119, verse 9. That's where we're going to be
for a few moments. Just something that's grabbed
my heart fairly recently. Thought I'd share it
with you guys too this morning. Many of us will
have sung those song words, prone to wander,
Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.
I wonder even if I... as I repeat them now, whether
that's something that you can relate to, if not
right in this moment, perhaps over the last week.
As a disciple of the Lord Jesus, that is something
that I would relate to very many times in my
life. I don't think there's a day that goes past
where in some way I don't feel the temptation
or the pressure to wander off the path that God
in his grace has set me on. Do you feel the same?
That way of trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of our sins. To wander off,
perhaps to try and regain that status with God
in another way. Perhaps it's that way of learning
to obey everything that the Lord has commanded
us, that path that he set us on. Perhaps it's
learning to live God's way rather than the world's
way. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone
to leave the God. I love. And that experience
is certainly the experience of the believer who
writes Psalm 119, isn't it? If you've got it,
just flick over to the end of the Psalm, which
I kind of understand frames the whole Psalm in
some way. But in verse 176, the psalmist writes,
I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant,
for I have not forgotten your commands. This
seems to frame the psalm, but it's an experience
we identify with, isn't it? Lord, I know your
commands. I've not forgotten them. I know what
I'm meant to do, and yet I've strayed. I've wandered
off, prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone
to leave the God I love. And as believers, when
we live with that tension of knowing what it
is that God wants us to do, but proneness to
wander off, it can lead to the question that
the psalmist asks in verse 9, can't it? In verse
9, he asks that question, how can a young person
stay on the path of purity? How can I stay on
the path that I'm meant to be on? This path of
trusting the Lord Jesus, this path of learning
to obey him. How can I stay on that path? Now
notice he picks up on a young person, a young
man. Now that may be for multiple reasons. It
might be largely because young people are under
such pressure to walk off the path. As a man
with teenagers in my house, I really feel that.
Prone to wonder. There's this pressure on them
all the time. So maybe it's because young people
face that pressure. But maybe he focuses in on
young people because what you do when you're
young sets a pattern for what you do when you're
old. And he says, look, how can a young person,
how can we get the patterns right when we're
young so that we stay on the path of purity?
We are surrounded, aren't we, by voices drawing
us away, enticing us away every day from the
path of purity. Peer pressure, media pressure.
Sexual temptation, pursuit of pleasure. You know,
we're in a Bible college, but we're not immune
from those kind of pressures when we hunker down
in here and study. So how, how can I, how can
we stay on the right path? When we sing those
words in church or in chapel, prone to wonder,
Lord, I feel it. How can we decrease the number
of times that that really hits home? Well, wonderfully,
he offers his own answer, doesn't he, in the
psalm. Have a look at verse 9. How can a young
person stay on the path of purity? By living
according to your words. Now, in some ways you
think, well, that doesn't help me much, does
it? How do I stay on God's path? By doing what
God says. Well, you're like, oh, great. That's
like, you know, chuck me a bone with you. I know
that's true. By walking God's way is the way
we do it. But you want a little bit more, don't
you? But how can I do that? I know that's what
I should do. I know I should walk according to
his path. But how do I go about it? How do I
stay on this path, doing life God's way? The
question it leaves us with is, well, how? And
very simply this morning, I want to encourage
you to be a squirrel. That's what I want you
to do. If you want to stay on the path of purity,
you have to learn to be a squirrel. Now, before
you kick me out and think, did he learn nothing
when he was at college? Just think carefully
about a squirrel for a moment. They do two things,
don't they? And you're in a great place to watch
them. They do two things. They seek and they
store. Can you say those two with me? They seek
and they store. Good. If you remember that, you
can kick me out now. Two things that squirrels
do. If you watch them out there, they're just
scurrying around, but they're not aimlessly scurrying
around. They're seeking things. They're looking
for something. And when they find it, what do
they do with it? They store it. They put it away
for ready for use at another time. Squirrels
are amazing at these two tasks, seeking and storing.
And if we are going to grow in not wandering
off the path, we need to get good at these two
things, seeking and storing. We need to get good
at being like squirrels. We need to train our
Holy Spirit renewed hearts to be squirrels. And
that means we need to do two things. Number one,
we need to seek the Lord with all our hearts.
We need to seek him. Look at verse 10. The psalmist
goes on to say, I seek you with all my heart.
When it comes to purity, when it comes to making
those right decisions every day, when we're faced
with, you know, am I going to blow it here? Am
I going to say something stupid here? Or am I
going to look at this on the internet? Whatever
it is that challenge you face. When we get to
those moments, we need God's help. You can't
do it by yourself. I'm 47 years old, but every
time I do DIY, I still call my dad. I still seek
his help. DIY stands for destroy it yourself
in my life. And when I'm in trouble and I need
help, I reach out. I call my dad. Dad! Where
do I put the blue wire again? He's like, well,
have you turned off the electricity? I'm like,
well, no, not yet. He says, well, don't do anything
with the blue wire. Every time I'm in trouble,
I seek my dad, 47 years old. But when we face
trials as Christians and temptations and the
proneness to wander, where do we reach? The psalmist
says, I seek you, Lord, with all my heart. I
seek his help. And the psalmist seems to seek
God in two particular ways. He seeks him, first
of all, as protector. Look at verse 10. I seek
you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from
your commands. He looks to the Lord for help
and protection against going astray. It is his
divine help. It is his divine power through the
Holy Spirit. that will keep my feet on the right
path. That's why Jesus taught us to pray, lead
us not into temptation, lifting your eyes to
heaven and say, please protect me. Do you pray
like that in the morning? And as you started
today, did you say, Lord, protect me today from
wandering from your paths? It's how the song
goes, isn't it? Prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love. Take my heart.
And take and seal it. Seal it from your courts
above. We look up. We seek the Lord if we want
to stop straying. So we seek him as protector,
but we also seek him as teacher. Have a look
at verse 12. Just over the page. Praise be to
you, Lord. Teach me your decrees. We need God
to teach us the paths we should be walking. We
need him to teach us the way we should be going.
Jordan started by reading Titus chapter 2. That
the grace of God has appeared and it teaches
us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions.
We need teaching. And if I am going to stop straying
from the paths I'm meant to walk, then I need
to seek the Lord as my teacher. Lord, teach me
today. Teach me the way I should go. Do you pray
like that? Lord, show me what to do. Show me
the path I should walk today. So you see, we've
got to be a squirrel. We've got to seek the Lord
with all our heart. We seek him as a protector.
We seek him as the teacher. Apart from him, we
can do nothing. That's what Jesus said, isn't
it? So seek him. But squirrels don't just seek,
they also... I'm glad some of you are still here.
That's good. We store God's word in our hearts.
See, look at verse 11. Having sought the Lord,
verse 10, with all his heart, he says, I have
hidden your word in my heart that I might not
sin against you. How do we keep ourselves from
wandering from the right path? By storing up
God's words in our hearts. In the very engine
room of your decision -making life, you store
God's word there. Some of you remember back in
the COVID days that people went crazy on toilet
rolls. They stored up toilet rolls ready in their
cupboards to use when they needed them. And that's
the picture that we're given about hiding God's
word in our heart. It's not burying it so you
can't find it. That's what the word hidden kind
of gives you the impression of. I'm burying it
and one day I'll find it again. The hidden idea
here is the idea of storing it up for ready for
use. Like squirrels, they put things places and
they know exactly where they put them so they
can go and find them when they need them. And
we are to put God's word, store it up in our
hearts, ready to use. When that pressure comes,
when that temptation comes, it's right there.
Right in the place where you make those decisions
and those choices. And we see this embodied,
don't we, most clearly in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Think of his temptations in the wilderness. Think
of his time in the Garden of Gethsemane. How
did Jesus in his humanity stay on the path of
purity? Well, he did it using the word of God
that was hidden in his heart. He did it. Bible
just poured out of Jesus. He didn't have you
version on his phone. He had to hide it, store
it away in his heart so that when those temptations
and trials came, it was right there, right there
to use. And how did Jesus get it there? That's
the question to think about, isn't it? How did
Jesus get it in his heart? Now, you're all good
Bible college students, so you'll know. We're
tempted, aren't we? We could be tempted to think,
well, it's because he was the son of God. He
wrote it anyway, so of course he knows it. No,
he got it there in his spirit -filled humanity
by doing what this psalm commands us to do, to
be a squirrel. He sought his heavenly father
with all his heart and he stored it away in his
heart from a young person, from a young man.
That's why at 12 years old you see him in the
temple, because he was someone who knew that
he needed to store God's words away in his heart
so that when that temptation came, he could stay
on the path of purity. If it's not a reverent,
Jesus was the model squirrel. He sought his heavenly
father and he stored up God's word. And so how
do we do that? You know, it's great to say, OK,
well, let's store it up. But how do we go about
it? And the psalm actually just throws us a few
top tips for storing God's word in our hearts.
And actually it does it with three R's. OK, and
here they are. We recount it, we rejoice in it
and we reflect on it. That's the way that we
can store God's word up in our heart. We recount
it. Have a look at verse 13. Verse 13. With my
lips, I recount all the laws that come from your
mouth. Or literally, with my mouth, I recount
what comes from your mouth. That's literally
what it reads. And if you've ever tried memorizing
parts of the Bible, probably some of you are
fantastic at it. I've met people who can recite
whole books of the Bible to me. But if you're
not quite so good at it as me, one of the things
that can really, not as me, I'm rubbish at it,
but the people I've met who are good at it. If
you want to get good at it, one of the things
that helps is saying it out loud and recounting
it, sort of repeating it, walking down the street,
saying a verse out loud is a great way to get
God's word stored up in our hearts. Recounting
the gospel, recounting verses from the Bible
is one of the ways that really helps. As kids,
when my kids were younger, we used to try and
retell Bible stories walking down the road. We
just used to say, oh, go on, tell us the story
of Noah. And then one of them would start it
off and another one would try and chip in and
we'd try and remember bits here and there because
actually it's a great way to get those stories
from the shelves into our hearts. It's something
we're not meant to do just privately, but we're
meant to do corporately as well, aren't we? In
Colossians, Paul tells the church there that
the message of Christ dwell among you richly
as you teach and admonish one another with all
wisdom through psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
We're meant to let the word of God be recounted
on our lips, telling it over and over again so
that it helps it store it away in our hearts.
So we recount it, but we're also to rejoice in
it. Have a look at verse 14. I rejoice in following
your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.
And again, verse 16, I delight, he says in your
decrees. I will not neglect your words. Take
time. If you want to store God's word in your
heart, take time to delight in it. Don't just
whiz through it and say, oh, I've read it now
or I've remembered it now. Take time to rejoice
and to delight in the things that you're reading.
Nothing quite helps like songs to get God's word
stored up and to delight in something. It's a
good plug for why you should sing songs that
have the Bible in it. When you get to churches
and you get responsible for picking songs, make
sure that they're biblical. Because that's the
way that the word gets stored up in our hearts.
Delight yourselves in the things you're remembering.
So recount it, rejoice in it. Verse 15. reflect
on it. I meditate on your precepts and consider
your ways. You know, we've got to take time meditating.
We've got to take time to pull something out
of the store cupboard and to have a think about
it and to pursue it. You know, some people just
keep kind of treasures, don't they, behind a
wall or a cupboard and look at all my trophies
or look at all these things I've got. Actually,
what we're meant to do is to take it out of the
cupboard and we're meant to look at it and turn
it around and have a think about it. And actually,
these words of God that are stored up in us,
we're meant to bring them out and meditate on
it, chew on it, think about it. How does this
principle apply? You know, when you go for a
walk or when you're driving down the road, just
take one out. Pull something out of the store
cupboard and say, let me think about this. What
does that mean? What does that look like? How
does this apply to me? Chew it over. And so the
psalmist, you see, gives us three R's to help
us store God's word, recount it, rejoice in it,
and reflect on it. So I'm not insane, but please
take my encouragement to be a squirrel. Be a
squirrel. Because if we come back to that question
in verse 9, how can a young person, how can any
of us stay on the path of purity? Well, he says
there, by living according to the word. But how?
How do we do that? How do we live according to
the word? Well, we are a squirrel. We seek God's
help and we store it away in our hearts. We recount
it. We rejoice in it. We reflect on it so that
we might stay with God's help on the path of
purity. Shall I pray that in for us? And then
we'll come to the Lord's table. Our God and our
Father in heaven, we want to say thank you for
the Psalms. Thank you for the precious gift they
are to us in helping us to know the experience
of living the life of following you. Father,
thank you that you call us to faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. You call us to a life of obedience
to him. resonate again and again with those words
prone to wonder lord we feel it prone to leave
you the god we love and so we simply come this
morning wanting to seek your help that we would
not stray from your paths that you would protect
us that you would teach us that we would walk
in your paths and we pray to please that we would
be those who work hard at storing your words
in our hearts that we would take time to recount
it with our lips, that we would rejoice in your
word, not just study it and move on, and that
we would reflect on the things that you have
shown us. Father, we long to be more like Christ,
who had your word stored in his heart. Father,
we thank you for all that he modelled to us in
his spirit -filled humanity of how to do what
this psalm talks about. And so, Father, please
help us to be more like him. In Jesus' name.
Amen.