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Psalm 119 beginning at verse 9.
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
With my whole heart I seek you.
Let me not wander from your commandments.
I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes.
With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.
In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes.
I will not forget your word.
The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.
Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the proclamation of his word this evening.
Jesus, Lord God, Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us your word.
We thank you that you have given us clear direction, that you have given us light and
hope in the Holy Scriptures.
And so we pray that by your Holy Spirit, that Spirit by which you breathed out the word,
we pray that by that same Spirit you would cause your word to find a lodging place in
our souls this evening.
We ask, O Lord, that you would illuminate, enlighten, and teach us with your Spirit as
we consider this portion of Holy Scripture.
And we ask, Lord, that you would grant me the grace to declare and speak forth your
word with clarity and power and with the assistance and grace of your Spirit for the honor of
your name, for the salvation of the lost, and for the edification and building up of
your saints.
We pray these things through Christ our Lord and all of God’s people said, Amen.
You may be seated.
If you or your children like to keep track of key words, there’s four key words to listen
for in my sermon this evening.
And I always appreciate if the young people keep track of the number of times that I say
these words.
I’m curious to know how many times I say these words.
The words are godliness, way, word, and grace.
Godliness, way, word, and grace.
Well, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the word of God is powerful.
It is especially powerful in its revelation of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ.
As the apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 1, verses 16 and 17, he writes there, for I am
not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
To the Jew first and also to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed
from faith for faith as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
And friends, as the same Holy Spirit who inspired or breathed out the word of God applies that
word with saving power to the hearts of God’s elect, spiritually dead sinners are raised
to newness of life and come to place their personal trust in Christ and Christ alone
for their salvation from sin.
As we’re told in Romans 10, verse 9, so faith comes from hearing and hearing through the
word of Christ.
The word of Christ, that’s the gospel.
The Holy Spirit uses the gospel as it is read, but especially as it is proclaimed to bring
elect sinners to personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
When blessed by the Spirit of God, the gospel word of Christ as it is proclaimed creates
a living saving faith within the hearts of God’s elect in their effectual calling.
But friends, not only is the word of God powerful in converting us and in bringing us to a justifying
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s word not only justifies those who believe.
When blessed by the sovereign Spirit of God, the word of God also carries with it a sanctifying
power, a power that supernaturally over time conforms us believers more and more into the
ethical image of the Lord Jesus Christ, enabling us more and more to die unto sin and live
unto righteousness, enabling us more and more to grow in the knowledge and in the love of
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
We saw that on the last Lord’s Day evening as we considered from verses 9 through 11
of our passage the sanctifying power of God’s word.
That’s what we focused on mostly on the last Lord’s Day.
And so, for example, we learned in verse 9 that God’s word enables the young man, which
is another way of speaking of the disciple or the student of God’s word, to keep his
way pure as he guards his way according to that word.
Again, as verse 9 says, it starts off with a question, how can a young man keep his way
pure?
The answer is by guarding it according to your word.
We also saw from verse 10 that the psalmist was devoted to the word of God because he
was devoted to the God of the word.
If you are devoted to the God of the word, then you will also be devoted to the word
of God.
When it came to the psalmist’s faith commitment, the psalmist was all in, wholeheartedly committed
to following the Lord.
And yet, at the same time, this statement of wholehearted commitment is not to be understood
as a proud boast on the psalmist’s part, as if he’s saying, well, I’m seeking the Lord,
I’m so righteous, I’m so worthy, no, no.
As the psalmist goes on to acknowledge his own remaining weakness and proneness to wander
from God’s commandments, again, as it says in verse 10, with my whole heart, I seek you.
It might sound like that’s boastful, but not really because then you notice in the next
line, let me not wander from your commandments.
His intention is to seek the Lord with his whole heart.
That’s his heart’s desire, and yet he recognizes his proneness to wander from God’s commandments
and so he petitions the Lord to guard him from that wandering heart.
This humble petition is itself a fruit of sanctification, for the more we grow in our
faith, the more we grow in progressive sanctification, the more weak and sinful we realize that we
are.
And finally, in verse 11, we saw that the psalmist seeks to store up or hide or treasure
God’s word in his heart.
He loves the word of God.
He says in verse 11, I have stored up your word in my heart, and why has he done that?
That I might not sin against you.
He stores up God’s word in his heart so that he might be preserved from sinning against
the Lord.
And this emphasis on storing up God’s word in our hearts is an emphasis that we find
frequently throughout the scriptures.
A couple passages we looked at on the last Lord’s Day that I again want to quickly look
at right now is, let’s go to Deuteronomy 6, 4-9, Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4-9, Moses
preparing the children of Israel to enter into the promised land.
He says this beginning in Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, he says, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God,
the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your might.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your hearts.
You shall teach them how?
You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your
house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise.
The word of God is to be part of your daily conversation.
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your
eyes.
You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
The word, the Torah, the covenant instruction of the Lord is to be prominent and kept before
the eyes and the consciousness of God’s people and their children at all times.
But this is not just an Old Testament emphasis.
Again as we saw in the last Lord’s Day, this is also a New Testament emphasis as well.
We see that for example in Colossians 3.16 where the Apostle Paul writing to the Colossian
believers is urging them to put on compassionate hearts, meekness, humility and so forth.
And then he says to this church, these believers in Colossians 3.16, let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
What’s the word of Christ?
That’s the gospel.
The gospel message, the good news about Jesus Christ is to saturate our personal lives and
it’s to saturate our church lives.
We are to be centered on the word of Christ, the message of the gospel.
That is to be the heart and center of our lives as believers and as a church of Jesus
Christ.
So here again from verse 11 of our passage for this evening, we saw the sanctifying power
of God’s word to preserve us from sin even as we saw the psalmist honestly acknowledging
that he is still prone to wander into sin.
Thus the importance of storing up God’s word in our hearts that we might not sin against
him.
And from the psalmist’s example as recorded in verses 9 through 11, we considered that
it is dangerous to just dabble in biblical Christianity.
You see friends, when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, when it comes to his claims
and to his gospel, we need to be all in or perhaps we aren’t really in at all.
So we’ve seen the sanctifying power of God’s word and we also, as we move on in our text
and consider verses 12 and 13, we also notice the godliness of a teachable spirit.
The godliness of a teachable spirit.
It says in verse 12, blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes.
With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.
Now think about that term godliness.
How often do you hear that term in your ordinary day-to-day conversation?
That’s a term that we throw around occasionally in church but even in the church world, even
among Christians, the term godly and godliness is not a very common term.
But we need to kind of recapture the importance of godliness.
Not just the concept but the reality of it.
But what exactly is godliness and how does this passage reflect godliness?
I think one of the ways to define godliness is to define first of all its opposite.
What’s the opposite of godliness?
What is the opposite of to be godly?
The opposite of godliness is godlessness.
And think about that term godless.
It’s a composite word.
What are the two parts of the word godless?
God and less.
So reverse those words.
The godless want less God, if you will, in their lives.
The godly, on the other hand, are not godly by their own worthiness or merits.
We’re only godly by the grace of God as we’ve been transformed by the gospel and through
the spirit.
But godliness essentially indicates being centered on God.
Having a life that is centered on the true and living God.
It is living life in a God-ward direction rather than living life in a self-ward direction
or being focused on God rather than being focused on self or focused on idols.
And here we see the psalmist breathing out, if you will, a spirit of godliness in his
petition to the Lord, his praise to the Lord.
In verse 12, we see here that the psalmist breaks out in praise.
And who does he praise?
He says, blessed are you, O Lord.
Again, notice that the word Lord is in all capital letters indicating to the English
reader that this is a translation of the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, which is the covenantal
name for God.
It has in view the Lord as the gracious covenant-making, covenant-keeping redeemer God.
So the psalmist is saying, blessed are you, O Lord, you’re my savior, you’re my redeemer.
Blessed are you.
He praises the Lord.
And then what does he do in the next breath?
He offers a petition, teach me your statutes.
He loves the Lord, he praises the Lord, and he petitions the Lord to teach him his statutes.
He has a teachable heart.
This is the attitude of a godly man, one who by sovereign grace has been made godly.
And notice, by the way, and I want to point this out, this is something that you will
find throughout Psalm 119, this very lengthy psalm.
I want you to notice even in this section of Psalm 119, the different words that are
used for God’s word.
In verse 12, God’s word is described as statutes, but let’s go back.
Let’s go back to verse 9.
How can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to your what?
Your word.
So one word for word is word.
But then the next verse, let me not wander from your what?
From your commandments.
Again verse 11 is a reference to the word word.
But then in verse 12, the word of God is described as the statutes of the Lord.
In verse 13, it’s described as the rules of your mouth.
Verse 14, your testimonies.
Verse 15, your precepts.
Verse 15, your word, your statutes.
All of these different words for God’s word, they all have different nuances to them.
They view the scriptures, the God’s word, from slightly different perspectives.
But all of these words that the psalmist uses and piles up to describe the word of God bring
out the richness and the fullness of the word of God, which is why he delights in the word.
He delights in the word because it’s rich, it’s full, and it gives life to those who
receive it by faith.
In verse 13, he says, with my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.
He’s not ashamed of God’s word, he declares God’s word.
The psalmist is not ashamed of God’s word and its truths, but he openly and unashamedly
declares all the rules of your mouth.
Likewise, this reminds us of our calling as disciples of Jesus.
As disciples of Jesus, we give open, unashamed testimony to Christ and to his gospel.
We don’t bottle the gospel up.
We are willing to own the gospel when called upon to do so.
I’m reminded of what our Lord Jesus says in Matthew 10, 32 and 33.
Matthew chapter 10, verses 32 and 33, the Lord Jesus says this, and he’s saying this
in the context of speaking about the persecution that his followers may face.
He says, so everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father
who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who
is in heaven.
Many things we can learn from this section of Psalm 119, but I just want to bring out
a few points of application at this point.
First of all, friends, when we are born again by the Holy Spirit and effectually called
to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord in his sovereign grace implants within
our souls a humble, teachable spirit, a spirit that desires to live in grateful obedience
to the loving heavenly Father who sent his Son to redeem us, to die on the cross for
our sins.
Now that does not mean that Christians never struggle with the sin of pride.
Of course we do.
We struggle with all of the sins of the flesh because we still have the sin nature, and
the Christian life is a battle against not only the world and the devil, but against
our own fallen nature, our sinful flesh.
But nevertheless, a true believer at heart has a basic desire to follow the Lord, to
learn of him.
You want to know what God wants you to know.
You want to know his word.
You want to know the way in which you are to follow because the Lord has changed your
heart.
He’s given you that heart desire.
Let us earnestly pray and strive for a heart that is always humble, teachable, and malleable.
May we not harden our hearts, but instead may we always seek to manifest a teachable,
humble spirit that seeks to live according to the way of the Lord out of gratitude for
God’s gift of salvation to us in Jesus.
We also learn here that when the spirit through the word works within our hearts, a true and
saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that faith will not indefinitely stay bottled up
within us.
You see, a saving faith is a confessing faith, a faith that is willing to openly bear testimony
to Christ as Savior and Lord when called upon to do so.
The Apostle Peter makes this clear, for example, in 1 Peter 3.15.
And in this passage, he’s addressing believers again who face the potential for persecution,
and he might have, in this passage, he might have in view believers being hauled before
the civil authorities and being asked to give an account of why they are Christians.
And it says in verse 15, well, let me back up to verse 14 of 1 Peter 3, but even if you
should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed.
Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy,
being prepared to make a defense and apology to this talking about apologetics, defending
the faith, make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you,
yet do it with gentleness and respect.
We are reminded in passages like Romans 10, verses eight through 13, that the faith by
which we are justified is a faith that confesses Christ, as it says in Romans 10, beginning
at verse eight.
But what does it say?
The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith that
we proclaim, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
For the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame, for there’s
no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his
riches on all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be
saved.
May God grant us the grace to be those who boldly and confidently confess Christ to others
when we have opportunity to do so.
And by the way, one of the ways that we confess Christ is by worshiping him together.
It’s a rare thing these days in our increasingly secular culture to actually observe the Lord’s
day, to actually come to worship services.
When your neighbors see you coming to church, that in itself is a witness for Christ.
And so let us be bold, let us openly confess Christ as we have opportunity.
Just as the psalmist says, with my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.
And finally, beloved, we see in this passage, the psalmist delighting in the way of the
word, and thus we are to delight in the way of the word.
Let’s look at verses 14 through 16.
It says in verse 14, in the way of your testimonies, I delight as much as in all riches.
Does the psalmist view religion, the true religion revealed in scripture as a drudgery?
Does he view it as a burden?
Is it something that weighs him down and depresses him?
No.
In the way of your testimonies, I delight as much as in all riches.
He treasures the testimonies of the Lord.
God’s testimonies and the lifestyle that they inspire are the psalmist’s delight.
And so friends, a godly life, a life that is lived according to the word is the psalmist’s
highest treasure.
May it be our highest treasure as well.
And then in verse 15, he says, I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.
This language, there’s an intensity about this language, isn’t there?
He’s not just, you know, going to do a quick devotional, just kind of in and out of the
scriptures, just kind of gloss over it.
He’s going to meditate.
He says, I will meditate on your precepts.
I’m going to dig into it.
I’m going to chew on it.
I’m going to work it through in my brain.
I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.
The psalmist is determined that his study and observance of God’s word will not be merely
a superficial surface level thing.
Instead, he is determined to study the word deeply, persistently, intentionally with intense
attention.
Sadly, friends, so many Christians today seem content with merely a Sunday school surface
level understanding of scripture.
We all have to start somewhere, but don’t be content with just the basics.
Don’t be content with just the surface level truths of scripture.
So many sadly are.
So many are content today to spiritually jet ski on the surface of scripture.
You ever been jet skiing?
I had the opportunity, Sharon and I had the opportunity once to do that.
It was a family reunion and we rented a jet ski and it was pretty cool, but you didn’t
get very deep in the water.
You were skimming over the surface.
And that’s how many Christians, it seems, approach the study of scripture.
They skim the surface.
But the psalmist intends to put on his spiritual scuba gear and to do a persistent deep dive
into the vast ocean of the word, all in the spirit of Psalm one, one and two, the very
first Psalm, the gateway to the Psalter.
How does the Psalm one begin?
Well, it begins with a description of the blessed man.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners
nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
But his what?
Verse two, his delight is in the law of the Lord.
And on his law, he does what?
He meditates day and night.
He thinks about it.
He reflects upon it.
He choose on it.
He seeks to make it part of the core of his being.
And so this Psalm, this section of Psalm 119 ends with the words of verse 16.
I will delight in your statutes.
I will not forget your word.
By God’s grace, the psalmist chooses to delight in God’s statutes lest he forget God’s word.
In closing, beloved, for those of us who have tasted the goodness of God’s grace in the
gospel of Jesus Christ, it is truly a delight and a joy to walk in the way of the Lord.
If you’re finding your Christian life to be a drudgery or to be a burden, then there’s
something dysfunctional there.
Perhaps you don’t realize just how much God loves you, just how much Jesus has done for
you.
Maybe you believe it intellectually, but it hasn’t sunk into the very core of your soul
and you have not been gripped with the fact that Jesus loves you.
You’re going to be confronted with that, brother, sister, tonight in the Lord’s Supper.
In this Holy Supper, Jesus, by His Spirit, is going to be saying to you and to me, I
love you.
My body was broken for you.
My blood was shed for you.
Take, receive, receive and rest.
True biblical Christianity, when it is understood and appropriated and received, leads to true
joy.
We are to be a joyful people and the joy of the Lord will be our strength.
And one of the ways that we show our determination to rejoice in the Lord and thus not to forget
the Lord and His ways is by doing what you folks are doing this evening, by attending
corporate worship every Lord’s Day, ideally twice on the Lord’s Day, if possible.
That’s why we’re here.
It’s not because we’re trying to be super spiritual by meeting twice on the Lord’s Day.
It’s because we want to meet with Jesus again and again and we want to receive the good
gifts He has for us.
And oh, those gifts are so good.
The gospel is so good.
The blessings we have in Christ are so wonderful.
Let us delight ourselves in the Lord and in His Word.
Amen.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You and praise You, Lord God.
And with the joy that we have in knowing that through Christ our sins are forgiven, they’ve
been nailed to the cross, buried in His tomb, cast into a sea of forgetfulness, removed
from us as far as the East is from the West.
May this gospel, this good news, truly be good news to us.
May we understand it and embrace it not only at an intellectual level, but with our whole
being.
And we ask, O Lord, that this gospel would strengthen us to live as faithful disciples
of Jesus, to seek You, O Lord, with our entire being and to seek to glorify You in our day-to-day
lives.
We ask all these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said,
amen.
As we prepare to