Psalm 119:9-16 How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.10 I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. 11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.12 Praise be to you, Lord; teach me your decrees.13 With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. 14 I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. 15 I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. 16 I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.
The Word of God is the pathway to purity. That is the whole sermon in a nutshell. If you want to live a pure life, a life that please God, you will do it by learning and living out the Word of God. You will not live a righteous life simply because you want to. You will not live a righteous life just because you are a pretty good decision maker. You won’t live a righteous life because your intentions are good. You will only live a righteous life as you immerse yourself in the Word of God and allow it to shape your thoughts, character and conduct. You won’t get it by osmosis or by reading a couple Facebook memes each day. You will get it by regularly pursuing it, by regularly reading it. Verse 16 of our text says, “I will not neglect your word.”
The word, Neglect, means: to give little attention or respect to : DISREGARD
Are we guilty of giving little attention or little respect to the Word of God? Do we disregard it the majority of the time? If we listen to the preached Word once a week on Sunday but don’t look at it or listen to it at any other time, I would call that neglect. We have 10,080 minutes in each week. 10,080. If we are only engaging in the Word of God on Sunday mornings, we are giving attention to it about 24 minutes each week. 24 minutes out of 10,080. For those of you who are married, if your spouse only spent 24 minutes a week engaging with you, you would call that neglect. You would feel set aside. The health of your relationship would be greatly compromised. The same is true for us in our relationship with God.
Here are four “R” words from Psalm 119 that can provide a strategy, can give you some guardrails to keep you on the Pathway to Purity when the pull of the world and all kinds of other temptations would seek to pull you elsewhere.
Retain
Recount
Rejoice
Ruminate
Verse 11 says, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
The Psalmist gives us our first “R” word in this verse. He says we need to RETAIN the Word of God. That means memorizing it. Every time you memorize a Scripture or passage, you are adding a tool in your spiritual tool belt that you can pull out and use to defeat the devil or to encourage someone else or to encourage yourself. When Jesus was tempted by Satan, before He began His earthly ministry, the way He defeated the devil was through the recitation of Scripture. He could only recite Scripture because He had first committed it to memory. He had it in His heart before the temptation ever came, so that when He needed it, He could pull it out.
There is a direct correlation between hiding God’s Word in our heart and not sinning against God. What goes into your heart is what will be lived out in your life. That is what Psalm 119:11 says, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” You need to keep God’s Word on retainer in your heart. Just as someone would keep an attorney on retainer in case it would be necessary to use one, memorizing the Word of God will keep God’s Word on retainer for the moment it is needed.
Memorizing the Word of God will create a sensitivity to God’s voice in your life. You will increase your knowledge of what He desires for your life, and when situations arise that call for a decision to go one way or another, you will have an innate instinct to do the right thing because you have ingested God’s Word. Just like those moments when you are about to do something you shouldn’t do and you hear your mom or dad’s voice chiming in your ears, “You know better than that. That’s not a good idea.” You will hear God’s voice more clearly because His Word will dwell in you. Retain God’s Word by memorizing it, so you can use it when you need it. You can do it, but you have to regularly read it in order to retain it.
The second “R” is the opportunity to elevate the Word of God by Recounting it. Verse 13, “With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.” How does recounting or retelling the Word of God help you stay on the Pathway to Purity? God’s Word has supernatural power. Every time you speak God’s Word, you are releasing God’s supernatural power. When God’s Word is released, so is God’s power, and it will be the power you need to stay the course on that Pathway of Purity. Isaiah 55:11 tells us that when God’s Word goes out it doesn’t return void. It accomplishes God’s desired purposes. When you confess the Word of God out loud, you are aligning yourselves with God’s will. You are actually setting God’s will into motion in your life.
The third “R” is “Rejoice in it. Rejoice in the Word of God. Look at Psalm 119:14 again, “I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.” The Psalmist was thankful for the Word of God. He viewed it as treasure. It kept him out of unnecessary trouble which means it spared him from unnecessary pain.
The final “R” word is Ruminate. Psalm 119:15 again: I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. God wants us to constantly be thinking about what He has said. As the Psalmist meditates or ruminates on the Word of God, he is kept on the Pathway to Purity. Meditation is the consistent effort to think on the Words of Scripture. Hiding it in our hearts, sending it out of our mouths, exercising an attitude of thanksgiving and letting it dwell in our thoughts ensures that we are completely saturated in the Word of God, and when you allow yourself to be saturated in the Word of God your feet will be firmly planted on the Pathway of Purity.
I suppose in the end, the path you choose will help you decide whether you will be a person of the Word or a person of the world. My heart’s desire is the Pathway of Purity which means the Word of God must be front and center in my life. You have 10,080 minutes to spend this coming week. How many of those can you spend memorizing, confessing, being thankful for and thinking about the Word of God?
