TEXT: Psalm 119:9–16 (ESV)
9How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.
10With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!
11I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
12Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes!
13With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.
14In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.
15I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.
16I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.
The writer’s object is not good behavior, but God Himself
This entire Psalm is a prayer. The writer is talking directly to God about His word. This particular section, with each line beginning with the letter “Beth” of the Hebrew alphabet, reveals that the author considers the Bible to be the doorway to access God. He says,
“With my whole heart I seek you.”
He does not see behavior as his goal, rather he is looking for God. He has set his life on the task of searching. He lives to seek. He wants to find God. He sees mediating on God’s Word as a way of finding God’s ways. He is after God.
Implicit in this language is the idea that he has not found Him, even though he clearly knows God. My friends, this is the nature of a godly life: seeking after God every day. The pursuit of the God you already know is the place where life’s passions find their proper home.
Look at Hebrews 12:1-2:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. –Hebrews 12:1-2
The energies and passions of one life find their rightful place in pursuit of Jesus. That pursuit of Jesus is the reason to throw off the sin that entangles us. The reason this man is meditating on God’s word is because He is looking for more of God.
God is infinite. Neither you nor I know Him fully, and the more we know Him, the happier we will be. Like a great restaurant where the full joy comes in trying everything on the menu, not all things can be enjoyed on the first visit. How much more God, who is inexhaustible? He is the author of life, beauty and goodness. And He knits His goodness into His words and His ways, and they are found in the Bible.
Strength against sin comes from pursuing God through His Word
All of us who know Jesus want to avoid sin. After all, our sins are the problem, aren’t they? Our sins are what brought distance between us and the blessings of God. If we love God, we will naturally hate sin. Jesus, out of love for us, died to take sin away from us. We do not want to go on sinning against the One who forgave us all. How do we avoid sin? Not through will power, that’s for sure.
We conquer sin by the word of God within us, and the helpf of God within us, that is the Holy Spirit.
9How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word…
11I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
The strategy of the author of the Psalm is to guard his own ways by God’s Word. He stored up God’s word in his heart. He did not simple hear the word, or read it once, but he stored it up in his heart. His reason for doing this was his passion for God. He wanted to avoid sin because it was against God. His protection against sin was the Word itself.
He stored up the Word of God meaning that he committed it to his memory and kept it well. He remembered portions of God’s word so that he had them in his mind when temptation confused him.
When the devil came against Jesus in the desert, Jesus taught us how to fight temptation with the word of God stored within. Satan tempted Him to eat when God had not said to eat yet. Jesus said, “It is written:
… man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.—Deuteronomy 8.3
So Jesus quoted the Bible to Satan. Realize that He could have chased the devil off with word, for He is God. But, He showed us that the way a human being resists the devil is through the very words of God. Of course, this won’t work for the Christian who does not know God’s word.
When one is saved, the Bible study is to begin. We cannot rely on church-going as a substitute for self-study. We must study and we must store His word in our hearts, so that we will not sin against the One who died for us.
There is joy in pursuing God through His Word
There are passages in the Bible that are beloved in my life, because in reading them, I met God. I remember once, sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen in Altoona, PA, as I was reading the gospel of John, chapter 11, when Jesus said this:
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” –John 11:25-26
I had been recently worrying a great deal about whether I was truly saved, and as I was reading the Bible, and came upon this verse, and heard Jesus ask Martha, “Do you believe this?” I found myself answering, “Yes, I do!” and joy filled my heart.
To find God in His word is the sustaining joy of the soul. Many times God has shown Himself to me in His word. And how much joy do I miss because I do not look for Him there even more? The writer of this Psalm is making it clear that he reads the words of God like a man digging for diamonds and finding them:
14In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches…
16I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.
To find God is to find Him in His word, and to find God is to find joy. There are some who look to find God from inner voices, while they neglect the way He promised to reveal Himself, and that is through His Word.
The writer of this Psalm has found that he got more joy from meditating on the words of God than he did for having great riches. Since the author of this Psalm was probably King David, he is someone who knows the difference between the two. He knew one can find riches in the world, but searching the word of God brought more joy.
This leads me back to two of my favorite parables of Jesus:
Matthew 13:44–46
44“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
There is a treasure hidden in the scriptures. When we find it, we find joy so great that we realize that it is worth everything we have. So we give up all to get that treasure.
The second parable is similar:
45“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls,
46who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
This man looks for pearls, but when he finds one particular pearl, he goes out of business to buy it. He no longer want to find treasures to sell, but this one is to keep, and it is worth all that he has.
Why does Jesus tell us these parables except that He wants us to know that there is a treasure available to all of us, one so great that it gives meaning to a meaningless life, and joy to a joyless world. That treasure is Jesus Himself! That treasure is God Himself!
How do you know if someone has found this treasure? It becomes to him or her the most valuable thing, and the only thing worth having.
And we are back to our Psalm. With all his heart this man looked for God.
What about you? Have you looked for God? He is found in His word. The Bible teaches us that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus saves, that Jesus died to take away our sins, that Jesus loves you, that Jesus calls you to come find Him, and Jesus promises to be found and to be a treasure that you can never come to an end to.
And for those of you who have found Jesus, how will you live your life on this earth with joy and victory over sin? By accessing the Bible and reading it with prayer, asking the God to show you Himself on every page.
The Christian who does not study his Bible, does not meditate on His Bible, does not love His Bible, is like the foolish boy who thinks walking in the gates of Disney World is the destination, but never goes further than the turnstile. That boy does not even understand what Disney World is about. He knows children get excited about being there, but he is never really certain why. Those who truly immerse themselves in the experience of the park know things he does not know.
So it is with the Bible and the church goer. The one who goes to church but does not read the Bible is like the foolish man who sees the pearl of great price and says, “Well, that does not interest me.”
Christians, this is the year to fall in love with God’s word again. To read it, study it, memorize it, sing about it, and give it a good home in our hearts.