How can a young man keep His way pure?
Notes
Transcript
Thank you for the opportunity to come and share the Word of God with you today. I have had the opportunity to speak here several times over he past few years and I always consider it a great privilege and a very important opportunity because you all are in the stage of your life when you are laying out your path that you plan to travel in this life. And your heart is still tender and the Word of God can have a profound impact upon you.
I am going to share with you a passage today from Psalm 119 about a young man whom I think would be very close to your age. And he begins with this question that all of you should be asking: “How can a young man keep his way pure?”
We may reword that a little and ask: “how can a young person who wants to live their life without being polluted by sin in a sin saturated world?”
And this is the question I hope many of you are asking yourselves as well. How can I keep myself from falling into the sin that is all around me? How can I keep myself from heart, my mind, and my hands clean before God? How in a world where there is so much temptation at my fingertips, on the TV, in my circle of friends, how can I keep myself pure befor the Lord?
And some may say, well God doesn’t expect you to live this holy life! That is for preachers and ministry leaders! God doesn’t expect you to miss out all the great things this life has to offer. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
That is what God wants from US personally! That is what God wants from you personally. More than getting all the details of your future worked out, more than passing all your classes and securing that scholarship so you can live a nice happy life…..God wants you to live a clean, pure, holy life devoted to Him.
but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
The very character of God is holiness, and His will for those whom He calls to follow Him is also to reflect that same attribute and live a holy life.
So back to that question: How can a young man keep his way pure?And he answers himself in the very next line: “By keeping it according to Your Word”
This Psalmist has learned that the path of purity in his life is the path that the Bible prescribes. It is NOT the path that the world tells us to live. It is not to pick up the habits and the pursuits of the unruly and disobedient around us. It is to adopt the ways of Scripture and live according to its instruction.
He says, “by keeping it according to Your Word”
That word “keep” means “to watch over” or “to guard”
We are to be like guards HOLDING OUR LIVES UP BESIDE THE WORD OF GOD CONSTANTLY TO KEEP OURSELVES IN LINE WITH IT.
We are to guard what goes into our minds, and what we allow our eyes to see and ears to hear. We are to guard our hearts and not allow ourselves to be attached to things or people that have no place in our lives.
We are to guard our decisions, thinking seriously and carefully about every step of the way because the Christian life is a constant battle and will take every opportunity it gets to conform you into its mold.
I’m going to give you four principles this morning that will help you keep your life according to the Word: And they are not suggestions! These are not things for the super godly people. They are essentials for every believer who is serious about their walk with Christ.
#1) WE MUST HAVE A FULLY DEVOTED HEART TO GOD!
#1) WE MUST HAVE A FULLY DEVOTED HEART TO GOD!
With all my heart I have sought You; Do not let me wander from Your commandments.
“With ALL MY HEART or with my WHOLE-HEART as some translations have it”
Students, what God wants is all of you! It is not the call to Christianity to give God part of our life, or even most of our life, but our whole heart to God.
He wants to be the One that you seek to please while you’re here at school, He wants to be the One who you pursue when you are at home, He wants to be the One you seek to please in your relationships, He wants to be the One you seek to please in your private life…in the way that you interact toward others, God wants a whole hearted devotion towards Him!
A whole hearted devotion to God has no reservations. It does not come to the Word of God and look at the options to see whether or not they are worth obeying.
It does not come to the commands of God and compare them to the demands of this world dividing our allegiance.
To be whole hearted is to have already made up our mind that we will obey God and seek God above everything else no matter what situation we find ourselves in.
Here’s the thing about God, if He can’t have our whole heart, He’ll have none of it. God will not settle for second place, nor will He settle for part-time devotion, nor will He settle for anything less than everything.
Jesus said, Matthew 22:37 “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’”
If he cant have it all, He will haver none of it
Satan on the other hand, he will be happy to settle for just a little part of your life….because he knows if he can get a little, then your heart is divided and he will eventually get it all.
So he tempts us with a relationship with someone who does not walk with the Lord, or he tempts us to take a puff off a cigarette, or he tempts us to begin cussing jus a little, or to run after money and success…..a little sin here and there, until eventually we have completely drifted away from God altogether, and he is nothing more than a memory of our younger self.
The second part of this verse says this: “Do not let me wander from Your commandments”
What this Psalmist recognizes is that his ability to obey God and live a pure life cannot be done on his own!
He’ll never make it.
He’ll never defeat all the temptations on his own! What he needs is a helping hand from God.
And do you know who God helps?
Those who are are wholeheartedly commited to Him.
You don’t have to be the most disciplined person, you don’t have to understand every detail of the Bible, you don’t have to go to seminary or be ministry leader at all….all you have to do is be whole-heartedly committed to God, and He will keep you from wandering from His commands.
#2) WE MUST TREASURE THE WORD OF GOD
#2) WE MUST TREASURE THE WORD OF GOD
Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.
To treasure God’s Word means that we store it up in our hearts and value it like treasure
Job 23:12 “I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.”
Job said to him, God’s Word was more essential than the very food that sustained his physical life.
He rightly understood that one of the greatest treasures known to the human race was that we have in our possession the very Words of Almighty God.
Jesus said, Matthew 4:4 ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ ””
I want to give you a practical way you can treasure the Word in your heart
Read it daily and memorize it!
I don’t mean memorize the whole Bible word for word, but memorize the truths that you discover as you study the Bible.
We did a series through the book of Proverbs about a year ago and we challenged each other to memorize the Proverbs that stood out to us.
And it is amazing how God during that time would recall those Proverbs that we committed to memory during specific times in our life when we needed that wisdom.
That may seem like that is asking a bit much! I mean what is this fourth grade math?
If you treasure the Word, you’ll love to memorize the Word!
Why does the psalmist say he treasures the God’s Word? “That I may not sin against You”
God’s Word doesn’t do us very much good if we have to go and dig through it to find direction on how we are tom respond in every situation.
Temptation to sin often catches us when we are not expecting it. And almost always, we are called to respond at that very time and there is no time to reference the Bible.
But when God’s Word is in our hearts, day and night, we are putting truths in there, one after another committing them to memory…. and the that temptation to sin against God confronts us, the Holy Spirit will bring those verses to mind and guard our way.
3) WE MUST HAVE A TEACHABLE SPIRIT
3) WE MUST HAVE A TEACHABLE SPIRIT
Blessed are You, O Lord; Teach me Your statutes.
There is a difference in simply knowing what the Bible says, and understanding how to use it in our lives.
It’s not enough to simply read the Bible, or even memorize the Bible, but we also must understand the truth and implications of Scripture and what they are calling us to do!
How do we do this? The same way the Psalmist did, HE ASKED GOD TO TEACH HIM.
Before we ever open up the Word, before we step into a sanctuary to hear the Word preached, before we come into chapel to hear a message,
we should be saying, “Blessed are You, O Lord, teach Me Your statutes!” What do you want me to learn from You today? Please fill Me with Your knowledge and wisdom!
James said, “But if any of you alacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and 1without reproach
But to haver a teachable spirit will require us to humble ourselves like a child
Do you know how we are to approach the Bible? Like a little child reading it for the first time. With anticipation ready to receive and learn and correct any behavior that the Bible condemns. Like a child with a clean slate, no presuppositions, crying out to God, “Blessed are You O Lord, Teach Me Your Statutes”
The Bible never gets old with that mindset. God will teach us, if we will be teachable.
(v 13-14) “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.
Do you know what he has learned here? He has learned that the Word of God can do things for him that money could never do.
That he can REJOICE in having the Word of God “as much as in all riches”!
The Bible can transform your character and give you a clean pure heart, money cannot do that
The Bible can give you wisdom to live a fulfilling and satisfying life that most people would envy, money cannot do that.
The Bible can also open our eyes to see and behold the Son of God who died for the sins of the world and gives us eternal life, money cannot do that.
4) a future commitment
4) a future commitment
I’ll close with this:
Psalm 119:15–16 (NASB95)
I will meditate on Your precepts And regard Your ways. I shall delight in Your statutes; I shall not forget Your word.
I will mediate on Your precepts
I shall delight in Your statues
I shall not forget Your word!!
I love the ending of this Psalm. He begins by expressing his devotion to God’s Word. All in past tense verbs. But then he changes and makes a pledge of what he will do moving into the future.
I will meditate on Your precepts
I shall delight in Your statutes
I shall not forget Your Word!
Students, this is what I am asking you to do today. Make a commitment, a pledge, moving forward from here… that you will keep your way pure according to God’s Word.
And maybe you are here today, and you don’t know where to start. And you have not kept your way pure, You have not been whole heartedly committed to the Lord….you have never even opened the Word of God…
Then You must begin with Jesus
Come to Jesus .
Come and give your life to Jesus.
Walk away from all your sin, and place your faith in the Son of God!
Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.”
~PRAYER~
