How can I be better than I am?

How can I be better than I am? Psalm 119: 1-16 John 4: 28-30, 39-42 "If it was possible what one thing would you do to improve on yourself?" That might well be the question that we'd find headlining an article on any social media sight, or popular magazine today. And it would perhaps be followed by a number of suggestions put forward by some well-known people, something that they feel is lacking about themselves. Something which, be it part of their appearance or their personality, would improve, they believe, the person that they are. It might, for example, be that they'd like to be more understanding of people, more patient, or it might simply be that expensive nose job which they've been thinking about for a while now. And I guess it would be an article that its readers would find interesting, because probably most of us at times look at ourselves critically and think: 'yes, I wish I could improve on this or that' or 'if only I could add those things to the person that I am, then I'd get on much better'. Because probably we've all at times wondered what it would be like to be someone else - someone better than we are. We've asked ourselves the question - "How can I be happier with myself, and with my life, than I am now?" And aspiring to be better than we are in a way is no bad thing because, after all, there's always room for improvement. However the important thing, surely, is how we answer our question. Because being dissatisfied with our self can be a stimulus to improvement, but it can also lead to deep dissatisfaction which gives rise to feelings of low self-esteem, of frustration leading perhaps depression. Now someone might say: "Well, being a Christian should prevent this kind of thinking, shouldn't it? It should stop us having these feelings of discontentment and unhappiness with where we are as a person. Because, as a Christian, we know that we've been forgiven, that we've got the Holy Spirit living within us, that we're loved and accepted by our heavenly Father warts and all". But then the truth is that this view of being a Christian is rarely how we find it to be. In fact we find, do we not, that the more we understand of Christ's perfection and of the holiness of God, the more our own failings and weaknesses become clear to us? Because the truth is, of course, that becoming a Christian is only the beginning. It's only then that we begin on the process of sanctification, of the Holy Spirit moulding us ever more fully into the image of Christ. And this process can seem to be terribly slow, and at times very painful. Psalm 119 is by far the longest of the Psalms, 176 verses in all. And it's split up into 22 sections, or stanzas, each of which has 8 verses with each section headed by one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, starting from the beginning and working towards the end. So that we begin with Aleph and Beth, the first two letters of the alphabet, which head the two stanzas that we read. Now it's interesting that the psalmist begins this long psalm by looking at just the question we've been talking about: how to be the best that we possibly can be. But he's not only talking about how to be the best but how to be content with where and who we are as well. So that he speaks about the blessings of the blameless, as the NIV puts it, the state of being which God wants for all his people. After all didn't Jesus begin his Sermon on the Mount by giving us the Beatitudes, a list of the blessings that will come to the one who does all that God wants them to do in their relationships with him and others? So what's the secret; how do we get these blessings? Well verse 1 tells us: those who are blessed, those who are happy, says the psalmist, are the people who're walking according to the law of the Lord; they're those who keep God's commands, who obey him with all their heart, who live in accordance with his ways. Well that's fine and well. The problem though is that, as he points out these truths, he's rightly aware that, whilst it's all very well to know what he should be doing, he isn't actually doing it. (Verse 5); "Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees!" He's conscious you see that sometimes he's ashamed when he thinks on what God has commanded him and yet how he behaves. He realises that he's only a learner, verse 7; and he knows that God would be perfectly within his rights if he were to simply give up on him. And so he cries out, in verse 9, the beginning of the next section: "How can a young man keep his way pure?" Someone who wants to live right, who wants to know God's blessings, who wants to know that peace and satisfaction with their lot that Jesus was later to say he'll give to his followers, how can such a person achieve this, when there're so many negative forces about to stop them? And we're reminded of Paul's description of his own struggle to do what was right in God's eyes in his letter to the Church in Rome (Romans chapter 7 from verse 21) where he says: "When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" So how can we live right? Well, the psalmist knows the answer which is why, straight away, he tells himself: "By living according to your word". Words have such a power to affect us, to influence our lives, don't they? Certainly the old school yard jingle goes: 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me'. But we all know that that's a lot of nonsense. It's true that physical violence can injure us or even end our lives, but the reality is that a word can have a far greater effect. It can totally transform a life, it can build up a person's confidence or it can bring it crashing down. And there are many people who still bear the scars caused by a word being used against them sometime in the past, in anger or with the intention to hurt. And maybe we can remember saying something to someone ourselves and wished afterwards, when we noticed the expression on their faces, that we'd kept silent ... but by then it was too late, the damage was done. Or perhaps we're able to think back to a time, or times, when someone, by speaking just a few simple words, has encouraged, strengthened, or opened our eyes to the possibilities that lay before us. Perhaps it was a beloved parent, grandparent, treasured friend. The one who, when we doubted ourselves, said to us: "you can do it"! Yes, we all know that in our daily lives words are extremely powerful. So how much more powerful, then, must be God's word to change, to influence, to transform our lives, and that for good? And yet how unwilling people are to hear it, to take it seriously, to learn from it and to respond to it. Even within the Church God's word so often is treated only very lightly, or else it's used in ways that hinder and bind, to judge, to criticise and undermine rather than build up and set individuals free to live as God would have them. Not so for the author of Psalm 119. For him God's word is everything, it's the way to keep pure, it's the key to protection against sin. Just as it was for Paul who saw that the Living Word, Christ Jesus himself, was the only answer to the power of sin within him. "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" he cried; and then he concluded "Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!" God through the "Word made flesh", he realised, has provided the way. And so the psalmist, recognising the great value of God's word, is determined to make sure that he makes it central to his life saying (from verse 10): "I seek you with all my heart". Indeed, he says: "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you". He has God's word, the Scriptures, before him. The information necessary to lead a life that will bring happiness to him is there. Now however, he realises, he needs to live according to it, with the Lord's help, as he prays: "keep me from disobeying your commands", "teach me your ways". And to do that, to live according to God's word, the psalmist knows that that word must become so important in his thinking that it will be as if it's become a part of him. And that's because he understands that God, through his Word, is concerned with building a Holy people made up of individuals who display a pure and Godly character, a character that's shaped by his word. Too often Christians have allowed themselves to think of the effect of God's Word on their lives in terms of a set of rules, a code of conduct that must be kept if they're to be true followers of their Lord. Whilst to some this has seemed to be a cramping of the freedom that we now enjoy in Christ, and so they've reacted by going in the opposite direction, saying that what really matters isn't what the Bible says but rather that we live "authentic Christian lives", meaning that we live as the Spirit leads us individually. The trouble is that in both cases God's word is being used wrongly. On the one hand it's been made too rigid and on the other it's been made too flexible. No what should be our position, as the psalmist recognises, is that we become so steeped in God's word, the whole of it, that we realise just how wonderful and perfect it is. So that we begin to see that the Bible is like a treasure trove to be delighted in and to be plundered as often and as fully as we're able. Because like our words to each other, but much more so, the Word of God works by getting inside us and changing us, by opening up our thinking to how we might live more fulfilled lives in His service. So that we might try things for him that we never before thought we were capable of, as he reveals more and more of his will, for us, and for his people the church. Graham Kendrick in his hymn declares: 'Send forth your word, Lord, and let there be light' and that's precisely what God is doing. But we need to be listening to him, storing up what we hear and acting upon it. We need to be reading God's word. We need to be committing all that we learn to the deepest recesses of our memory, so that it becomes our guide, so that it becomes part of us, in the way that what we eat and drink becomes part of us. Because when God's word is truly doing its work then we're not being made into a shape that doesn't suit us, though it might suit someone else. We're not finding that our style is being cramped. Rather we find ourselves becoming ever more all that we were made to be, all that God wants us to be. As Paul tells us again, this time in Romans chapter 12, we find ourselves becoming transformed by the renewing of our minds. And, as we've seen that Paul understood, Christ Jesus is central to all this, Christ on the cross is central, because it was there that he confirmed the truth that God's word, and God's word alone, has the power to transform our lives so that we're no longer struggling with the question: "what do I do to improve myself?" whilst finding no satisfactory answer. Christ himself, we know, was steeped in Scripture. Right from an early age we know that he argued in the temple of Jerusalem with the learned teachers of law amazing them and those who heard him with his own grasp of the true meaning of his Father's word's to them. Then his public ministry was all about revealing God's word, showing that the scribes and Pharisees, with their rigid rules, had got it wrong but that nevertheless not one word of God's law will be removed until all that he's planned for his creation is accomplished. And in the process he went about opening eyes that were blind, healing bodies and hearts that were sick, and setting many free from chains that had long bound them. Like no other was ever able to do, he sought the Lord with all his heart, he did nothing wrong, he walked in his Fathers ways, he was totally obedient to God's word to him, fulfilling all God's words of prophesy concerning him. He was "obedient to death - even death on a cross" (Philippians 2 verse 8). And there as he hung, and as he said his final words: "it is finished", Jesus demonstrated just how powerful, powerful beyond imagination, is the word of God to transform our lives. As he who is God's word, God's communicating of himself to us clothed in flesh, took upon himself our sin exchanging his righteousness for our sin, a gift to be received where we accept it as being the answer to our own recognition of our need for it. And for that of course we need to be listening, and then we're to keep on listening to God's word. When Jesus was on the Mount of transfiguration with three of his disciples this was exactly what the Father said to them about him; he said, "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!" So let's listen to Christ, to God's word spoken through Christ in the Old as well as the New Testament, he who was from the beginning and became flesh (John chapter 1). Let's hide his words in our hearts, let's meditate on them, let's delight in them, and let's experience his wonderful life transforming power. And then, just as was the case for the woman who Jesus met at the well, we'll find that our words too will become words of transformation as, shaped and energised by His words, they become part of God's work of adding to as well as guiding, warning, encouraging and building up God's people. Let's strive to live according to God's word and no one else's. Then we will know peace, then we will know satisfaction with who and where we are. Amen