The Pure Pursuit of Purity | Psalm 119

Psalm 119:9-16

Psalm 119 verses 9 to 16, “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’ve 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 statues; I will not forget your word.”

So that stanza there, the Beth stanza starts with a question, verse 9, “How can a young man keep his way pure?” So the how question there, it’s more literally translated, with what or by what? It’s kind of asking by what means is a young man gonna keep his way pure. So it’s really here about methodology. The methodology of holiness, the means by which one pursues holiness.

So verse 9, you could really see as the thesis statement of this Beth stanza, Beth, the Hebrew letter for what we call “B.” Okay, so verse 9, it’s really introducing the topic and it’s in a manner that’s typical of wisdom literature, kind of a question/answer format. So question: how can a young man keep his way pure? Answer: by guarding it according to your word.

Now let’s start with this thesis statement. “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.” Whenever you see the joining together of, young man with pure way, and a concern about a young man and purity, what immediately comes to your mind. What do we assume that the psalmist is talking about when we think about young men and purity? Sexual purity seems to be the issue that immediately pops into everybody’s mind whether male or female.

There is a strong hormonal impulse in a young man’s body that we all understand just by observation or having lived through it, that is not yet, due to maturity, due to age, not yet bridled and restrained by self-discipline and self-control. That’s characteristic of young people. And leads them into the folly of sexual sin. Here’s what John Calvin says, talks about the, what he calls quote, “the carnal propensities being very powerful in youth requiring a double restraint.”

So we can see the passions of youth are probably hotter, stronger, maybe more impulsive, less restrained, less guarded than when you get older. That’s just a natural fact of life. So the psalmist aims this instruction here at the young with all their attendant and powerful temptations, as well as the inherent liability that the young have of being young, of being inexperienced. Simple, not being dumb, but being naïve, inexperienced. So the simple needs wisdom, needs to learn and in order to gain wisdom, there must be the fear of the Lord and there must be restraint on the mind.

Calvin goes on to say, “We may reason from the greater to the less, for if the law of God possesses the power of restraining the impetuosity of youth, so as to preserve pure and upright all who take it for their guide, then assuredly when they come to maturity, and their irregular desires are considerably abated, it will prove the best antidote for correcting their vices.” So that’s just a long way of saying if God’s Word is powerful enough to bridle the young, how much more so will it be effective for taming the old?

So, as we said, the first thing that comes to mind when you put together, young man and purity, is you think about sexual purity. You think of it in context of sexual purity. I would say that’s probably the case in any age, in any time, especially so in our pornified age, our heightened sense of sexual immorality here in our culture. But though the sexual purity is clearly addressed by this verse, that is not the only matter of purity that’s in the psalmist’s mind.

Notice how the psalmist asks here, opening up the first statement, “How can a young man keep his way pure?” This is the word orah. The literal word for a pathway or a stretch of road that’s ahead of you. Figuratively, it refers to the way ahead, the way forward, one’s direction, one’s path. This is about the behavior someone’s gonna demonstrate in their life ahead of them.

So sexual purity is not the only purity that the psalmist is concerned about here, it’s just one subset of a larger, moral, ethical universe, moral, ethical behavior. This here is about an all encompassing moral purity, walking along a clean, pure, clear, moral and ethical pathway in life. God wants the whole heart. He doesn’t just want the part of the heart that is seeking to gratify some lustful desire. We’re to love the Lord our God with what? All of our what? Heart and soul and mind and strength. Right? Deuteronomy 6:5.

So God’s desire for the whole of our soul demands a whole souled pursuit to repent in everything, to work out obedience in everything. John Owen provides some really helpful counsel about wholehearted, whole souled repentance. And first he writes this, “Without sincerity and diligence in a universality of obedience,” that is, you could say it in another way, “an all-encompassing commitment to obedience, there is no mortician of any one perplexing lust to be obtained.”

And then Owen continues to describe what so many face, those who are subdued by a particular lust or a particular sin, that it is a powerful, strong, tumultuating, leads captive vexes,” he’s talking about the sin, right, the sin itself. “It vexes, disquiets, takes away peace. He’s not able to bear it, wherefore he sets himself against it, prays against it, groans under it, sighs to be delivered.

But in the meantime perhaps in other duties, in constant communion with God, in reading, prayer, meditation, in other ways that are not of the same kind with the lust wherewith he is trouble. He is loose and negligent. Let not that man think that ever he shall arrive to the mortification of the lust; he is perplexed with all.”

Why is that? Why doesn’t God deliver one who is that focused, that intent, that fastidious, that diligent in rooting himself of that perplexing, troubling sin? Doesn’t God care for him? Here’s what Owen said. He says, “This kind of endeavor for mortification,” and he’s talking about the endeavor of pursing repentance or mortification of one particular issue. He says, “This kind of endeavor for mortification proceeds from a corrupt principle, ground, and foundation, so that it will never proceed to a good issue.

Hatred of sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting, a sense of the love of Christ in the cross lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification. Now it is certain that that of which I speak proceeds from self-love.” Think about that. You’re trying to do a good thing, right? Killing a sin. But really if you don’t do it from a general or a comprehensive concern for all righteousness, whole-hearted obedience, then your mortification is a fleshly endeavor that proceeds from self-love.

I’ve taken the time to explain all that and read that quote from John Owen not only to help those who might be con, feeling overcome by a particular sin issue, but more immediately for our purposes to help you see that the concern of verse 9, that thesis verse for this stanza is wider reaching and more deeply concerned about universal obedience. About our repentance from all sin. About obeying in whole of the way before us.

So the one who cares to pursue God only for some of his benefits is in the end gonna fail to find God or any of his benefits. Verse 9 is not written by, to, or about those who pursue God for what they can get out of it. The entire Psalm is written about those and to those who care only to know God, to please him in obedience, and to do so by not sinning, but by living righteously and according to God’s revealed Word. That’s who this psalm is for. That’s who wrote this psalm.

So notice how verse 9, this whole thing assumes a goal that the continual pursuit of a morally pure lifestyle is what life is about. So when it says, “How can a young man keep his way pure,” and when we think about our way being the road ahead of us, our future, what life is about, all our ambitions, all our hope, all our involvement in whatever is gonna be in the future. It’s not about a job. It’s not about place. It’s not about situation, station in life. It’s not about finances. It’s not ambitions. It’s not about climbing some ladder. It’s not about stuff.

Moral purity before God. Pure holiness, that is the goal of life for someone who’s in pursuit of knowing God. And we can be sure, as Jesus said, Matthew 6:33, that those “who seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, in addition, all these other things will be added to you, as well.” That’s another reason why the psalmist here frames the question in terms of the purity of a young person’s way. The verb that’s translated there “to keep his way pure,” is zaka, is the verb. It normally means to be clean or pure or clear. So not just to be clean, but to make clean. Not just to be clear or pure, but to make or keep clean and pure.

So the answer to the opening question here is simple, concise, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to your word, by guarding it according to your word.” So it’s the standard by which we’re measured, but it’s also the means by which we meet the standard. God’s word is both law and grace. What’s commanded by the righteous will of God and the grace of God to get us there. So the psalmist lays down a fundamental principle of sanctification, to perfectly keep one’s path in line with God’s word, that will guarantee moral purity.

So let’s look at how the rest of the stanza unpacks and it’s three things here, three body parts, you might say. How the psalmist has devoted his heart, his lips, and his eyes to the goal of pursuing purity. I’m gonna give you three foundational commitments here that’ll inform your pursuit of purity. First, commitment, number one, a seek God with a pure heart. This where the pursuit of purity begins in verses 10 and 11, “With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I’ve stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” Twice you can see there a reference to the heart, which is the fundamental issue in sanctification. That is the battleground in sanctification. You win the battle in the heart; you win the battle in the life.

The Bible uses the word heart to refer to the life of the inner man. So if you just think of your inner self, all that makes you you on the inside, immaterial you, that’s what the word heart biblically is. The biblical view of heart is more in line, actually, with modern science, than Hallmark is. It’s not just a feeling instrument. In fact, it’s not really that at all.

When the Bible, biblical language, Hebrew, Greek, both refer to feeling, it more refers to what you have in the guts. And we actually feel that. When you feel troubled, you kind of feel it in the guts. When you feel excited, you kind of feel it here. You know? And so we understand that figuratively. And the heart, then, is the command center of the soul. It’s the seat of man’s rational functions. The heart is where we want, it’s where we desire, it’s where we plan, will, choose, decide things, which is why it symbolizes the focus of one’s entire life.

So what the psalmist has done here is to take every impulse and affection and decision of his own heart and bind them all together with the same bridle and bit and then he drives his heart toward God. “With my whole heart I seek you.” Now some of us think, and this is again back to that American view of the heart where we fall in love. No responsibility for it. I just couldn’t help myself. I fell in love. And then we wonder why people fall out of love.

But we have this sense that our feelings, and our emotions, and everything, they just kind of go where they go. But the Bible tells us, no. According to regenerate frame of mind, if you are born again, you have the ability not to go where your heart thinks it wants to go, but to actually command your heart. Tell it what to do, tell it what to think, tell it what to desire. And that’s really what the psalmist has done here. He’s taken every impulse, affection, decision, desire of his heart, he’s bound them all together with the same bridle. He drives that heart toward God. “With my whole heart,” verse 10, “I seek you.”

That verb daras conveys and intense pursuing of something that’s desired. So it’s something longed for, it’s deeply wanted, and, in this case, it is you, O God. It’s you. “With my whole heart I seek you.” Again, not after something, he’s after someone. A person. He’s in pursuit of God himself. And that’s why what takes his prayer from a confession to something God knows, to a petition, “with my whole heart I seek you.” And then that petition “so let me not wander from your commandments.”

Can you think of times you’ve prayed prayers like that? “Let me not wander from your commandments,” but in all honesty your prayers are not quite whole-hearted. In other words, you want the larger principle, “let me not wander,” as long as we don’t have to deal with getting too specific about that. Like thinking about all the concrete issues involved in working out righteousness in the particulars and the concrete issues. As long as we don’t need to get too detailed about all those pesky commandments.

So we pray about the bigger things, “O God, make me holy.” But if making me holy means you can no longer do this, go there, have that friend, do this thing, that we’re not so concerned about thinking too carefully about, right? Since we know that we all pray these “Let me not wander from your commandments,” kind of prayers, in light of these two verses, verse 10 and 11, how can we see that the prayer of the psalmist is truly genuine and sincere?

It’s because of what he confesses to God here in prayer in the next verse. He says, “I’ve store up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” So what is he doing here? He’s confessing to God what only God can know. Namely two things, number one, his pattern of behavior, storing up God’s word, which is number two, driven by his internal motives, his intentions to what? Not sin. You talk about it in the general. So to not sin. Period. Not just that particular sin, that pesky issue, that thing I don’t like the consequences of, that thing I’m embarrassed by. No, everything. To not sin.

So this first part here is a positive inducement to sanctification, to the pursuit of purity, to the heart of God himself. Because he treasures the words of promise that his God has made to him. So don’t miss the insistence of the psalmist that we see his pursuit of purity in terms of a relationship here, in terms of knowing his God in the beauty of holiness.

You’ve made promises in your word about even the outcome. “I have stored these things up in my heart.” I just keep piling them up. Second, his constant practice of storing up God’s word in his heart, that habit is driven by, there, internal motives, his intention to not sin against God. He does not want to sin against the one he loves. It’s like a husband and a wife. They don’t want to sin against each other; they love each other. It’s like your children. You don’t want to sin against them; you love your children. How much more so here with God.

So why is there such an exacting concern here to fastidious obedience to God? Why so careful? Don’t even want to miss the mark in just even a hair’s breadth. And again the concern here is for the relationship, “that I might not sin against you.” There’s a commentator Will Soll says, “It must not be concluded here that the psalmist here was speaking merely of memorization. It’s not just memorization since understanding and personal transformation, not knowledge and memory, are the issue here.” Now if you’re gonna have understanding and personal transformation, what do you need? Knowledge and memory. You know and memorize, you study and understand in order that you can understand God and you can be transformed, to become conformed to him.

In the middle of the psalmist’s prayer, he is all-in, whole souled seeking, his word treasuring, sin abasing, confession to God, he prays that prayer, “Let me not wander from your commandments.” Why does he pray that prayer? Didn’t we just say that keeping our path perfectly in line with God’s word would guarantee moral purity? So since the course is clear before us, why do we pray this, “Let me not wander.”

The psalmist’s petition here, he betrays something we all know about our own hearts, we’re “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” And the psalmist’s prayer anticipates him really succumbing to what’s warned against in Proverbs 19:27, “Cease to hear instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.” It is a guarantee. Cease to hear instruction, stop listening to the words, stop in your Bibles, don’t be about the daily disciplines of Bible reading and prayer. It’s not, you might have a bad day, you might lose your temper once in a while. No! You will stray from words of knowledge, guaranteed because of what we are fundamentally.

So seek God, first point, seek God with a pure heart. Second foundational commitment in pursuing purity of life, number two, praise God with pure lips, verses 12 to 13, “Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statues! With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.” So the prayer here continues with an expression of praise, another petition, and then a commitment to praise.

Once again, we need to see that the pursuit of purity is not a moralistic issue. Really, the concern for purity is a concern for God, wanting him, wanting to please him, wanting to know him. So the pursuit of purity, we might say the pure pursuit of purity is a theological issue. It has a Theo-centric goal, that is to know and love and worship God. It’s a pursuit that’s grounded solely in and fixed whole heartedly upon a redeemed, living, vital relationship with the true and living God.

Notice here how private devotion turns into public praise in verse 13. So you got verse 12, “Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statues!” He’s the disciple and God’s the discipler. He’s the student; God’s the teacher. There’s this intimate devotional joyful relationship, private devotion here, but it turns into public praise. Verse 13, “With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.” It could be, rehearse, recite. All these words, I’m gonna talk about ‘em.

notice the connection between the private and the public spheres of devotion to God. There is a reciprocating relationship between the two. And every genuine-hearted believer is attendant to both of these things. How would you describe someone who praises God in private, who has great morning devotions over coffee, but never speaks of him to anybody else? A coward, disobedient. Cowardice is a issue of obedience and disobedience, isn’t it? When God says, Go speak, and you say, I’m too scared, what are you? Disobeying him. Doesn’t really matter what the reason is.

So you bring it into an issue of obedience and disobedience, what does that mean about your devotion to God? It means that you claim to love God, but you don’t do what he says. I don’t care how fulfilling your devotions were if you’re not actually doing and obeying and pursuing obedience to what he said, that’s a very thin claim, isn’t it?

If you’re a Christian, you’re excited about your God. Unless you’re anemic and you have no Bible flowing through you. Both of these spheres of devotion, private and public, have to remain connected, otherwise they all, they both fall apart.

So in view of the need of a pure hearted disciple to worship God in private and in public, in light of how often our speech is foolish and unprofitable speech, the psalmist prays, “Teach me your statues.” You’re God, I’m your dependent disciple, teach me and I will praise you, both in private and in public.

So, seek God with a pure heart, praise God with pure lips, finally, third commitment, see God with pure eyes. Final section, verses 14 to 16. It goes from the heart to the lips and now the eyes. “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 statues; I will not forget your word.”

Three short verses, notice a repetition of terms. The word, delight, used twice. The word, way, used twice in reference to God’s ways. And then several terms referring to Scripture there, testimonies, precepts, statutes, word. Take the concepts of delight, God’s ways, God’s word, and then notice the comparative there in verse 14, “as much as in all riches.” All wealth. All sufficiency of anything I need.

Derek Kidner says, “Persistent theme is in the delight these sayings bring. The first reference to this, verses 14 to 16, set the tone of much that follow all the way through the psalm by the words that they use for delight and the comparison of Scripture with the riches it outshines. This is not merely a scholar’s pleasure, but a disciple’s pleasure, whose joy is in obedience, that is in the way of testimonies.” God made us. He designed us to delight in what our eyes see.

But so often our eyes suffer from the malady of distraction, of bad valuation, wrong valuation, which is a matter of our heart informing the organ of our sight. Okay, so that’s why Jesus said, Matthew 6:22, 23, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.” You’ll make proper valuations; you’ll make proper judgments. You’ll value what you ought to value and devalue what you shouldn’t be interested in.

But verse 23, “If your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. And if then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” In case anyone misses the point, Jesus went on to take it one step further, make the connection really clear. He’s talking about money. He’s talking about stuff. Verse 24, “No one can serve two masters, he’ll either hate the one, love the other, be devoted to the one, despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

We can never let money, stuff, or the advantages that influence of money and stuff can get for us, we can never let that have our hearts. But there are so many ways that we become distracted from this. We need to keep asking the question, what is my heart wanting? What does my heart desire? And then the follow up question. Is that want, is that desire godly or ungodly?

So what does that require us to do? Value the judgment of God’s word. So after several positive affirmations of commitment here, “I will mediate,” “I will fix my eyes,” “I will delight,” he ends with a negative commitment, “I will not forget your word.” Biblically we need to see that when it comes to God and his word, remembering and forgetting are moral issues. No one can stand before God claim an exception to obedience for a bad memory. God doesn’t accept that.

One commentator said, “In the Old Testament, to forget God means much more than inability to remember. It can be described as a guilty forgetfulness or being false to his covenant and as turning to other gods.” That’s why you hear repeatedly from Moses throughout the book of Deuteronomy, “You must always remember and never,” what? “never forget.” But the question is am I really going to make that a priority. And that’s what God requires; to make him a priority so that we never forget. And that’s why he says, “I will not forget your word.” I, he’s basically saying, “I’m prioritizing you above every other commitment, every other concern, every other thing that my eyes see.”