[0:00] Open your Bibles with me please to the Psalm, the Great Psalm, Psalm 119.
[0:10] ! Each verse of the second section starts with the Hebrew letter Beth.
[0:35] So what we would call B, but Beth is the Hebrew letter. It's also the word for house. So Beth, like Bethlehem, right? The house of bread. So Beth, so verses 9, we'll be looking this morning at verses 9 to 16, the purifying power of God's Word.
[0:56] So if you're able, please stand as I read. In fact, I think I'll read from the beginning, verse 1, Psalm 119, 1 through 16. And by the way, I'm reading from the New American Standard, which is only slightly different from the ESV, so you'll just notice a word or two different.
[1:19] Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who observe His testimonies, who seek Him with all their heart.
[1:33] They also do no unrighteousness. They walk in His ways. Thou hast ordained Thy precepts, that we should keep them diligently. Oh, that my ways may be established to keep Thy statutes.
[1:50] Then I shall not be ashamed when I look upon all Thy commandments. I shall give thanks to Thee with uprightness of heart when I learn Thy righteous judgments.
[2:01] I shall keep Thy statutes. Do not forsake me utterly. How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Thy word.
[2:15] With all my heart I have sought Thee. Do not let me wander from Thy commandments. Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee.
[2:28] Blessed art Thou, O Lord. Teach me Thy statutes. With my lips I have told of all the ordinances of Thy mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of Thy testimonies as much as in all riches.
[2:43] I will meditate on Thy precepts and regard Thy ways. I will delight in Thy statutes. I will not forget Thy word.
[2:56] So it reads, Father, as we walk through these verses again, show us the great power of Your word. Show us how You purify us through Your word.
[3:11] Show us, Father, the treasure that we can store up. And then think through that the truth that we discover can set us free.
[3:23] We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated. So verse 9, the first verse starts talking about purity.
[3:40] How can a young man keep his way pure? Purity. Purity. Purity. Purity. There's a word that's not mentioned much in our culture. Purity. Well, how about us who follow Christ?
[3:56] Is purity important to us? Do we think of it? Do we desire it? Do we fight for it? Proverbs 20 says, Who can say, I have made my heart pure?
[4:08] I am clean from my sin. Who can say? Nobody can say. And if none can say that, they are pure, why try?
[4:23] Why battle for purity if we're just going to lose? Well, because Christ has called us to a higher path. Christ has changed us to want purity.
[4:36] Christ has given us. In fact, in our new birth in Christ, we become pure. We are pure. But how do we walk with that?
[4:48] How do we continue to fight for it? Well, God has not left us to battle for purity on our own as if it's something we attain. He has given us the power of prayer.
[5:01] He's given us His indwelling Spirit. And He's given us the purifying power of His Word. And as we look at Psalm 119, this is the great theme of the psalm, the Word of God.
[5:17] It's power. So we've seen, right, Psalm 119, the first eight verses, the next eight verses, we see the different synonyms for the Word of God.
[5:30] We see in verse 9, it's called His Word. Verse 10, Thy commandments. Right? Again, verse 11, Thy Word.
[5:40] Verse 12, it's His statutes. Verse 13, it's His ordinances. Verse 14, testimonies. Verse 15, precepts and ways.
[5:51] 16, statutes and words. So there's all these different words, alternate expressions of the same thing, of the Word of God. Some are general.
[6:03] Some are specific. All right? And so, and what we discovered last week in the first couple of verses is that the Word of God, the purpose of God's Word, God's law, is to reveal our sinfulness.
[6:22] Right? Paul tells us the purpose of the law reveals our sin because we can't keep it because we're unable. And that's the purpose. So in verse 1, you know, how blessed are those whose way is blameless.
[6:36] Well, who's blameless? Right? Verse 3, they also do no unrighteousness. They walk in His ways. Well, who does no unrighteousness? Right? Verse 4, thou hast ordained thy precepts that we should keep them diligently.
[6:50] So who's diligent? All the time. Right? Certainly by God's strength, by God's power, by prayer, we can be diligent. We can focus on the Word.
[7:00] We can get the help of the Lord to do it. And that's why we see in verse 5, He's crying out for help. Oh, that my ways may be established. The writer of the psalm knows that His ways aren't on His own.
[7:14] So He's crying out. Oh, that my ways may be established. Then, then I'll not be ashamed. Right? Then I'm not ashamed. And then verse 8, right?
[7:27] I shall keep, there's a humble resolve to keep His statutes. I shall keep Thy statutes. And in the next breath, do not forsake me utterly. So here the psalmist knows his vulnerability.
[7:39] He knows his own weakness. He's not trusting in himself. He wants to follow the Lord. He wants to walk on that path because it is a path of blessing by the Lord.
[7:50] But he knows he needs help. So we've seen that. Now, in this next section, we're looking at the concept of purity.
[8:00] The purifying power of God's Word. How can God's Word become a purifying power in our lives? How do we unlock that?
[8:11] Well, I think there's two key practices mentioned in these verses. In verses 9 to 11. In verse 11, he mentions, I have treasured Thy Word in my heart.
[8:23] I have stored it up. I have memorized it, in other words. It's, I've locked it away in my heart so I can use it. I've stored it up like a treasure.
[8:35] And then secondly, what do we do with that when we have it in our heart? What do we do with it? So verse 15 talks about, I will meditate. I will meditate.
[8:45] So he goes from memorization, storing it up, to meditation, which in a Christian biblical sense is not emptying your mind, but filling your mind with the Word, thinking it through, ruminating on it, musing on it, turning it over and over in our minds.
[9:06] But how do we do that unless we have it in our mind, right? How do we have it in our heart? So those two practices, I think, are the ways that we unlock the power of God's Word. So let's look at the first one, memorization, or as he says in verse 11, storing up God's Word in our hearts.
[9:26] So notice in these three verses, verse 9, 10, and 11, they go together. They're talking about, you know, how can a young man keep his way pure answer by keeping it according to thy Word.
[9:40] Then he goes to prayer. With all my heart I have sought thee, do not let me wander. And then back, verse 11, to the Word. Thy Word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against thee.
[9:50] Now, verse 9 and 11 are often linked together. They'll, you know, in memorization packs, when people memorize, they will memorize verse 9. How can a young man keep his way pure?
[10:01] By keeping it according to thy Word. They skip down to verse 11. Thy Word I have treasured in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. But what did they skip? Verse 10.
[10:14] Verse 10's the power. Verse 10's the how I do it. The prayer, I'm seeking God, and I'm asking Him, right? Verse 10, don't let me wander, right?
[10:28] If the key to purity is keeping His Word and treasuring His Word in my heart, that I don't sin. But I have a tendency to wander, right?
[10:38] As we sing in the hymn, right? Prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love. I love that God. I love God. But I have this old man. I have this old tendency.
[10:48] I have this old sin nature that's still there. I have a new nature, too, and there's that battle, right? So I pray. That's the power.
[11:00] So verse 9 is the principle, right? Verse 10 is the priority of prayer, and then verse 11 is the practice of meditation. So the principle in verse 9, how do we keep the Word?
[11:12] It's written, how can a young man keep his way pure? You could also translate that, how can a young man make his way pure? Because keep sounds like I'm already pure and I'm just keeping it that way.
[11:26] You know, what if I'm not pure? How do I become pure? How do I now make purity in my heart?
[11:36] How do I remake purity? How do I repurify, right? It's like we pray from Psalm 51. Created me a new, a clean heart, right?
[11:48] Renew in me a right spirit. Sustain me with a willing spirit because those are things I struggle with. So how do I make it clean? How do I become clean? And the answer, verse 9, is by keeping it, by keeping my way according to thy Word.
[12:07] By keeping. The word keep there can also be translated guard. By guarding my way or protecting my way according to God's Word.
[12:18] I give myself to God's Word. Purity is connected to what I do with this tool, this treasure.
[12:29] Keeping watch. It's a habit. I pay attention. So I build a habit. Somehow in your life, how do you do that? How do you build a habit connected to this Word?
[12:43] Right? You set aside time, right? However that works for you, whether that's morning, afternoon, evening. You know, if you're not a morning person, maybe do it in the evening.
[12:57] Or if that's key to you to do it in the morning, because it starts the day. Right? But you build a habit. Keeping watch. Paying attention to it. How does a, how can a young man, and it applies to all of us, how can an old man, I'm an old man now, how can an old man keep his way pure?
[13:18] It's interesting, he says a young man, because he's, I think he's thinking starting out. Boy, if I can start young, you know, a lot of us, if we've become converted, or Christians, or dedicated our lives at an older age, we regret, oh my, you know, I wasted years.
[13:37] Right? I can certainly say there's years that I was rebellious and undisciplined and following my own ways. Right? And I lost those precious years for discipline's sake.
[13:50] Jesus says, he said to the disciples in the upper room in John 15, he said, you are already clean because of the word I've spoken to you. So how do, how do we be clean by the word of God?
[14:04] And Jesus says, the word he speaks to us cleanses us. So it's not just this word, but it's Jesus' words more specifically. He is the word. Right? So, for Christians, we have that start.
[14:18] When he, when we trans, when he converts us, right, he cleanses us. He doesn't just forgive us. He forgives us because he pays the price.
[14:28] But there's also, remember, there's that, that exchange. We give him all our sin. He gives us what? His purity, his righteousness, his holiness. He makes us whole.
[14:40] He changes that for us. So we have this new creation in us that's fighting with that old dog. That's it. That old, the, the, the, the, the, tug of war.
[14:54] Trying to think of an old tenacious. I used to have a bulldog and he was so tenacious. Right? You could, tug of war, man, you can't, he's going to gobble it up on you. In fact, I could swing him around.
[15:05] I don't know. Anyway, he was tenacious and that's what the old man is kind of like, I think, sometimes. And he's like, wow, where did that come from? He just comes back. That old nature, that selfishness, that, uh, escapism, you know, um, it's a fight.
[15:24] So then note the most important part, I think here, not just the word, because if I'm just trying to do it according to the word in my own strength, I will fail. And I will become disillusioned.
[15:37] Um, verse 10, he, he gives the priority. With all my heart, I have sought thee. I seek thee through the word. And then he prays, do not let me wander from thy commandments.
[15:49] So the real power, the real purifying power of the word, the real power is not in our faithfulness to the word. The real power is in our relationship to the Lord.
[16:02] That's the real power. Seeking him with all my heart. All my heart. And by heart, we mean my thoughts and intentions, right? My heart.
[16:13] Um, to seek him with all my heart. That means, uh, uh, I'm deliberate. I'm intentional. I'm seeking him. Something I pursue, uh, and not just that I fall back on when I feel bad.
[16:26] Then he says, do not let me wander. Um, I, I love some of the same songs we sing, you know, where he holds us, uh, hold on to me.
[16:37] Um, that might be a Lauren Daigle, but I love that one too. But there's another one we sing. It talks about, he's holding us. He will hold.
[16:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah. He will hold me fast. I love that because it just, you know, I can only make it because he's, he's praying for me. He's, he's holding me fast, you know, and that encourages me.
[17:01] Um, and then we see the practice. Here's what I wanted to emphasize with prayer. We practice this, this verse 11, this, um, what he calls storing up, or I have treasured thy word in my heart.
[17:15] I stored up thy word in my heart. I've hidden it, concealed it like I would a treasure, right? The, the best translation there will be storing it up.
[17:25] I, I take his word and I store it up in my heart, uh, uh, as a treasure, uh, but it doesn't just sit there as a treasure where it's packed away and it gathers dust.
[17:36] It's for a purpose. It's the same word that to store up or to treasure, to hide, hide thy word. It's the same word that, that, uh, when Moses was born, remember his mother, he hid him, right?
[17:52] From, from Pharaoh, hid him, right? It's the same word for when the spies came into, to Rahab's house, she hid them, right?
[18:03] They didn't stay there hidden. They were there for another purpose. Moses wasn't hidden for his whole life. He's, he's preserved for a purpose. We do the same with our word, the word of God, stored up in our heart.
[18:16] We put it to memory. We internalize it. Why? Verse 11. Why, why would we store up the word in our heart?
[18:27] Which means to memorize it. He says that I may not sin, right? That I may, that's my motivation to keep me from sin, to help me fight sin.
[18:38] I hide the word so I can use it to fight against sin. It, the, the word, the New Testament and the armor of God, what is the word? It's the sword, sword of the spirit, the word of God, right?
[18:52] When Jesus was tempted, what did he, what sword did he use? He used the word. What did he say? It is said, it is written. It is written. It is written. He pulls out that.
[19:03] He has word, words of God memorized, so that when he's tempted, he can use it. Right? Do you have, do you have the word treasured in your heart, so you can fight sin?
[19:17] Right? Right? And, and the armor of God, such a great picture, because we have different, we have faith that protects us against the, the darts of the evil one, because he's, he's throwing stuff to try to get us to doubt, to be discouraged, and we can say, no, no, my Lord has taken care of that, my Lord is with me, no, my Lord will do good out of this trial, on and on.
[19:40] Right? Really powerful words, but I have them in my memory, so that I can say to the devil, because he can't read my mind, I got to say it out loud, I can tell him, no, it is written.
[19:54] It is written. Right? So, so what else is it? Proverbs 2, talks about the wisdom of treasuring, storing up God's word.
[20:06] Solomon is writing to his young son, writing to teach him, to dedicate his life, to be word driven. So, in Proverbs 2, he says, my son, watch what he, the way he talks about dealing with the word.
[20:22] My son, if you receive my words, and treasure up, that's the same word, store up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom, and inclining your heart, right?
[20:34] The heart has to do with inclination. Inclining your heart to understanding, yes, I, if you call out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasure.
[20:50] So, see all those ifs, right? If you receive, if you're attentive, if you incline, right? If you call out, if you seek it, and if you search for it, then, what's the result of all of that?
[21:02] If I give the word that much devotion, what happens? Then you will, here's the surprise. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, because that's the beginning of all wisdom.
[21:15] And, what? You will find the knowledge of God. In other words, you will know God. You will know God. That's, we know God through the word.
[21:26] And it's not just a casual look at the word, but I dig in. I devote myself to it. I, I call out. I want it. I desire it. I devote myself to it. There is great benefit.
[21:41] And, and Solomon says, first and foremost, it's about my relationship with God. That's what I find first and foremost. And then Jesus said, in John 17, 17, Jesus was praying to the father, and he's praying for his disciples, for us.
[21:56] He says, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is true. Sanctify them. What does that mean? Purify them. Cleanse them. Set them apart.
[22:07] Keep them holy. Protect them, right? By the word. The word sanctifies and purifies. Colossians 3, Paul calls us, as the church, to store up the word of Jesus for another purpose, to serve others.
[22:25] So the word of God helps us fight sin. The word of God helps us find God. The word of God cleanses us. And in Colossians 3, listen to this. He says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
[22:35] So how does the word of Christ dwell in us richly? Right? We store it up, right? We're memorizing. We're putting it to our heart. To do what? Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thanksgiving in your hearts to God.
[22:54] So when we store up the word of God, it's so that we can minister to others. We can teach and admonish. Our songs, right, and hymns should be full of the word of God, right?
[23:05] That's what he's saying. Should be rich words of Christ that we sing to one another. That's one of the ways we learn that our singing is not just to God.
[23:18] Sometimes our singing is to each other. Sometimes our singing is to ourself. Right? When the psalmist says, Oh, my soul, right? I'm talking to myself to get myself oriented to God.
[23:30] So songs, we can't say all worship is just, you know, where we speak to God. Much of it is, but some of it recognize we're singing to each other. We're encouraging one another. We're reminding each other.
[23:41] We're admonishing, right? And that's the beauty of worship. That's still worship. So question. Let me test y'all.
[23:54] Do you put the word of God to memory? Are you still doing it? Tell me, okay, you did it as a kid, right?
[24:05] I was in Awanas, and I had to do, you know. How you doing? I'm not here to shame her.
[24:15] I'm just asking the question, because I let it go too. And I know, I know, here's our excuse. Well, I'm too old. That's for kids. Baloney.
[24:28] Baloney. Baloney. Because what's the stuff that you memorize so easily still? Right? It's about a desire and discipline, isn't it?
[24:38] How do I memorize the word? Well, what's your learning style or what learning styles, plural, help you do that? Right?
[24:49] I'm more vision oriented, so I need to write it and see it. That helps me. But I also need to hear it. Right? And I also need to say it. Right?
[24:59] So repeat it, write it out, say it aloud, walk. I find walking and moving helps keep my brain focused. If I sit, I'll kind of wander.
[25:09] Right? So walking. I used to do, when I started memorizing Psalm 119, I would weekly go out. I was in Illinois suffering depression stuff, which I didn't even understand back then.
[25:25] But I just wanted to be revived of spirit and I saw that Psalm 119 did that a lot. Spoke that way. It focused prayers in a way I didn't know how to pray. So I would go out and there was a park nearby.
[25:38] Illinois is kind of flat. Right? Where we lived was Peru, Illinois, so it was a whole different country. But, okay, joke. I was a missionary in Peru, Illinois.
[25:53] So I would drive about a half an hour. There was a place called Starved Rock Park, which is just, you wouldn't know. It went down. Right? It wasn't, no, it was down and then all of a sudden it's just this beautiful area with waterfalls and, I mean, I would walk all around that place and I took my cards with me.
[26:15] Right? I had Psalm 119 written out and I would just go over it and eventually I had the first 40 verses memorized because I was just walking through it.
[26:27] And I'll tell you the other value of that later that when you have it memorized then you can meditate on it. Especially when you're walking and you start praying it and then you stop and go, wait, wait a minute, how did he say that?
[26:39] Why did he say it that way? And you would all of a sudden get insights and applications that I wouldn't get otherwise, that no commentary would give you because you're walking, talking to the Lord.
[26:50] You're speaking his word to him. All right, so let's try it. Verse 9, all right? Verse 9, 10, and 11, real easy to memorize. We'll get this today, right?
[27:02] How's it start? Verse 9. How can a young man keep his way pure by keeping it according to his word? Sorry, I'm going NAS so it might be different from ESV a little bit.
[27:17] The Lord's okay with that? All right, so how can a young man keep his way pure? And living guarding it. Guarding it, keeping it, living according to his word, all that's great.
[27:30] Then verse 10, there's the power. With all my heart I have sought thee. Do not let me wander from my commandments.
[27:41] Now, can you imagine walking and thinking through that verse? With all my heart I have sought thee. Don't let me wander. And I'm walking, wandering, right? And I'm starting to think, okay, don't let me wander from this.
[27:54] And then the last verse, you know this verse, you've heard it. Thy word I have stored up, treasured in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.
[28:07] See how nice and easy that flows? Now, not all of Psalm 119 does that in English. It does it in Hebrew very nicely, but it's hard to translate over. Look at that flow.
[28:21] You know, verse 9 and 11 are about his word. Verse 10, I'm seeking him and clinging to him to not let me wander from that word that I know will keep me from sin.
[28:35] Right? Okay, so you've got three verses down, right? I'll test you at the end. No, huh? Okay, so we put God's word into our heart.
[28:47] We store it up. It becomes the purifying power of his word. We store it up, but then what do we do with it once it's stored up? Well, that's the second practice.
[29:00] We meditate. We use it for battle. We use it to encourage others. We use it for purifying power too, but to meditate.
[29:14] Meditation. What's meditation? Meditation, my simple way of thinking, meditation is the thinking through the implications and applications of the word that I've memorized.
[29:26] I memorize it and then I can meditate. I can think on it. Meditate's not sit cross-legged on the floor and humming or whatever you do.
[29:37] That's Eastern meditation. That's the opposite. That's emptying. What we want to do, we don't want to empty our mind. We want to fill our minds, our hearts. Hebrew always says heart, meaning what we would call mind.
[29:51] Our thinking, to think through, to turn it over and over in our mind as we're thinking through it. He begins in verse 12.
[30:05] Again, another prayer, teach me. Then we'll see the effects of that teaching. If God teaches me, I will do certain things. Verse 12, He prays, teach me, make me to learn.
[30:17] It also means to give me exercise in something. Teaching is very practical. Teach me, Lord, practically how to walk and train me in the word, exercise me in the word. And Jesus said, how does God teach us? What did Jesus tell us? He told us he will give us what? A helper. I'm sorry, I'm pulling up. I know what I'm thinking, but you don't know what I'm thinking. He will give to us a helper who will teach us all these things, who will remind us of the words Jesus brought to us. So we have an indwelling Holy Spirit that's teaching us as we're going through this. So we're not on our own at all. We have a great helper.
[31:07] What is the effect? Verse 13, notice this. Verse 13, two more things, or verse 13 and 14. He says, with my lips, I have told of all the ordinance of my mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches. So when God teaches me what effect does that have on me? I start confessing that word. I profess it. My lips declare. I recount and tell others.
[31:32] Verse 14, I delight. I exult. I praise God's way as much as in all riches, he says. Because the more I'm, the more the Lord opens this up to me, I see its value. I see its rightness, right? So I tell others and then I praise the Lord for it. Thank you for that. Every time he reveals something or reminds me of something, right? And then practice. Verse 15 is where I want to emphasize a little bit. I will meditate. Now he adds, I will meditate and regard thy way. So those two phrases, verse 15, are explaining each other. To meditate is to regard, right? To look upon.
[32:19] To meditate. To meditate means to rehearse, to talk, to occupy our attention. I like the word chew on. Chew on it for a while or percolate. So when I prepare sermons, I break it up. I, I, in Tuesday, I dig into the grammar and the language and all of that stuff, do all that, that study stuff.
[32:43] Wednesdays, I, I then, I then open the commentaries and that, and dialogue with the commentaries. Dialogue with the experts that show me some things I don't see. And then Thursdays, when I, when I try to put it in some outline form, right? And then Saturdays, when I fill out the outline.
[33:02] So, so, but I like to spread it out because then it percolates. Right? If I did it all in one day, I could probably do that. But I don't think I'd get the insights and, and, and, because, because other things come, you know? Other things come during the week. You're, you're thinking about some of these concepts and other things just happen to come and, and the Lord shows you stuff. And so that's the way I do it.
[33:26] That I'm a slow learner. So that helps me if I spread it out through the week. But, but that's, I think, meditation too. It's occupying time. You're chewing on it.
[33:40] And then he says, I regard it. Or I think the ESV has, I fix my eyes. And I fix my eyes on it. I regard it. I am considering it. I'm looking at it to think it through.
[33:56] And then in verse 16, again, another result of God teaching us is then he will delight. I will, I will delight in thy statutes and I will not forget. I will not forget. I will not ignore it.
[34:11] Because he teaches me. He, he expands the word for me. I, I don't forget it. In other words, in a practical sense, I don't let it get pressed out. I, I, I've got a habit or I've got a devotion to it that some weeks maybe I get, I, it gets overlooked, right? Some, sometimes I just got to deal with stuff and so it interrupts my schedule. And if that happens for a number of weeks, then I start to have some trouble, right? So, so I, I'm looking for a way to get back to it, right? I'm finding a different way to get to it. I don't let it slip. I don't let it get pressed out by the urgent, right? Because this is the necessary. So what's meditation? So some key places that God talks about meditation, Psalm 1.
[35:14] Note, and I want you to note that in Psalm 1, which is kind of the key Psalm for the rest of the Psalms, it's kind of setting the tone for the rest of it. Because here's, here's who the blessed man is, and here's what he does, and here's how he's fruitful, and here's how he keeps on going.
[35:31] And it's tied to the word. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel, so his path is not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, so he's not on that path either, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
[35:59] He is meditating. He's delighting in meditation. It goes together. He's thinking through. He's reflecting on the implications and the applications. He's connecting dots. He's seeing, seeing things, right, as he's meditating. So what's the result? Psalm 1, verse 3. What's he like? He's like a tree planted by streams of water, being fed by the water. What's the water? It's the word, right? He's fed by the streams of water, and what does he do? He yields its fruit. When? All the time? In its season. Please, please be mindful.
[36:39] That's a biblical concept. Fruit bearing is seasonal, okay? Fruit bearing. Sometimes certain fruits of the spirit we don't bear until after trials, right? We learn to endure, that kind of thing, right?
[36:55] Joy. When's joy come, right? Fishing? Joy comes in fishing? Did you say that? Oh, patience. Sorry, Ron. Sorry, Ron. No, I know you find joy in fishing, too.
[37:09] Yeah. He's like a tree by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and all that he does, he prospers. Isn't that great? Because he's meditating on the word of God. He will yield its fruit. He will not wither. He will endure. He, she, I mean, you know, and whatever he does, he prospers. Then look at what God said to Joshua. Meditation was God's first priority of Joshua's success, or he's taking over for Moses, right? Now, his job is to get him into the promised land and get rid of all the, you know, the enemies of the Lord and set up his tribes.
[37:52] That's a big job. Here's what God said to Joshua. This book of the law, right? So, he's got all that Moses has written. Genesis through Deuteronomy, and it's been compiled in a book already by Joshua's time, all right? So, it's all been put together, and Joshua probably put some of it together.
[38:14] But God is saying, this whole book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall, there it is again, meditate on it day and night. Why? So, meditate so that you may be careful to do all that is written in it. For then, here we go again, you will make your way prosperous, then you will have good success. Prosperous in success in what way? In the things that God has called him to do. Not in a worldly sense of success and prosperity, but in a sense that God means prosperous, right? You will fill the land. You will find, and when you go into promised land, you're going to find all kinds of blessing. There will be prosperity. There will be those kind of things if they're keeping to the covenant. Yeah. So, I memorize so I can meditate. I memorize so I can meditate, and I meditate, right? So, that my way becomes fruitful. So, this is key for me to bear fruit.
[39:17] And I don't wither. Are you withering? There's times we feel like we're withering, right? I can relate to that. Well, am I by the stream of water? Am I digging my roots into the stream?
[39:40] I memorize so I can meditate, so I can think through the implications and applications, the truths of God's Word. And as I do, I will experience the purifying power of God's Word as I'm connected to the Lord in relationship. Let us pursue that, the cleansing power of His Word.
[40:04] Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word. Thank You for Your servant that wrote this, that thought this through. I can't imagine how long it took Your servant, whether that was David or someone else or a group of folks that thought all these truths through and connected a lot of dots and showed the power and the purifying power of Your Word. Thank You for that. Help us to treasure it.
[40:34] Help us to value it. Help us to dig into it. Help us to make sure that it doesn't get sidetracked. Not for legalistic reasons, but for true seeking You and to be used by You reasons.
[40:50] This we ask in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.