The Art of Seeking and Storing | Psalm 119:9-16 | Nathan Howard

And well, please open your Bibles again to Psalm

Psalms 119:9

119, verse 9. That's where we're going to be

for a few moments. Just something that's grabbed

my heart fairly recently. Thought I'd share it

with you guys too this morning. Many of us will

have sung those song words, prone to wander,

Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.

I wonder even if I... as I repeat them now, whether

that's something that you can relate to, if not

right in this moment, perhaps over the last week.

As a disciple of the Lord Jesus, that is something

that I would relate to very many times in my

life. I don't think there's a day that goes past

where in some way I don't feel the temptation

or the pressure to wander off the path that God

in his grace has set me on. Do you feel the same?

That way of trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ

for the forgiveness of our sins. To wander off,

perhaps to try and regain that status with God

in another way. Perhaps it's that way of learning

to obey everything that the Lord has commanded

us, that path that he set us on. Perhaps it's

learning to live God's way rather than the world's

way. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone

to leave the God. I love. And that experience

is certainly the experience of the believer who

writes Psalm 119, isn't it? If you've got it,

just flick over to the end of the Psalm, which

I kind of understand frames the whole Psalm in

some way. But in verse 176, the psalmist writes,

I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant,

for I have not forgotten your commands. This

seems to frame the psalm, but it's an experience

we identify with, isn't it? Lord, I know your

commands. I've not forgotten them. I know what

I'm meant to do, and yet I've strayed. I've wandered

off, prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone

to leave the God I love. And as believers, when

we live with that tension of knowing what it

is that God wants us to do, but proneness to

wander off, it can lead to the question that

the psalmist asks in verse 9, can't it? In verse

9, he asks that question, how can a young person

stay on the path of purity? How can I stay on

the path that I'm meant to be on? This path of

trusting the Lord Jesus, this path of learning

to obey him. How can I stay on that path? Now

notice he picks up on a young person, a young

man. Now that may be for multiple reasons. It

might be largely because young people are under

such pressure to walk off the path. As a man

with teenagers in my house, I really feel that.

Prone to wonder. There's this pressure on them

all the time. So maybe it's because young people

face that pressure. But maybe he focuses in on

young people because what you do when you're

young sets a pattern for what you do when you're

old. And he says, look, how can a young person,

how can we get the patterns right when we're

young so that we stay on the path of purity?

We are surrounded, aren't we, by voices drawing

us away, enticing us away every day from the

path of purity. Peer pressure, media pressure.

Sexual temptation, pursuit of pleasure. You know,

we're in a Bible college, but we're not immune

from those kind of pressures when we hunker down

in here and study. So how, how can I, how can

we stay on the right path? When we sing those

words in church or in chapel, prone to wonder,

Lord, I feel it. How can we decrease the number

of times that that really hits home? Well, wonderfully,

he offers his own answer, doesn't he, in the

psalm. Have a look at verse 9. How can a young

person stay on the path of purity? By living

according to your words. Now, in some ways you

think, well, that doesn't help me much, does

it? How do I stay on God's path? By doing what

God says. Well, you're like, oh, great. That's

like, you know, chuck me a bone with you. I know

that's true. By walking God's way is the way

we do it. But you want a little bit more, don't

you? But how can I do that? I know that's what

I should do. I know I should walk according to

his path. But how do I go about it? How do I

stay on this path, doing life God's way? The

question it leaves us with is, well, how? And

very simply this morning, I want to encourage

you to be a squirrel. That's what I want you

to do. If you want to stay on the path of purity,

you have to learn to be a squirrel. Now, before

you kick me out and think, did he learn nothing

when he was at college? Just think carefully

about a squirrel for a moment. They do two things,

don't they? And you're in a great place to watch

them. They do two things. They seek and they

store. Can you say those two with me? They seek

and they store. Good. If you remember that, you

can kick me out now. Two things that squirrels

do. If you watch them out there, they're just

scurrying around, but they're not aimlessly scurrying

around. They're seeking things. They're looking

for something. And when they find it, what do

they do with it? They store it. They put it away

for ready for use at another time. Squirrels

are amazing at these two tasks, seeking and storing.

And if we are going to grow in not wandering

off the path, we need to get good at these two

things, seeking and storing. We need to get good

at being like squirrels. We need to train our

Holy Spirit renewed hearts to be squirrels. And

that means we need to do two things. Number one,

we need to seek the Lord with all our hearts.

We need to seek him. Look at verse 10. The psalmist

goes on to say, I seek you with all my heart.

When it comes to purity, when it comes to making

those right decisions every day, when we're faced

with, you know, am I going to blow it here? Am

I going to say something stupid here? Or am I

going to look at this on the internet? Whatever

it is that challenge you face. When we get to

those moments, we need God's help. You can't

do it by yourself. I'm 47 years old, but every

time I do DIY, I still call my dad. I still seek

his help. DIY stands for destroy it yourself

in my life. And when I'm in trouble and I need

help, I reach out. I call my dad. Dad! Where

do I put the blue wire again? He's like, well,

have you turned off the electricity? I'm like,

well, no, not yet. He says, well, don't do anything

with the blue wire. Every time I'm in trouble,

I seek my dad, 47 years old. But when we face

trials as Christians and temptations and the

proneness to wander, where do we reach? The psalmist

says, I seek you, Lord, with all my heart. I

seek his help. And the psalmist seems to seek

God in two particular ways. He seeks him, first

of all, as protector. Look at verse 10. I seek

you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from

your commands. He looks to the Lord for help

and protection against going astray. It is his

divine help. It is his divine power through the

Holy Spirit. that will keep my feet on the right

path. That's why Jesus taught us to pray, lead

us not into temptation, lifting your eyes to

heaven and say, please protect me. Do you pray

like that in the morning? And as you started

today, did you say, Lord, protect me today from

wandering from your paths? It's how the song

goes, isn't it? Prone to wander, Lord, I feel

it. Prone to leave the God I love. Take my heart.

And take and seal it. Seal it from your courts

above. We look up. We seek the Lord if we want

to stop straying. So we seek him as protector,

but we also seek him as teacher. Have a look

at verse 12. Just over the page. Praise be to

you, Lord. Teach me your decrees. We need God

to teach us the paths we should be walking. We

need him to teach us the way we should be going.

Jordan started by reading Titus chapter 2. That

Titus 2 · chapter mention

the grace of God has appeared and it teaches

us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions.

We need teaching. And if I am going to stop straying

from the paths I'm meant to walk, then I need

to seek the Lord as my teacher. Lord, teach me

today. Teach me the way I should go. Do you pray

like that? Lord, show me what to do. Show me

the path I should walk today. So you see, we've

got to be a squirrel. We've got to seek the Lord

with all our heart. We seek him as a protector.

We seek him as the teacher. Apart from him, we

can do nothing. That's what Jesus said, isn't

it? So seek him. But squirrels don't just seek,

they also... I'm glad some of you are still here.

That's good. We store God's word in our hearts.

See, look at verse 11. Having sought the Lord,

verse 10, with all his heart, he says, I have

hidden your word in my heart that I might not

sin against you. How do we keep ourselves from

wandering from the right path? By storing up

God's words in our hearts. In the very engine

room of your decision -making life, you store

God's word there. Some of you remember back in

the COVID days that people went crazy on toilet

rolls. They stored up toilet rolls ready in their

cupboards to use when they needed them. And that's

the picture that we're given about hiding God's

word in our heart. It's not burying it so you

can't find it. That's what the word hidden kind

of gives you the impression of. I'm burying it

and one day I'll find it again. The hidden idea

here is the idea of storing it up for ready for

use. Like squirrels, they put things places and

they know exactly where they put them so they

can go and find them when they need them. And

we are to put God's word, store it up in our

hearts, ready to use. When that pressure comes,

when that temptation comes, it's right there.

Right in the place where you make those decisions

and those choices. And we see this embodied,

don't we, most clearly in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Think of his temptations in the wilderness. Think

of his time in the Garden of Gethsemane. How

did Jesus in his humanity stay on the path of

purity? Well, he did it using the word of God

that was hidden in his heart. He did it. Bible

just poured out of Jesus. He didn't have you

version on his phone. He had to hide it, store

it away in his heart so that when those temptations

and trials came, it was right there, right there

to use. And how did Jesus get it there? That's

the question to think about, isn't it? How did

Jesus get it in his heart? Now, you're all good

Bible college students, so you'll know. We're

tempted, aren't we? We could be tempted to think,

well, it's because he was the son of God. He

wrote it anyway, so of course he knows it. No,

he got it there in his spirit -filled humanity

by doing what this psalm commands us to do, to

be a squirrel. He sought his heavenly father

with all his heart and he stored it away in his

heart from a young person, from a young man.

That's why at 12 years old you see him in the

temple, because he was someone who knew that

he needed to store God's words away in his heart

so that when that temptation came, he could stay

on the path of purity. If it's not a reverent,

Jesus was the model squirrel. He sought his heavenly

father and he stored up God's word. And so how

do we do that? You know, it's great to say, OK,

well, let's store it up. But how do we go about

it? And the psalm actually just throws us a few

top tips for storing God's word in our hearts.

And actually it does it with three R's. OK, and

here they are. We recount it, we rejoice in it

and we reflect on it. That's the way that we

can store God's word up in our heart. We recount

it. Have a look at verse 13. Verse 13. With my

lips, I recount all the laws that come from your

mouth. Or literally, with my mouth, I recount

what comes from your mouth. That's literally

what it reads. And if you've ever tried memorizing

parts of the Bible, probably some of you are

fantastic at it. I've met people who can recite

whole books of the Bible to me. But if you're

not quite so good at it as me, one of the things

that can really, not as me, I'm rubbish at it,

but the people I've met who are good at it. If

you want to get good at it, one of the things

that helps is saying it out loud and recounting

it, sort of repeating it, walking down the street,

saying a verse out loud is a great way to get

God's word stored up in our hearts. Recounting

the gospel, recounting verses from the Bible

is one of the ways that really helps. As kids,

when my kids were younger, we used to try and

retell Bible stories walking down the road. We

just used to say, oh, go on, tell us the story

of Noah. And then one of them would start it

off and another one would try and chip in and

we'd try and remember bits here and there because

actually it's a great way to get those stories

from the shelves into our hearts. It's something

we're not meant to do just privately, but we're

meant to do corporately as well, aren't we? In

Colossians, Paul tells the church there that

the message of Christ dwell among you richly

as you teach and admonish one another with all

wisdom through psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.

We're meant to let the word of God be recounted

on our lips, telling it over and over again so

that it helps it store it away in our hearts.

So we recount it, but we're also to rejoice in

it. Have a look at verse 14. I rejoice in following

your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.

And again, verse 16, I delight, he says in your

decrees. I will not neglect your words. Take

time. If you want to store God's word in your

heart, take time to delight in it. Don't just

whiz through it and say, oh, I've read it now

or I've remembered it now. Take time to rejoice

and to delight in the things that you're reading.

Nothing quite helps like songs to get God's word

stored up and to delight in something. It's a

good plug for why you should sing songs that

have the Bible in it. When you get to churches

and you get responsible for picking songs, make

sure that they're biblical. Because that's the

way that the word gets stored up in our hearts.

Delight yourselves in the things you're remembering.

So recount it, rejoice in it. Verse 15. reflect

on it. I meditate on your precepts and consider

your ways. You know, we've got to take time meditating.

We've got to take time to pull something out

of the store cupboard and to have a think about

it and to pursue it. You know, some people just

keep kind of treasures, don't they, behind a

wall or a cupboard and look at all my trophies

or look at all these things I've got. Actually,

what we're meant to do is to take it out of the

cupboard and we're meant to look at it and turn

it around and have a think about it. And actually,

these words of God that are stored up in us,

we're meant to bring them out and meditate on

it, chew on it, think about it. How does this

principle apply? You know, when you go for a

walk or when you're driving down the road, just

take one out. Pull something out of the store

cupboard and say, let me think about this. What

does that mean? What does that look like? How

does this apply to me? Chew it over. And so the

psalmist, you see, gives us three R's to help

us store God's word, recount it, rejoice in it,

and reflect on it. So I'm not insane, but please

take my encouragement to be a squirrel. Be a

squirrel. Because if we come back to that question

in verse 9, how can a young person, how can any

of us stay on the path of purity? Well, he says

there, by living according to the word. But how?

How do we do that? How do we live according to

the word? Well, we are a squirrel. We seek God's

help and we store it away in our hearts. We recount

it. We rejoice in it. We reflect on it so that

we might stay with God's help on the path of

purity. Shall I pray that in for us? And then

we'll come to the Lord's table. Our God and our

Father in heaven, we want to say thank you for

the Psalms. Thank you for the precious gift they

are to us in helping us to know the experience

of living the life of following you. Father,

thank you that you call us to faith in the Lord

Jesus Christ. You call us to a life of obedience

to him. resonate again and again with those words

prone to wonder lord we feel it prone to leave

you the god we love and so we simply come this

morning wanting to seek your help that we would

not stray from your paths that you would protect

us that you would teach us that we would walk

in your paths and we pray to please that we would

be those who work hard at storing your words

in our hearts that we would take time to recount

it with our lips, that we would rejoice in your

word, not just study it and move on, and that

we would reflect on the things that you have

shown us. Father, we long to be more like Christ,

who had your word stored in his heart. Father,

we thank you for all that he modelled to us in

his spirit -filled humanity of how to do what

this psalm talks about. And so, Father, please

help us to be more like him. In Jesus' name.

Amen.