Lutheran Brethren Church of Nampa

This part of Psalm 119 starts with “bameh,” How? Such a simple little word: “How?” But it’s asking the question a father would want his beloved son to ask. How can a young man keep his way pure? That’s the focus of this section of the psalm, and most of this psalm in general. How do you keep your way pure? And that’s what we’ll be focusing on today.

What Is Purity?

But in order to understand how we keep our ways pure, we need to understand what purity is. Because there are lots of ideas out there on what makes a person pure, and if purity is even necessary. And that last one is probably the most prevalent, not just today, but throughout the history of mankind. If I can convince myself that there is no righteous God to define purity for me, then I’m pure by default. If there’s no God, there’s no purity. But if only it were that simple. See, a person can deny God, but a person cannot deny that they have a conscience. Every person has an innate idea of right and wrong; a moral code that they hold themselves to. As Romans 2:14-15 says, “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” That conscience is a God-given gift to all mankind that shows to them God’s law – the purity expected of God’s special creation. And that conscience will accuse or defend their thoughts and actions. So just getting rid of God doesn’t solve the problem of purity. A person who rejects God is still going to struggle against themselves – they’re still going to struggle against their own ability to live up to their God-given conscience – and find, in that struggle, that they don’t have the purity their conscience demands.

So, if that’s not purity, what other options are there? Well, another idea is that I can compare myself to others and try to achieve purity based on how I’m doing compared to them. In some sense, that’s easy to do. Most people don’t have to look very far to find someone that’s worse than them. So, if I can judge them as worse than me, then I’m doing pretty good. It’s the, “At least I’m not as bad as that guy!” argument. And if a person can make it so that they’re only looking at people that are somehow worse than they are, then they can be perfectly content in their own goodness. They may not be pure, but they may consider that they’re “pure enough” because they could be worse. But the problem is, there’s always going to be people who live a more exemplary life than you do. It requires a heavy-duty delusion to think otherwise – to think that you’re the best example of humanity there is. So this doesn’t solve the purity issue either, because a person is going to continue to find examples of people whose lives they themselves don’t live up to.

But perhaps what’s worse about trying to define and achieve purity yourself is the fact that its definition is going to shift and change to the point where you’ll never be confident that you’ve achieved it. I mean, it still stands that going by your own conscience, you find that you can’t even live up to your own moral code. But as morality shifts and changes with the winds of culture, you’re left wondering if you were ever right in your own convictions. So, if that’s untenable, which it is, the other option is to look to others. But who do you choose? Who do you look to in order to find the pure life you need? A prominent religious figure, like Mother Theresa or Billy Graham? A guru in Eastern philosophy? A Political figure? (Try not to laugh too hard at that one) But the point is, which one is right? Every person you look up to is going to have plenty others who disagree with their opinion on what is right and good. On what makes a person pure. So even if you’re all-in on their teachings, you have no way of knowing if they’re actually right or not.

How Do I Be Pure?

No, the only way to be pure is what we see in this psalm: By keeping your way according to God’s Word. There is but one God with one perfect Word that defines what purity is. And what makes it unique among all the ideas in the world is that it is objective. By that, I mean that God’s idea of purity is not dependent on a person’s feelings, experiences, situations, or rationales. God’s definition of purity – which is detailed in His law – is truth. It’s not open to debate, deliberation, or deviation. It’s not subject to any, “Yeah, but…” arguments we can throw at it. God’s law is absolute, and so if we’re truly going to keep our ways pure, we keep are ways according to what He has revealed in His Word. Knowing this, the psalmist goes on to extol the virtues of God’s Word and what that Word means to him. “With all my heart I have sought You;” he says. It is the deepest desire of his heart to seek out God; to seek out what it means to be pure in His eyes. “Do not let me wander from Your commandments.” He knows that if he’s going to follow God’s commandments, only God can ensure that He does so. “Your Word I have treasured in my heart,” that Word being the most precious thing available to man; treasured above and beyond any earthly thing. “That I may not sin against you,” because it is his heart’s desire to not sin against the God He loves. “Teach me Your statutes.” He knows that his own knowledge and understanding, mired and corrupted as it is by the ways of the world, amount to nothing and that he needs to be taught by God himself how to live uprightly. “With my lips I have told of all the ordinances of Your mouth.” He loves the Law of God so much that he just can’t help to tell it to others, saying, “I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies,” which, again, he holds higher than all earthly riches. “I will meditate on Your precepts and regard Your ways.” Knowing his need, the psalmists commits himself to not only read God’s commandments, but to spend the time thinking about them, mulling them over, considering how they apply to his life and in his interactions with others. “I shall delight in Your statues; I shall not forget Your Word.” God’s statutes are a delight to him, as opposed to an oppressive burden that by pain and toil he must achieve.

This is how a young man, or any man, or any woman, or any young woman, keeps their way pure. By being filled with such love and awe of God that we hunger and thirst for what He calls right and good, willingly throwing away any and all of the ideas we have that run contrary to His Word. In this, we are like a beloved son, asking their Father a question He loves to answer: How can I keep my way pure? In other words, “Out of my great love for you, how would you have me live?”

This Is Purity.

Now, with all of that, it would seem like the psalmist here – and I keep calling the writer of this psalm, “psalmist,” because we’re not 100% sure whether it was David who wrote this or not – but it seems like the psalmist has it all figured out. That what he’s saying is that he’s found the secret to keeping his way pure. That he actually is keeping his way pure because he’s been able to keep all of the commandments of God. But that’s not entirely correct. See, there’s a chink in his armor, so to speak. Verse 10: “Do not let me wander from Your commandments.” Does that sound like someone who is confident in their ability to be pure before God? No. Because the psalmist has no such confidence. Like I mentioned before, he’s admitting his total dependence on God in order to not wander from those commandments, but he’s also admitting that he has and he will again. He’s saying, “Yes, I Love your Word. I love your Law. But I will not be pure without you making me so.” He’s also admitting that he hasn’t yet achieved the kind of purity needed as he does need continued teaching of God’s statutes; that he does need to continue meditating on His precepts. No, this isn’t a man who has achieved perfection; this is a man who desires to be perfected. To be perfected by God.

So, instead of looking at this psalm at the surface level, let’s dive a little deeper. The first thing you may have noticed is that the psalmist here goes back and forth between talking about God’s Word and talking about God’s commandments. He talks about God’s Word in general, but also talks about commandments, ordinances, statutes, and precepts. This isn’t by accident. Because we can also assume that the writer of this psalm was very much familiar with God’s Word, and what he knew is that this Word isn’t all law. The contents of God’s Word isn’t just rules and statutes and things to obey. This Word also proclaims God to be the one who forgives, sanctifies, and makes holy all who believe in Him. So what we have here is a man who not only loves God’s commandments, but who also believes and trusts that God will forgive him of all his sins, sanctify him, and make him holy and pure. And so, here we have a man who keeps his way pure not just by keeping the law, but by keeping his way according to the entirety of God’s Word, that Word that also proclaims salvation from sin through faith, not through the law. So it is out of the confidence that God already sees him as pure through faith, and out of the gratitude and love he has for God because of this that he goes on to just gush about wanting to walk in the way of purity. To do so not so that he can save himself, but because he loves the one who saved him.

And that’s exactly who all of us are called to be as well: Loving God and desiring to follow His commandments because of the salvation He has already given us. After all, we’ve all been through the struggle with conscience and the seeking of men for answers, haven’t we? And that all falls short, doesn’t it? So we cry out, “How can I keep my way pure!” And the answer seems to be in God’s Law, doesn’t it? If I can just follow these commandments, I’m good. But then we find two fatal flaws with that Law. Not because the Law is flawed, but because we are. The first flaw is that we’ve already broken it. We’ve already muddied our ways. Our ways are not pure. And the second flaw is that no matter how devoted we are to this Law, no matter how passionately we try to keep it, we fail in it. We continue to sin. And our ways are still not pure. No, there is no salvation, no purity in the Law of God because it is powerless to save us or purify us from our sins. Instead, this salvation and purity has to come from the other part of God’s Word: His gospel. In this Word, God reveals to us that not only is He the lawgiver, but He is at the very same time the one who forgives you of all your sins, who sanctifies you, and who makes you holy and pure. And it is on the basis of the person and work of Jesus Christ that He does this. You keep your way pure by keeping it according to God’s Word of promise: the Gospel. And once you believe and trust in the God who forgives, sanctifies, and makes you holy, well then! This law is no longer a burden; it is no longer something that tells us, “Be pure or else!” Rather, it’s a reflection of the one who has done the glorious work of forgiving, sanctifying, and purifying you. And because of the great love and thankfulness toward God this engenders in us, we join in with the psalmist in saying, “Your Word I have treasured in my heart. Don’t let me wander from Your commandments. I will meditate on your precepts. I will delight in your statutes. Not because they will save me, but because you already have.” Let’s pray...