Staying Grounded and On Track

Staying Grounded and On Track 

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Psalm 119:9-16, 105-112

Life is a Roller Coaster sermon series: The Psalms

Rev. Brian North, Westminster Presbyterian, Chehalis, WA

August 21st, 2011

We’ve been in a series for most of the summer going through the Psalms, under the title of, “Life is a Roller Coaster.” Just a couple days after we started the series I was in a waiting room while my car was getting fixed. And the television that was on was tuned into a channel that ran a program on the biggest and baddest roller coasters in America. I thought that was pretty Providential! One of the coasters (“Aftershock”) they highlighted was at Silverwood, a theme park just a few miles from Coeur d’Alene, ID. And even more providential was that a few weeks later, I found myself somewhat unexpectedly, at Silverwood with my family.

Now, we didn’t make it onto the roller coaster they featured on the program, but my kids did want to go on a “real” roller coaster, because they never had before. And so they led me to a wooden roller coaster called “Tremors.” Blakely, Hailey, and Brooke wanted to do this. I need to make that clear right up front. Who was I to question whether or not it was a good idea? After determining they were all big enough to ride it, we got in line. Then they clamored to sit in the back car, where the ride is wildest. I thought that sounded like fun, too. Just before we sat down in the car, we asked the attendant there a little about the roller coaster. He told us it was the fastest one at Silverwood, approaching 65 miles per hour, and had four under ground tunnels. The kids thought it sounded like a lot of fun!

Then, it was our turn to hop in. Everyone was all smiles and excited as we proceeded slowly up the initial incline. Brooke (6 years old!) even talked about going the whole way around with her hands up in the air. We admired the view of the rest of the park. Then came the first descent where we went from about 1 mile per hour to almost 65 in the span of about 3 seconds. Video Here¹ Watch this to see what we experienced….

Pretty awesome, huh? The video doesn’t do justice to the speed and power of the coaster. And beginning with that first drop, my kids went from happy and smiling to…well…you take a look:

Miraculously, no tears were shed by any of my kids. I was crying like a baby…just kidding. But I will say this: when we got off the coaster and I looked at each of them, they looked like they’d seen a ghost. I don’t think they knew what hit them. It was easily the wildest ride they’d ever been on. I asked them if they wanted to do it again, and they all said, “No!” Though they have since softened the response and at least one of them would now consider it.

Now, here’s the point of this lengthy introduction: When we got off the coaster, I guarantee you, my kids had never been so grateful to be standing on solid ground. I was just grateful they weren’t all crying. But to get off of this fast moving thing and to stand on solid ground, to know that everything is ok…the sky isn’t falling, the twists, turns, and sudden drops are over, and so forth…was a HUGE relief for them.

Now, in life, we like to be on solid ground, too. And there are times where maybe we feel like we are on solid ground, with a sense of stability, security, certainty and so forth. The problem is that much of life doesn’t feel that way. We face temptation. We fall into temptation and we sin. We have times of grief and pain and loss. We have heartache, shattered dreams, economic chaos, and so forth. And of course we also have mountaintop highs, and grand experiences, and overwhelming joy, too. We need grounding in those experiences so we don’t get too full of ourselves, just as much as we need grounding in the uncertain times.

But unlike a roller coaster at a theme park that lasts for 90 seconds and then it’s done, the roller coaster of life keeps going. It lasts for decades. And so even as we’re on the roller coaster, we need some grounding, and we need some guidance along the roller coaster tracks of life so that we can find our way, so we can live with integrity, so we can stay on course with God in the midst of things.

And this morning’s Psalm is a fantastic reminder of how we stay on track – on the right path – and stay grounded in the roller coaster of life. So I invite you to grab a Bible – the blue ones in the pews or your own, and turn to Psalm 119…it’s on page 566 of the OT of the pew Bibles. Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm in the Bible, containing 176 verses. We won’t read them all, but I’ve selected two sections to read, that encapsulate what much of the Psalm is about, and they help us to see how to stay on track and grounded through the highs and the lows of life. So I invite you to turn to Psalm 119, beginning with verse 9, and after a few verses there we’ll jump ahead to verse 105 for a few more there. This is God’s Word to you and me today:

How can young people keep their way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
With my whole heart I seek you;
do not let me stray from your commandments.
I treasure your word in my heart,
so that I may not sin against you.
Blessed are you, O Lord;
teach me your statutes.
With my lips I declare
all the ordinances of your mouth.
I delight in the way of your decrees
as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts,
and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word (Psalm 119:9-16).

 Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.
I have sworn an oath and confirmed it,
to observe your righteous ordinances.
I am severely afflicted;
give me life, O Lord, according to your word.
Accept my offerings of praise, O Lord,
and teach me your ordinances.
I hold my life in my hand continually,
but I do not forget your law.
The wicked have laid a snare for me,
but I do not stray from your precepts.
Your decrees are my heritage for ever;
they are the joy of my heart.
I incline my heart to perform your statutes
forever, to the end. (Psalm 119:105-112)

After an introduction in the first 8 verses about how good it is to remain steadfast in the Lord in his ways, the Psalmist asks this question in verse 9, “How can young people keep their way pure?” Now, the Psalmist is full of wisdom throughout theses 176 verses, and clearly he recognizes that much of our spiritual and moral wandering is in our younger years. This doesn’t mean that older people are totally pure, of course. So I’m pretty confident that this is something that all of us, regardless of age, wrestle with. In fact, if it’s true that as we get older we become more set in our ways, it may be that older people need to ask this question with even greater intensity, because if you’ve been set in impure ways for a long time, then seeking a new, pure way of living is going to be that much more challenging, and require that much more dependence on the grace of God to get onto the right path.

Regardless, he gives a quick answer to his question in the very next words when he writes, “By guarding it [their way] according to your word” (Psalm 119:9b). In other words, our way is protected, and we live with purity, when we take God’s word and apply it to our lives. That’s the simple, cliff-notes version of the answer to the question. And really, if you read the rest of Psalm 119, you’ll realize that it is basically an affirmation of this statement. In the rest of Psalm 119 there are wise statements on how to apply God’s word, there are affirmations for knowing God’s word, there are pleas to God to plant his word in us, there are acknowledgments that we face trials and temptations in life that have the capability of derailing us in our quest for purity…but it really all flows out of this idea of staying on the path…guarding our way according to God’s word.

In verse 11 we come across a well-known verse that instructs us on how we can guard our way according to God’s word. The Psalmist writes, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11). The NRSV we read a moment ago says, “I treasure your word…” The point is that God’s word is valued, so much so that we hide it away in us. We keep it protected. God’s word is valuable, and we should treat it better than we treat the latest novel or magazine we’ve read. What it ultimately means is that we know God’s word, it’s a part of us, and it has sunk into us. The implication is that it’s memorized, burned into our brains and onto our hearts.

It’s like a seed that gets planted in order to bear fruit. In fact, just last night we got home from a week of study leave, and my kids had some plants they’d planted a while ago that were now growing up. They were pretty excited. Then they went and opened up a cupboard and got out a bag of seeds. It was the same bag out of which they got the seeds that were now growing. But these seeds, still in the bag, were still just seeds. Why? Because they hadn’t been planted. Just as a seed can’t bear any fruit until it’s planted in the ground, God’s word gets planted in us, and then it bears fruit in the form of pure choices when we face temptation, or comfort when we experience heartache, and so forth, as well as in helping others in their challenges.

For instance, when it comes to helping others through God’s word that’s hidden in our hearts, all of us parents should have Ephesians 6:1 memorized, and make sure our kids do, too, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1).  If your situation means it’s more appropriate to say, “Fido, obey your parents…” you know, I think that’s ok. Memorizing the 5^th commandment is a good one, too, “Honor your father and your mother.”² Maybe you need those verses for yourself. If you, or someone you know, is tempted to hang out with the wrong crowd in life, then knowing the first two or three verses of Psalm 1 are foundational to staying in community with the right people: “Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He (she) is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not whither. Whatever he does prospers” (Psalm 1:1-3). What a great verse to have hidden in our hearts and recite when people are seeking to influence your life down the wrong path. Philippians 4:13 is an amazing verse that helps us to persevere through similar situations, or trouble: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” A few verses earlier in Philippians 4:8 is Paul’s amazing statement about how we can stay on track with God’s plan for our lives, when he writes, “Finally, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Philippians 4:8). Those are words we need to be reminded of when we’re tempted to walk down paths that are full of traps, lies, deceit, and so forth.

And I haven’t even gotten to any of Jesus’ statements, or any of the Proverbs, or anything that David wrote or had written about his life, or most of the rest of the Bible, either. I could stand here all day sharing verses that are especially good to hide in our hearts. And maybe that’s part of the reason we struggle to hide God’s word in our heart: There’s so much that can be hidden, it’s overwhelming! But I want to encourage you to listen to the advice of this Psalm, and hide God’s word in your heart, for your sake and for others. Start somewhere, so that you can draw upon Scripture in times of need.

Now, I want to touch briefly on a theme in the second section we read that relates to this, and then wrap this up. And it is encapsulated in verse 105, another famous verse that’s worth committing to memory: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105).

You see, unlike a roller coaster that has a fixed path it always goes on, never changing, open to see from beginning to end…the roller coaster of life is not laid out for us to see. We see it only a little bit at a time – at least the part that’s in front of us. This is true in the physical world, too. In their day, when there weren’t streetlights, this was a clearly understood metaphor – if you went for a walk at night, you brought some kind of fire with you to see where you were going. Maybe we’d understand it as being like walking through a dark forest at night with a little flashlight lighting the way, or driving on a dark country road with the headlights on: only what’s right in front of us gets lit up. We can’t see a mile down the road.

God’s word is that light that shows the way, showing us where we’re going, a little bit at a time. It illumines the path – and in fact is the path – that God calls us to tread. Two things happen when we follow this lighted path he provides. First, God’s word steers us away from morally, ethically, and spiritually questionable (sinful) living. In verse 106 he talks about taking an oath to follow God’s righteous laws. His ethics and morals aren’t determined by the situation. They’re established by God, communicated in His word, and His word keeps us morally and ethically pure. He acknowledges the challenges of life in this section – he’s suffered, he takes his own life in his hands, there are traps set for him, and so forth – but when he follows the path set forth by God’s word, he is able to avoid those things. He can stay on solid ground even in the midst of the roller coaster.

Second, God’s word steers us toward God. So we’re led away from something – impurity, unholiness, and so forth – and we’re led toward something else: purity and holy living, and ultimately, we’re led to God. Paul puts it well in the New Testament when he writes, “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Romans 13:14). As we’re led along this path that God provides and lights up, we are led toward Jesus, and we become more like him. Let me illustrate this for you. Take a look at this picture and tell me who it is: It’s Ichiro, right? Wrong! It’s actually a fan at a recent Mariner’s game who was dressed as Ichiro, and had an amazing likeness. Now, when we hide His word in our hearts and follow the path His word lays out for our lives, we don’t begin to look physically like Jesus as this guy looks like Ichiro…but our character becomes conformed to be like His. We live with the purity mentioned in verse 9.

We’re led away from the ungodly stuff, and we’re led toward Christ. So, the sign of someone who’s not just a fan of Jesus, but is a devoted follower, is that they are Christ-like in their living. They’re “clothed in Christ,” as Paul put it in that Romans verse; they have God’s word hidden in their heart. They are pure and holy, full of grace and truth, as Jesus was. Are they perfect? No. None of us are. That’s why Jesus lived the perfect life, died as the perfect sacrifice, and was resurrected as the perfect savior. But people who are on the path of God’s word more often than they are off of it, begin to “look” more and more like Jesus.
As Jesus says, it’s a narrow gate and narrow path, and few find it…but it leads to true life (Matthew 7:14). And it’s a path that’s lit up by, and even constructed of, God’s word.

So, don’t be like my kids and wait to get on that needed solid ground at the end of the roller coaster. Purity, holiness, righteousness, comfort, peace, humility, and so forth can be yours and mine, even in the midst of the roller coaster of life. And we find all of that in God’s word. So hide His word in your heart, burn it on your brain. Post it around the house as I’ve encouraged a number of times over the last few years. Start easy. Start with “Jesus wept” from John 11. Maybe you think, “What’s the point of that?” Well, when you’re struggling to be compassionate toward someone, or struggling with your own sense of grief, it will help you remember that Jesus wept out of compassion and his own grief. It’s ok to weep…even needed. So, this is a good verse to memorize. In fact, everybody say “Jesus wept.” “Jesus wept.” There, you just memorized John 11:35. See! You can hide God’s word in your heart. And as you do, you’ll be on track and on solid ground as you walk the straight and narrow path of purity that God lays out for you, and it will lead you all the way to Jesus. And that’s Good News. Let’s Pray…Amen.