KEEPING OUR WAY PURE
PSALM 119:9-16
INTRODUCTION
A. David asked, “How can a young man keep his heart?”
B. Solomon answered, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov 4:23).
C. Believers of all ages often have a problem with keeping their hearts, as seen in the sad epitaph inscribed for all generations to see: “When Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father” (1 Kgs 11:4).
I. HOW SHALL WE KEEP OUR HEARTS?
A. The answer: By guarding it according to the eighth verse, which may be approached with an acrostic: W A T C H
Watch your Words
Watch your Actions
Watch your Thoughts
Watch your Companions
Watch your Habits
B. Hear Jesus and the apostles:
1. Words (Lk 6:45, Matt 12:36-37)
2. Actions (Jam 1:25, 2:12)
3. Thoughts (Matt 15:19; 1 Cor 13:11; Heb 4:12)
4. Companions (1 Cor 15:33; Jam 4:4)
5. Habits (John 8:38; Eph 4:18-20; 2 Pet 1:10; 1 John 2:29).
II. A CASE STUDY IN INDOLENCE
A. In Letter XII of the Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis, the senior tempter Screwtape writes to his understudy Wormwood concerning how to keep his patient up at night staring at a dead fire in a cold room, doing neither what he ought nor what he liked.
B. Peter calls us to diligence (2 Pet 1:10).
C. The following quotations about habits are powerful:
1. “We first make our habits, then our habits make us.” (John Dryden)
2. “Good habits are as addictive as bad habits, and a lot more rewarding.” (Harvey MacKay)
3. “The only proper way to eliminate bad habits is to replace them with good ones.” (Jerome Hines)
4. “It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.” (Benjamin Franklin)
5. “Ninety-five percent of everything you do is the result of habit” (Aristotle)
CONCLUSION
A. Don’t spend your life doing neither what you should nor what you like.
B. Start young, live right, finish strong.
C. It may be too late for you to start young, but today is the first day of the rest of your life (2 Cor 6:2).
