As you as you therefore have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware, lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men. according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ. Jumping out of an airplane can be a nerve-wracking thing to do. I've done it about 25 times. I think it was my count. You have just a few seconds to walk from the back of the plane to the front of the plane. to hand off to the jump master, the one leading the exercise. You're essentially a rope that's attached to your parachute. You hand it off, you turn, and you jump. A lot happens in just a few seconds. And it's nerve wracking, not really for me. It wasn't because I was so much going to be jumping out of a plane and have a lot of distance between my feet and the ground. As much as I knew that my abilities to do two things were very essential for me to not die, or at least get seriously injured. My parachute always opened. I mean, the odds of it not opening and the odds of your reserve not opening are very, very, very slim. The entirety, almost the entirety of injuries jumping out of a plane are due to a failure to properly hand off what's called your static line, your cord that's connected to your parachute, and not turning and jumping and clearing the plane. And those are the responsibilities of the jumper entirely. The parachute is very, very reliable. And that's really what keeps you safe. And yet there's a necessity to do two things also to keep you from being severely hurt and possibly even killed. There are two things in this passage of scripture that you must do. That you must do. The context here, and by way of clarification, I want to say something to you. You're used to hearing this from the pulpit. Tim told you this. It's the truth. God saves his people. God is the author of salvation. You do not save yourself. That's true. Okay, I want you to think about that for a moment. Talking about In some sense, you could refer to this as election. God chooses people and he makes sure that they're saved because he does it. Romans 8, verse 30, verse 29, for whom he foreknew. He also predestined to be conformed to the image of a son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He, that's God, whom He predestined, these He also called. Whom He called, these He also justified. And whom He justified, these He also glorified. For those whom He elected, they're saved. And that's a very important doctrine to understand. It's a very important concept to understand as Christians. As we do evangelism, as we witness to our friends, it's not up to us. There's actually people out there that are gonna believe because God's gonna save them. It's a motive. Jesus told Paul at a certain point in his missionary journeys, listen, I want you to continue to persevere. I have many people in this city. And that was a motive for him to continue to preach the gospel. Paul, in another sense, he told in Acts 14, he says, speaking of his own suffering, his own tribulations that he would go through as an apostle, we must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom of God. There was a necessity for Paul, in another sense, to continue to strive. to enter into the kingdom of God. A God who chooses you. A God who sovereignly elects you is the God who also gives you the strength all the way to the end. He's ordained the end, salvation. He's ordained the means to that end. And because of that, I say to you that the Christian life is similar to jumping out of an airplane. You don't save yourself. The parachute does. God does. But you must do something about it. You must do something about it. There's a requirement. There's tension in this passage of scripture. And I want you to feel the tension. Paul has just expressed his, at least in the first chapter, his love for them, their genuine faith in the Lord Jesus. Yet he calls them, in verse 23, to continue in the faith. It's a command. Continue in the faith. He gives them reasons in verses 24 through 29 of the excellencies of this faith, if you recall that. In verses one through five, he tells them of his great conflict, how he loves them, how he's striving for them to continue in the faith. And here he gives two commands. two directives, two things they must do to complete the mission, to get to heaven. And I want to talk to you about these two things. My message to you is that in order for you to remain steadfast, okay, in order for God's people to remain steadfast, they must persevere in true doctrine. and guard against false doctrine. Two things you must do. First, look with me at verses six through seven. Persevere in true doctrine. It's the first thing you must do. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. Notice that he says, therefore, in light of all these things that I'm doing for you, in light of the excellencies of the gospel, in light of your profession of faith, there's an obligation upon you. And that first one is what I'm calling perseverance. He uses a metaphor, a walk. So walk in him. Walking is a metaphor. It's an image describing a Christian going down a certain path, that path being the path of truth, the path of the gospel, the way of the Lord Jesus. He's walking, he's continuing to go, he's persevering down that path. That's the idea. And the first thing about this first point, I have two parts of this, is what is this true doctrine? Okay, I'm saying persevere in true doctrine. There's two marks of true doctrine that's given to us here. He says, as you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord. And later in verse seven, he says, as you have been taught. See that phrase there, it's the same idea. The first mark is it's true doctrine is about Christ Jesus the Lord. Sometimes I'm not saying that much, but in other sense, I want you to think about my true doctrine. Teaching is centered around the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The word of God either assumes Christ. or speaks directly about Him. All teaching is revolved around the Lord Jesus Christ. And secondly, this is what has been received. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus, this is the second mark of it. The way that Epaphras taught you, which is the apostolic faith, continue in that as you were taught. Now, this does not mean that everything that you have received let's say since you were a child or what your parents taught you, that it's somehow a mark of faithfulness to never change. One commentator writes, perseverance in an error once known is not constancy but obstinacy. You may need to change on something that you've received if it's not true. The point is that Paul knows that they've received the true gospel. He's just explained much of that in chapter one. They know that Christ is sufficient. Paul has taught them. He's preached, he's taught Epaphras. He's preached and Epaphras has taught them the sufficiency of Christ. He's fully died for your sins. There's no other death that needs to be had. He is God. All these essential aspects. So in that sense they are not to depart from it. They're to persevere in it. After this, going down this certain path. There's a lot of people who are religious. They're zealous. And they're zealous not according to knowledge. They're actually going down the wrong path. We've got to make sure we're walking down the right path. In true doctrine. What does it mean to persevere? Verse 7 gives us three ways to persevere. He describes what it means to walk in him. It's fundamentally this idea of perseverance. What does that mean? Well first, it's to draw stability from Christ. To draw stability from Christ. Verse seven, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith. There's a cause and effect here. The cause is two metaphors. One's the idea of a tree planted, rooted in him. And the other metaphor is a building built up in him. The emphasis here is not so much the growth of the tree or the skill of the craftsman to build a building. It's the foundation. Okay? It's the soil that feeds the tree, that nourishes the tree, that keeps the tree down when storms come. Christ is the source of stability. Do you know someone who's just very unstable? A lot of unbelievers. You could describe really all unbelievers. They're unstable. There's different ways in which they're unstable. Why is it that they're unstable? Why is it that they don't have peace? Because they don't have Christ. Christ is that anchor. He's the cause which brings stability, which brings assurance. So the cause rooted and build it up in him and there's this effect which leads to being established in the faith. You could translate this confirmed in the faith, assured of the faith. Christ brings by his spirit, experimentally assurance. He also is a full Seder and he provides a full salvation. We need to have stability. Going through this life, we need stability. That stability comes from Christ. You can search for stability outside of Christ. Christians can do that. Your job brings you stability and significance. When the storms come, things like that aren't going to keep you up. Christ is going to keep you up. So the first way we persevere is we draw stability in Christ. The second way is that we abound, that we grow in our knowledge of the true gospel or of true doctrine. You notice verse seven, it says, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it, abounding in it. What's the it? And I'm using the New King James. And I want you to focus on that. Those words there are bounding in it. The it refers to the faith that he mentioned earlier, established in the faith. He's talking about faith objectively. He's talking about doctrine. Sometimes the Bible uses the word faith. It's not using it subjectively. It's not using it in the sense of the experience, the trusting, the believing, but faith in the objective sense, the doctrine, the teaching. Okay, Jude says, contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. That system of doctrine that is true and apostolic, that we think is most well codified in the Westminster Confession of Faith. Come on, doctrine, abounding in it. growing in it. Think about the fact that, so let's say you're, you know, 20 years old or maybe you're 40 years old or whatnot. You can suspect that because God is faithful to you, to always be there for you, always give you enough strength. If you're going to be growing in the faith, then there's going to be storms there in the future. Possibly, there are stronger storms, there are more fierce spiritual storms than you have faced in the past. And you have a need to abound in true doctrine, to understand more about God and the way you should live. To just dig those roots deeper and deeper into Christ. Life is not easy. You'll face spiritual storms. One of the ways that you can grow in your knowledge of Christ, or one of your needs is to grow in your knowledge of Christ, abounding in it with thanksgiving, which is the last aspect of what it means to persevere. Christians need to keep a constant view on their salvation, on their forgiveness. You're walking through life, you face difficulties, life's not easy, being a mom's not easy, providing for your family's not easy. Difficulties happen, health problems come up. And as you're striving, as you're persevering, remember to give thanks. Not as a commandment, but remember that you have something to give thanks for. Have you not been forgiven of all your sins? The problem that you have in your life, the health issue, the annoyance that you might have at work or something. What's it compared to the glories of Christ and the forgiveness of sins? Joy. Happiness is important for a Christian. Our happiness is rooted in our salvation in Christ. We need to keep that in mind. Blessed is the man, blessed is the man who walks in the ways of God. That's the way that's blessed. Not because it's easy, because it's the way of salvation. We have much to be thankful for. So do that, and that's part of what it means to persevere. There's two things you must do. The first one is perseverance in the faith. I wanna give you some practical thoughts on this. Perseverance in true doctrine. What does that look like? Do you persevere in true doctrine? I wanna give you two marks of a Christian who's persevering in the true doctrine, true faith. The first mark is if you're doing this, and you're not necessarily an all-star, okay? But you're doing it. You're not perfect. You don't always, every day, perfectly persevere. But if you do this, fundamentally, you're going to be someone who prioritizes private and public worship. That's what it means. Abounding in it. Becoming more and more assured of the truth of the gospel. You're going to be one who prioritizes private worship and public worship. You don't look at your hobbies. You don't look at your your work as things that come first. And if you can get to worship, then you get to worship. You see the difference? You first prioritize your time with the Lord, perhaps in the morning, perhaps at lunch break. They're just reading through the scriptures, thinking about it, looking for Christ in the scriptures, praying, confessing your sin just every day, 15 minutes, maybe 30 minutes. And it's important. It bothers you when you go to sleep. You haven't had your time in the Word. It bothers you if you miss worship. Because you need it. You need to hear your pastor preach the word to you. You need to be in fellowship with other Christians. You need to hear the Bible read to you. You need to hear other people sing psalms to you. And if you're persevering in the true doctrine, if you're walking down the path and those things, you'll prioritize those things. The other thing you'll do to some degree is you'll seek to learn something new. You won't be content with just a clear knowledge of the Sabbath school lessons you received as a kid. You know, that's good. By all means, review. Most of the time when I read the Bible, I'm being reminded of things that I've learned The other day I was reading the Bible with my family and I read a passage Old Testament historical narrative story and I'm like, I don't think I remember reading that. That was interesting. Wow. That's not normal. So it's good. It's good to review. But do you go past that? There's literature on that table there. You could pick up one of those pamphlets that interest you. You might have a question in your life. What does the Bible say about this? How should I respond to this? Ask me. I'll point you to a book. You can start reading it 15 minutes before you go to bed. What are you doing? You're persevering. You're persevering. You're trying to dig your roots deep into Christ as it were. You're trying to abound in knowledge. There is a saying that I find to be true in my experience, and it's defense wins championships. Perhaps it's related to college football. I think you can apply it to other sports. The idea is that in many sports, especially like NBA, there's a lot of scoring in NBA basketball. There's a lot of scoring. But if you're going to win, if you're going to make it all the way to the end, you need to keep them from scoring too. And what we see secondly could be understood in that way. You don't just need a good offense. You don't need to get out there and learn and grow, but you also need a defense. You need to guard against false doctrine. We see that in verse eight. Look with me secondly. The second thing that you must do is you must guard against false doctrine. Verse 8 says, Beware, lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. What's interesting about this passage of Scripture is that Paul is giving commands here. And the second command is, Beware. Take heed. Notice. Be on guard. It's an image. It's an image of a sentry, a watchman on the tower. Okay, guarding, you know, looking out, seeing if there's any threat coming. I did this in the army. You know, there's times where you're resting in the middle of the woods, some guys are sleeping, other guys are watching. What happens if that watchman goes to sleep? What happens? The enemy's gonna come, and there's gonna be a, Total annihilation. No one's alert. They're not paying attention. They're not awake. They're not on their guard. They're not noticing a threat. That's the image here. Now the threat is a spiritual raider. A spiritual raider. Someone who wants to take your soul. That should get your attention, by the way. We're not talking about money, okay? Listen, I was... playing with my kids at a park yesterday, and I had my wallet and my cell phone and my keys on the ground. It was actually a marker for us. We were using it. And some kids came over to play with us. Took about 30 seconds, and I said, you know what? I need to pick up my wallet. There's a lot of kids running around. We're not talking about money. We're talking about guarding your soul. Beware lest anyone cheat you. Now this is I think not the best translation. The King James says beware lest anyone spoil you or the ESV says takes you captive. And in every case, the idea is this. It's that, you know, Old Testament story of, you know, the Philistines go and they raid the city of Judah and they take all to spoil. Take all the animals, all the gold and everything. There's been a spoiling, a plunder's been taken. And that plunder is someone's soul. There's people out there that want to lead you astray with false doctrines, doctrines of demons. They want to take your soul. This is what's at stake. And there's three ways in which they do this. There's a fourth way, but it really applies to all three. There's really three things that Paul points out. Three ways in which they take you captive and they spoil your soul. The first one is these words, through philosophy and empty deceit. So how do they do this? Through philosophy and empty deceit. I take this as one idea. You could say this, well he's talking about philosophy and he's talking about those things that are deceitful and empty. Well it's actually one. And the reason for that is sometimes the word and can mean like namely. Like a philosophy that is deceitful itself and is empty. It has nothing there. Philosophy is not sinful in itself. It's important for us as Christians to recognize that. You can be a philosopher. You can major in philosophy as a Christian. There's such a thing as a philosophy. Paul has this not sinful. Now, when Paul uses the word philosophy here, he's using it in a much broader sense than we would use it now. Back then, there was two sciences, philosophy and theology. Theology was the king. Philosophy was the queen. He's got logic, even anatomy, geography, natural science, things like logic. That's what Paul is referring to here. But the reason why it's empty and it's deceitful is because it's tampering with religious things. The light of reason, a man's ability to think, cannot discover anything other than the existence of God and that he should be worshiped. But what they're doing is they're going beyond that. Gnosticism. Okay, I've mentioned to you Gnosticism. There's other ways of philosophy that are sinful and wrong that we encounter today, which maybe I'll get to in a moment. But this philosophy is empty and deceitful because it tampers with the things of God which must come through revelation. The Bible says that the natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, nor can he understand them, for they are spiritually discerned. The Holy Spirit must give illumination through the word of God. Paul says in Romans 1 20, Since the creation of the world, okay, those things that we can see, all men can see and think about, since the creation of the world has invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, what can they understand? even his eternal power in Godhead. They can understand that there is a God, but not the way of salvation, not how he should be worshipped, not the rule of faith. What these people are doing, these false teachers are bringing this up. Now this same idea is all over us. Listen, you go to college, what are you exposed to? You're exposed to all kinds of humanistic philosophy. Man is his own standard. Who needs God? Different ways of saying that. Evolution would be the academic excuse for why that's true. We came from nothing. What a joke. Evolution accuses us of being blind to our faith. Listen, you can't explain how everything came about. You just believe it. What is this? This is philosophy and empty deceit. It's all around us. And it's after you. It's coming after you. Secondly, we have here according to the tradition of men. And the sense here is this is another separate category. Those things which are simply and only based upon man's thoughts. They're according to the tradition of men. Okay, so now some traditions that are only derived from man are not wrong. Again, we're talking about things that pertain to religion, things that become a matter of our faith or even worship. You know, for example, I have a tradition in my family, or at least growing up, that whenever we left the home, okay, I'm driving off to go back to college, go to the airport and driving off, or maybe my sister visited us from South Alabama and she's driving back away from the homestead in Birmingham, We always would honk 16 times. It's a tradition. It means we love you. We're sad that you're leaving. It's a tradition. Now that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about things that pertain to the worship of God. Certainly things that become a rule of faith. God is not their source. Man. Man is their source. Either entirely or partially. Which is really the same thing. Jesus said to the Pharisees, Mark 7, 6 through 7. Think about the Pharisees, all about the traditions of men. I mean, they marginalized actual word of God to what was, they're just traditions. Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites? As it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching us doctrines, the commandments of men. teaching us doctrines, the commandments of men. One of the things that we hold to very firmly as Protestants, a lot of our history with the Roman Catholic Church, we believe that it is right and proper and even necessary for the people in the pew, okay, you and you, to have access to God's word. Now, where is that in the Bible? I mean, this thing, this is a modern thing. I mean, the printing press was, you know, what, 1400s, 1500s, or something like that? Well, if we're going to know that something, a teaching, is actually from God, and it's actually from the Apostles, then we need to have the source. God's Word. Ad fontes, as the Reformers would say, to the sources. Get the Word of God back into the hands of the people. That's a sure, helpful way that you can know you're not following traditions of men. I want you to think about your traditions that you have in your family, in your own person, or even in our church. Are our traditions actually founded upon God's Word? To the degree that they don't, they're going to hurt us and harm us. Paul actually brings up The concept, and I want you to think about the concept of something that's merely from men. It's not from God. Now the other one, the other way that you can be spiritually harmed and even spiritually killed It says here, according to the basic principles of the world, and then I'll also cover the phrase, and not according to Christ. What does this mean, according to the basic principles of the world? And there's different ways of translating this phrase. You might have a version that says something about spirits. And it is true that false doctrine is demonic, okay? Nothing really special to that. The demons and the devil are trying constantly to get people to follow whether it be the cults or just some false teaching. What's specifically being referenced here is the mosaic ceremonies. Those holy and unclean laws that are very peculiar to the Old Testament that pointed to Christ. that were used then, at that time, as first lessons, as visuals, if you will, to teach us something about Christ, but now have been abrogated. They've been done away with in His coming. And the reason for that is there's two places in the Bible where this same phrase, the basic principles of the world, or just basic principles, are used specifically to refer to the Mosaic economy. One of them is in this chapter. You notice in verse 16, of this chapter. He says, let no one judge you in food or in drink. That's a reference to Judaism, Old Testament law. Regarding a festival or new moon or Sabbath. Those are holy days in the Old Testament. He goes on And in that context, in verse 20, he says, Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations? Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle. Now this is just covered with Judaism. What are the basic principles then? They're those things that the God's people learned in the first, which have been abrogated. They've died away with Christ. There's another place that I'll just refer to, Galatians 4. Galatians 4, this same word is used in reference to the Mosaic economy. Verse 9 of Galatians 4. One commentator writes about these words here. There is then no doubt that in this place he signifies by these words the observations and devotions of the ceremonial law. I was, at one point in my life, I had the opportunity to observe the Passover. There were some Orthodox Jews in the neighborhood, nice people. Would it have been appropriate for me to do that? Think about it. What am I saying? Was Jesus not the Christ? Did he not come to fulfill this? Did he not institute the Lord's Supper? You see, we don't really struggle with that, I think, at least in a direct sense, in this church, okay? But there are ways in which we can kind of get into this kind of thing. I mean, for one, I must, again, bring up the Roman Catholic Church. I have to. You can look at the Old Testament and say, hey, look, there's priests, and they're sacrificing. What is the centerpiece of Roman Catholic worship? The priest. Sacrifices. That's what it is. It's Judaism. Listen, when you read about the Judaizers in the book of Acts, and you read about these type of people, it's the precursors of the Roman Catholics. Faith in Moses and Jesus. Or if you like, Jesus and Moses. That's what they're doing. Now, there's other ways in which we can do this as well, though. You know, one of the reasons why people get into ceremonies and like, you know, doing this and doing that is it's easy. It's easier. You want to be a faithful Roman Catholic, just come to Mass. Go to confession. The piety is just easier. You know, if you want to be modest, and we can do this more in our circles, then just have a dress at a certain length. And there it is, there's the standard. There's the regulation. And there's no concern about really modesty in the heart. A person wearing a dress down to the ankles but desires to solicit. Wants to be solicited. Sexual sin. There's no cleanliness in their heart. Is this easier to just kind of cross the T's and dot the I's? Just to have an outward ceremonial life. All these things are not according to Christ. Christ has not established these, they don't point to Christ, and that's kind of a catch-all phrase there at the end of verse eight. Guarding against false doctrine. All these different types of things that we face, it can be kind of depressing. We face a lot of false teaching. They faced a lot of false teaching. Are you guarding against false doctrine? Are you? What does it look like? Again, what does it look like practically? Here's the command, here's the application, beware. What does that mean though? How can you beware? Well, I'll point you to a very basic point. Ever heard of the Bereans? Bereans heard from Paul, his preaching, and they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Are you a gullible Christian? You walk into Barnes & Noble, you walk into Lifeway Christian Bookstore, and you just kind of pick up the first Christian book that you find. I don't recommend that. You meet someone, they say they're a pastor, and you start talking to them, you just kind of eat up everything they say. Listen, not every pastor is a true pastor. You know, if I'm counseling you, and you're not really sure about something, Sam, what's the reason for that again? What's the biblical reason for that? Be attentive to the voice of Christ. Hear Him. One of the reasons why I preach is called expository preaching. Have you ever gone to a church where it's like a topic, the pastor can pretty much say whatever he wants to say. He can stay away from certain things he doesn't understand or doesn't want to talk about and kind of focus on these. I go through the Bible because I don't want to say anything to you that's not from God. It's one thing to misunderstand a verse. It's another thing to just ignore verses. And if you're guarding against false doctrine, you are not going to be gullible. You know, have a neutral spot where you put ideas and things that you hear. You have, you have a, you know, in your mind like, that's true. I'm going to hold on to that. That's false. Well, you hear something new and you're not really sure. Just kind of keep it neutral, keep it at a distance. Don't swallow it. Guard against it. Don't be so zealous for knowledge. You start taking in poison. Don't take in poison. Guard against it. You must do that. You must do that. These are two things that you must do in order for God's people to remain steadfast. They must persevere in true doctrine and guard against false doctrine. Have you adopted God's game plan, his directives to bring you all the way home? You know, it's a good thing. It's a good thing for an airborne soldier to be a little nervous. to know that it's important. I've got to pass my static line to the jump master. I can't mess that up. I've got to jump. The jump master's not going to do it for me. If you hear these words of Paul, they don't bother you. They don't challenge you. Or maybe they encourage you because you are doing this and you're thinking about stopping. If you're not affected by these words, I question, at least I have a reason to question whether you're converted to God. This is important. It's important. You must do these things. How many people do you know having once professed faith, no longer professing faith? I thought about it this morning for a few seconds, and I immediately thought of three people. I mean, just within a few seconds, three people immediately came in my mind. Is it because they're not elected? Is it because they're not elected? Listen, don't put that in your... don't have that category. People go to hell because they don't believe in Jesus. And they don't repent. And then they don't pay attention to His law that says there's bad people out there. Stay away from them. You should feel a need to follow the words of Christ and to guard, guard against false doctrine, to persevere in true doctrine. You've got to do this. You must do this. It's important. My dear congregation, this is important. You must do these things. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you. We come to you as weak. We come to you in our weakness, we come to you in our sin, and we know that you're merciful, that you hear the cry of the repenting sinner. We know that you are the one who saves. We know that you're the one who makes us willing. Both to will, both to do your good pleasure. We come to you asking you to preserve us, to save us. Father, if we do not have your attention, if we are not giving you our attention, these words, we ask that you would wake us up. We ask that you would wake up any sleeping Christian here. to their need to guard, their need to persevere. Father, we ask that you would help us. We think of those who have left even this congregation, people in our family who have, who are no longer professing faith, who are very weak in their faith, and right there at the line about to cross over, we ask that you'd be gracious to them. that you would be merciful to them, that you'd bring them back. Father, keep us, make us to be like trees, firmly planted and bearing fruit. For we ask this in Jesus's name, amen. Take your Psalter, turn to Psalm 119b. as you reflect on your life and how you are doing in light of the gospel and in light of Christ's mighty work in you and whether you are taking heed to yourself. May these words be your words. Notice that the psalmist is clinging to God's word. How can a young man cleanse his way? Let him with care your word obey. All my heart I seek for you. From your commands, let me not stray. Psalm 119b. Let's stand to sing 119b. Remain standing for the benediction and the doxology from 41c. Let's let's praise God. How can a young man cleanse his way? Let him with heavy a word obey. With all my heart I seek for you. From your covenants let me prostrate. Your word I treasure in my heart, so that from you I will not turn, that I'll not sing of blessed Lord, Your statutes teach that I may learn I have breathed in with my lips all of the love your mouth has told. I have rejoiced in your commands, As one delights in purest gold. I on your precepts meditate, and I will ponder all your ways. I will delight in your decrees, Receive now the blessing of the Lord, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.