I’ve gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant for I do not forget your commandments.
– Psalm 119:176
Isn’t that an interesting way for this longest chapter in the Bible, a chapter that’s just filled with descriptions of God’s word and longing for God’s word and trust in God’s word.
Psalm 119:176 Reminds Us it is God Who Seeks Us
It ends with a verse saying, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep.” I read that and I can’t help but to think about a tendency in my life and every one of our lives to go astray from the word of God, this great, valuable treasure, life giving word from God. In our sinfulness, we are prone to go astray from it. All of us are. To realize that today, that we will be tempted to go astray from God’s word, that we will be tempted to think our ways are better than his ways, than his word.
And so the psalmist says, “I’ve gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant.” Oh, praise God, that he seeks after us when we have gone astray, that he seeks after us even before we go astray, that he is continually seeking after us. “Seek your servant,” the psalmist writes, “for I do not forget your commandments.” Oh, that’s so important, isn’t it? That you and I, when we are going astray, that by God’s seeking grace, we remember his commandments and we turn back toward him. How important is it?
Psalm 119:176 Reminds Us We are Desperately Needy of Grace
This is what Psalm 119 started by saying, “I’ve hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” When you and I are tempted, and especially when we go astray, we need God’s word to be recalled in that moment, in that moment of temptation, in that moment of falling to temptation. We need God’s word to come to us quickly, that we might not forget it, that we might remember it, and turn back to God as our loving shepherd when we as sheep go astray.
Oh God, we confess our tendency to not trust your word. God, even as I say that in light of all the beauty and glory and wonder and majesty and truth and treasure that we see described in your word in Psalm 119, we pray, forgive us God. How foolish we are to turn away from your word, to go astray like a lost sheep. We praise you for pursuing us as our shepherd, for coming to us, for saving us from ourselves. And for bringing your word to our minds and our hearts. God, help us to have your word hidden in our hearts. That we might not sin when we are tempted. And that if or when we fall prey to temptation that your word would meet us immediately. Convict us and draw us back to you by your seeking grace in our lives.
Praying for the Soyot People
God, as we pray that and praise you for seeking us as lost sheep, we pray for the Soyot people of Russia, 3,600 of them. Most of them practicing Tibetan Buddhism, none of them knowing the good news of the gospel in Jesus. God, we pray they are lost sheep. Bring them in, we pray. Bring the Soyot people of Russia into the fold. Save them, we pray. We pray for the spread of your salvation through your word to the Soyot people.
Seek them and God help your church, help us to be a picture of seeking after them. And the way we’re praying right now and the way we give, send out laborers to go. We pray for the spread of your word, of your grace, of your commandments, of your love, of your mercy to lost sheep, specifically the Soyot people of Russia. We pray all of this in our lives and over the Soyot in Jesus’ name, in light of Psalm 119:176. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
