Psalm 119 IV: The Practical Balance of Dependence and Duty

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Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm John Snyder and we are returning again to Psalm 119, that unique psalm that gives us 176 verses describing the

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Word of God, but in a way that is so beneficial, so perfectly suited to the

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Christian life right here in this kind of world, with our kind of hearts, with our stumbling steps, because it shows the

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Word of God in front of a believer, but 172 of the 176 verses, you remember, are direct prayers to God.

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You. You. So there's the book of God in front of the believer, the law of God, the precepts of God, the ordinances of God, the judgments, the ways of God, the promises of God, and they move a believer to a response.

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And there's a wonderful picture of the interplay between prayer and Scripture as they work in the heart of a follower of Christ.

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So today we are coming again to that turning point, the only significant turning point we find in the entire chapter, and that's in verse 4 and 5, where the pronouns go from distant statements, those people walking on His path, following His commandments, are happy, are blessed, to verse 4, you

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God. So it's changed. God has come very close. You have ordained your precepts that we, me and my fellow man, would keep them diligently.

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Verse 5 is also part of that transition, and we looked at the first part of that in our last week's podcast, and that is the heart of the believer being brought to a wonderful statement, the eruption from within.

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Oh that, oh that my ways were established to keep this law. Let me read verse 5 again.

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Oh that my ways may be established to keep your statutes. So that is the response of every regenerate born -again heart if it understands the moral law of God in the correct light.

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That is, we see verses 1, 2, and 3, the graciousness of God having made us alive in Christ, He now puts our feet on that path of perfect happiness.

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And though we are very imperfect, by His grace the Christian does walk that path. We stumble, we drift, we fall down, sometimes we feel like turning back, but because of the ongoing work of God within us, what we've committed to Him, this life,

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He keeps. He completes. He perfects. So the second half of verse 5 is such a wonderful statement.

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Oh that my ways may be established to keep your statutes. Now before we get into it, I want to hit another objection that sometimes gets raised in our hearts, and especially among those who take seriously what the

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Bible says about man's moral depravity. That doesn't mean that we can't do anything morally right, you know, that we can't be kind to our children, that we can't be sacrificial, that we can't be thoughtful, that we do every sin possible.

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That is not what depravity means. It means that all of life, because the fountain, the soul, the spirit, the heart, because the heart of humanity has been influenced by sin, everything that flows out of that bears some of that taint, some of that poison.

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So every aspect of humanity, every aspect of the individual and the society has some selfishness, some me, me, what's in life for me kind of quality to it.

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When we take that seriously, if you think perhaps of churches that, you know, would say that they align more closely with the reform doctrines, what the reformers rediscovered, then what we tend to do is,

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I feel like the enemy comes along and says to us, well now that you've learned the truth about humanity and your depravity and the fact you can't really do anything that is pleasing and acceptable to God without God's help, and God is sovereign, and you're not going to fix yourself, and you're not going to live the life that earns his love, well now that you've understood that and all of my lies have been uncovered, well

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I guess I might as well tell you, you know, you can't do anything. And so he gives us a little nudge, and when we swing from a very self -confident view, you know, a very kind of high view of our abilities to a biblical view of our abilities and our need for God, then the enemy by his temptation, he kind of leads us a little further and the pendulum swings too far and we end up in a realm where we say to God, I know you command all these wonderful things, but perhaps you don't remember

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God that the Bible teaches and the Reformed doctrine teaches, and you give God a little theology lesson, and you know just enough theology to excuse your inactivity.

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You tell God that you know he's sovereign and we are incapable of doing all that we owe him, and so you come to God, think of it, a child coming to the king, explaining to the king what his sovereignty is.

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I know you're my father now by adoption, and so I know that you have authority, but let me explain to you

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God that my preacher and the old writers told me that you're so authoritative that actually

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I don't think I can do anything you say. It just doesn't make sense if we go back to Scripture.

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Psalm 119 is a particularly helpful passage for this dilemma because it gives us a picture of the constant interplay and the interrelation of two great responses in the

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Christian's heart. That is, a sense of determination, I will obey my

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God, but also a sense of utter dependence.

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God, I need you. If I am to obey you, it will have to be by your mighty working within me and my response to that.

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So, while we can discuss the dependence upon God's grace and the determination to obey, we can discuss them as separate categories,

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I think that in the Christian life they cannot be separated. They are organically connected. Let me illustrate that with a comparison.

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If you think of the Christian life and the grace of God and the response of our hearts and lives in obedience, if you think of those two things as connected like a house, the foundation of the house and what you build on top of the foundation, the walls, the roof.

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When we think of that, if we think grace is the foundation and then we build a life of obedience on that foundation and that's the walls and the roof,

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I think that it's not a bad illustration, but it's inadequate because there is a connection there between roof, walls, and the foundation, but it's not a living connection.

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We could say it's kind of a mechanical, artificial connection. So, we lay the foundation and then we go along and we begin to build the walls and they are anchored to the foundation, but really you could still, you could unscrew those anchors, so to speak, and you could take the walls off and you could see here's a wall and here's a foundation, but that's not the way it is in the

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Christian life. We can't say here's duty and determination and here is grace or dependence.

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It's more like a plant. The root system is the system of constantly sinking into the sufficiency of our

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Savior, especially as we see it described in this word. We are living upon the great triune

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God and what He's provided in the New Covenant. That's the root system, dependence. Flowing out of that is the determination to do what

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He's told us to do and so flowing out of that, you know, you have the whole plant. So, think of a fruit tree.

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The root system and then the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the buds, the fruit. When you look at that tree, we can discuss the apples on the branches and we can see that we can discuss apples and roots as two different things, but really the entire thing is organically connected.

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It's not like you can separate roots from fruit, really. There is a living connection and that's the way

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Psalm 119 presents the balance of duty and determination on one side with dependence on the other.

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Now, if we say to ourselves, well, because we're so sinful and because God is so sovereign, we can't really walk this path,

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I think that we are forgetting some things that the Bible says. Things like what we read in 2nd

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Peter chapter 1. Peter writes and he says, he's writing to those who have received a faith of the same kind, like precious faith, by the righteousness of our

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God and Savior Jesus Christ. And he prays that grace and peace may be multiplied to these people in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our

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Lord. So, wonderful statement. All you believers throughout Rome, I'm writing to you and you have the same kind of precious faith that God gave to Abraham or to David, you know, or to Jeremiah and Isaiah, or to the

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Apostles. And, through knowing God intimately, a living knowledge, a vital connection with God, it says that His divine power grants us everything pertaining to life and godliness.

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So, there's no excuse for the believer being united to Christ, having roots sunk into Him.

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There is never a reason for us to say to God, thank you for this perfect path, but you know I'm so sinful and so needy

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I would never be able to walk it. Well, God knows how sinful we are. It's worse than what we think, but God also knows the infinite measure of His supply.

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And we have in Him all we need for moment -by -moment obedience. Think of John 15.

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Christ is divine. We are the branches, the living connection, and the life of Christ flowing through us.

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And by that wonderful living union with Christ, we find that we are enabled to bear fruit.

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But remember that Christ says, apart from me, disconnected from me, you could do nothing. What you do ends up being, you know, a big zero, spiritually worthless.

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But united to the vine, we produce fruit. Now, having gotten that in our heads, no excuse for disobedience, no excuse for stepping off the path.

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The Christian does sometimes step off the path. We do sin, but there is an advocate provided so that we don't lose the favor of our

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God. And there is a mighty work of the Spirit within us, constantly transforming us, using even the bad choices that we make, though they grieve

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God, using that to mold us into the image of Christ. So that we find that ultimately the enemy and his temptations are simply what

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Samuel Rutherford called, servants who scrub and scour the pots and pans and cups of God's household so that they will be clean and purified and made ready for the

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Master's use. Well, let's look at that second half of verse 5 now. Oh that my ways may be established to keep your statutes.

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That's the longing, that's the determination, and that's the confession of the believer. Now, look at the little word, establish.

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In the Hebrew, it means that there's a task that is so important, you are you are laying up everything that's needed, you are preparing yourself to do the task.

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So like building a house. You don't just go out and start digging a foundation with your shovel. There's all this that needs to be gathered.

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There's the plans, there's the resources, the people, the workers. So God has ordained that you would keep his law diligently.

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You are praying that your life would be established to do just that. That my life would take this so seriously that every aspect of preparation would be grabbed hold of and used in order to get my feet on that path.

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It also means to make stable, to establish something. That English word makes sense to us.

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If something is established, it's not movable. So let's ask ourselves a very simple question.

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Is your life established to keep the precepts, the commands of God?

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By the grace of God, is your life established? Is it rooted?

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Is it bolted down on the path of obedience? Is it unmovable or is it easily shifted?

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Are you the kind of person whose obedience is daily, by God's help, established?

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That is the established habitual pattern of your thoughts and desires and choices.

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Well, think of two different living places. Think of a house and a tent.

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We don't usually live in tents except for temporary, but let's take that as an illustration. You go out and you throw up a little tent.

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Let's say that you're like me and you're lazy. So you get the tent out very infrequently and you forget what you're supposed to do.

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You don't have the instructions any longer, but you got one of those tents with the bendable fiberglass poles and they all fit together.

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So it's one of those dome tents and you figure it out and the pole goes here and it connects and ends up over there and it kind of forms a structure.

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So the dome tent pops up and it looks great, but you don't remember where the tent pegs are.

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So you don't put the tent pegs down and you think that's fine. It's good enough. If a storm came, you weren't in the tent.

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So you've gone to the car for something. You've gone to the camp for something. You go back to your tent and the tent has been moved.

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Maybe the wind is strong enough to move it 10 feet or 30 feet. Maybe it's blown over.

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It's not a thing that's established. It's not rooted. It's not founded.

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Is your obedience like that? Does it take a little storm in life to move you a little to the left, a little off the path?

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So just be very practical. Let's think of this past week. Can you stop for a moment and think of an area where you know that you disobeyed

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God? Maybe in the way you responded to a spouse or to the kids, to a parent, to a sibling. You know, how you did your work this week as unto me rather than as unto

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God. You know, the thought you've had the bitterness or unforgiveness. Let me ask you, how big of a storm did it take to move you from a path of following Christ and the law of God to living for yourself?

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Sometimes I have a quiet time and my heart is so full of what I read that I think to myself, although I would never say it,

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I don't think I'll ever sin again. I cannot imagine sin ever being appealing again.

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And then maybe within hours I get a phone call and I'm stressed out or, you know, the kids are doing something or my wife reminds me of something

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I said I would do and I didn't do and I get frustrated with myself and I have a sharp response and I have gotten off the path of Christlikeness, off the path of obedience.

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And all it took was a few words from somebody. I am so easily moved. My life is not established.

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Now, compare a tent to a house. So the house with the foundation and everything's, you know, bolted together as we mentioned and there are footers and there's rebar in the footers.

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How much wind would it take to move a house? Well, we know a house can be moved. There are tornadoes.

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But how much wind? If you look at your phone and it tells you that the weather today is going to be gusty and it says up to 40 mile an hour winds, well that would be something.

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But would you expect to drive home after work and see your house moved to two foot to the left? A house is established.

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A house is rooted. And it takes a lot to move a house. So which are you?

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Are we the kind of people that say we love Christ but our sentimental attachment to Jesus is so weak?

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Our life is not established to keep His commands and any little thing moves us.

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Are you not tired of looking at yourself in the mirror? I get this way often, and seeing how fickle your love is for Christ, how weak your determination is, you know, how your greatest resolution to do differently dissolves before half the day goes by.

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So this is a wonderful prayer for every true believer. Oh that my ways were established to keep your statutes, to keep your word, to walk that path.

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Oh that I was firmly rooted, not so easily moved, God. When will

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I not be so easily moved? And again, this is a prayer. God, by your grace, make it so today in this present moment.

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What a wonderful prayer for a person who has held Christ at arm's length, who while maybe being religious or irreligious, doesn't matter what form sin takes, whether it's self -righteous or very ugly, embarrassing sins, to come to God, to see

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God, to see the path of happiness He gives to His children, to realize you owe Him obedience, whether you're a

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Christian or not, and to cry out to God this, oh that you would do a work in me so that my feet would be established on that path of obedience.

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God, what would have to be done in a person like me for my shame to be removed, and for the pollution of my heart to be healed, and the guilt to be forgiven, and for me to be able to walk up to you, the judge, the king, the lawgiver that I fought against, and to be able to give myself to you, and that you would want me, and that you would embrace me, and through the work of your

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Son, which Father, Son, and Spirit are all involved in, through that great work of rescue, that you would not only embrace me, but you would give me yourself in the person of the

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Son, and I would give all I know of myself to Him, and He would give all He is to me, and there would be a living union created that would never be broken, and then with a whole heart,

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I would be able to set my feet on that path. Not temporarily, not just for a week, not for a little while, but that my feet would be established forever and ever on the path of your commands.

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Well, by the grace of God, this is where our Savior walked. He walked it perfectly, but do you not think

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He can teach you to walk it as imperfect, as stumbling, you know, like a toddler? If you were to see your footprints on this path, you would see little tiny steps left, right, left, right, backwards, then you would see evidence that the toddler fell over into the dirt and scrambled about there, and then pick back up, then left and right, but if someone asked you, was that toddler walking the path?

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Are they headed in the right direction? You would say, well, obviously, just because they stumble doesn't mean they're not on the path.

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So ask the Lord, can you teach me? You've taught millions of others. Can you show me how to put one foot in front of the next to establish my pattern of life in obedience by the mighty help of your hand?

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And God will do it. Well, we'll see you next week as we pick back up with some other choice verses from Psalm 119.