Psalm 119 II: The Happiest Life

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Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder and we're returning to the topic of Psalm 119, the longest psalm in the

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Bible, the longest chapter in the Bible, and the chapter which gives us the most complete portrait of the believer with the heart turned toward God but with the

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Bible open before him. The interiority of the believer as we come into contact with the speaking

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God through His Word, but not just the interiority, not just the pious feelings and the heart stirred, but the actual application of that.

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So let's jump into Psalm 119 and we're going to look at that initial three verses which are the introduction to the whole chapter.

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And we talked about this last week. These demonstrate the gracious nature of God's character toward His people but also the gracious nature of God's law.

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And we don't tend to think of the law as a gift. We tend to think of it as a bill that our

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Creator hands us and says, you haven't paid this. And the law certainly performs that work in our souls.

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It shows us where we fall short. It exposes to us that we're not what we thought we were.

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Not just the sin on the outside but the sin on the inside. It shows us that it's what we are that is wrong.

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And the purpose of all of that is gracious. It drives us to a Savior who has kept the law.

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But these early verses also demonstrate how kind God is to lay a path before our feet of perfect happiness.

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So let me read those first three verses and then we're going to look at the first part in verse 4 of a response.

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And the response I take as verse 4 and 5. The initial response to the first three verses.

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But we're only going to get to verse 4 today. So here's how the Psalm opens. How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the

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Lord. How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, who seek

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Him with all their heart. They also do no unrighteousness, they walk in His ways.

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Now I want to just point out two things. First, this Psalm deals with so many of the balancing act questions in Christianity.

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Like depending upon God and determining to obey God. But another one that we see here in the first three verses is the balancing act between the heart and the mind.

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Oftentimes you know we think of doctrine as being intellectual and we know that it can't remain intellectual.

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It's got to get into the heart. It's not enough that we admire these truths, we must love the truth.

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And not only do we love the truth, it's got to get into our hands and feet. We've got to do the truth. And I feel that that transition sometimes

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I get stuck. I get stuck in the mind or maybe my heart gets warmed and it becomes mere sentimentalism.

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It doesn't work itself out into obedience. But here we find that wonderful organic connection between mind and heart in every

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Christian. We see the psalmist looking at a person. It's like looking out the window and there's this the happiest of people on a path.

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And his life is integrated or made whole by the law.

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His heart is engaged. He's seeking the Lord with his whole heart while he's observing these laws.

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So heart and mind together. The Puritan John Flable in his little book, Keeping the Heart, said that it's a long distance from the mind to the heart.

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But it is a very short step from the heart to action. And I think we all know what that's like.

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To know that you ought to do things is one thing, but sometimes we feel like it's a long stretch to get from knowing we ought to do them, understanding concepts, to actually living on the

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But let a man or a woman love a thing, and it's a short step from loving the thing to acting upon it.

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Well, the first three verses are a wonderful description, but they are an objective description.

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Notice the pronouns. How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the

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Lord. How blessed are those who observe His testimonies.

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They also do no unrighteousness. They walk in His ways.

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And that leads us to a second major point here. And that is, after verse three, we will never again see this pattern.

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The next 173 verses, with the exception of one verse, we find the psalmist shifting from objective statements or distant observations.

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Look at those people that walk in the law of God. How happy they are. Look at them.

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They walk in His law. And so it's as if there's a distance there, and there's an observation.

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And it's a great observation, but it's not enough. Between verse 3 and 4, what we find is a transition.

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And the transition has to occur in every one of us, or we cannot call ourselves

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Christians. But I'm going to save that for next week when we look at verse 5, because that's where it really comes to life.

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But just keep that in your mind, a transition, and the clue there is the pronouns.

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Now another thing I want to mention about the first three verses is this word blessed or blessed. What does it mean?

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We use this word a lot in religious circles, but are we clear on it? I believe the simplest way of describing it would be that this is a picture of a person who walks near the

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Lord, and there is that abundant life that Christ promised. That is, from God, the source of all happiness, the infinite source of completeness, the one being who in himself is everlastingly, uninterruptedly satisfied, happy, joyful, complete.

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From that being flows a river of unexpected love, and as we walk in harmony with that being, in his law, depending upon him, heart turned toward him, what we find is the first three verses.

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Enviably happy is the man that walks that path with the Lord. Enviably satisfied, enviably complete and whole and joyful is the man whose feet are on this path and whose heart seeks

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God. Now that brings us to verse 4, and verse 4 says this, you, now you see we've shifted in the pronouns from the distant pronouns to the very near ones, not

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God's way, but now the psalmist turns and speaks directly to God, and that, as I said, will continue throughout the chapter.

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So he goes from observing to speaking, and he says to God, you have ordained your precepts that we should keep them diligently.

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Now this is a universal objective statement. It doesn't matter whether a person is a

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Christian or not, you can be an atheist, you can be a Muslim, you could be a Hindu, you can be a true

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Christian, and you can be a hypocrite, but verse 4 is true, and you could say that to God, and it would be a true prayer.

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You, our Creator, have ordained that we would keep your precepts diligently.

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Let's think a little bit about the facts that are stated. First of all, there are precepts, or commands, or or, you know, moral laws for how

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I'm to respond in all the situations of life, even in this very imperfect world.

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God has not just given us these as a path that leads to happiness, as the path of harmony with Him.

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He has actually ordained or commanded that we do them. The Hebrew word there is the same word that the

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Hebrews would use for a captain in an army giving commands to the soldiers on the field.

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So it's not an unclear word. It's very clear. God, you have, with all authority, commanded all humanity to keep your precepts, or to do your commandments.

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Second, you have commanded that we would keep your precepts diligently. All right, so let's think about that word.

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What is the word diligence? Again, in the original language, it's a little fuller than our English word.

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We think of diligence as something that we do wholeheartedly. You know, the mind has to be engaged.

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You don't just kind of go through the motions. I think of my children, you know, doing their chores. I think of me doing my chores, and you know,

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I go through the motions as a kid, and my mom says, well, did you do what I asked you to?

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And I said, well, yeah, I did. I cleaned my room. And my mom might look in the room, and my idea of clean and her idea of clean, you know, would demonstrate the difference between a lack of diligence and diligence.

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So she would look in the room, and she'd say, what's that? What's that? What's that? You know, do it again.

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So we think of being engaged with something, but the Hebrew word goes even further. It is a task that lays an absolute claim upon you, even the idea of it being a great burden.

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Now, we have to be careful there, because obviously, John says in his first epistle in the New Testament that obeying

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God is not a burden to the Christian. So we don't mean to misapply that word, but the idea is, there is a claim upon my life.

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I am not free to just wander where I want morally with a heart that says,

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I love Jesus. There is a very clear path, and it calls me. It lays claim upon me.

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In fact, it does upon every person. We are to keep His commands diligently.

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Now, that raises a very significant question for us as we approach the entire Psalm. And if we don't get the right answer to this question, if we get the wrong answer,

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I think that we would have to say that Psalm 119 becomes a beautiful extended prayer, a beautiful religious song written thousands of years ago.

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But it is really just a beautiful, curious, antique, antiquated prayer.

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And it doesn't apply practically to today. It doesn't apply to the

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Christian, because it doesn't apply to the New Covenant. So here's our question. What relationship does the

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Christian have to God's moral law, to the path that the psalmist is talking about throughout these 176 verses?

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If the Christian's path, or the Christian's relationship to that path, to the moral law, is fundamentally different than the

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Old Testament believer's relationship to God's moral law, then when we read

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Psalm 119, we have a very different application in front of us. Let's try to shortly answer that question.

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And if this is something that has really bothered you, I think that my short answer may not satisfy you.

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But there are many good books out there on this topic, and there are good men on either side of this discussion.

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So I want to give you, in a short manner, what I feel is the clearest approach for me, and I try to do this as a pastor to guide the folks.

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While there is considerable confusion on the relationship between the Christian and the law, I don't think there needs to be.

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Let me say this, that a quick and kind of shallow reading of the New Testament certainly does produce the impression that the

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Christian and the law are forever separated, and the law has nothing more to do with us.

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Just two examples. In Romans 3, Paul makes it very clear that all people are sinners, all types of people.

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They are sinners, they don't know God, they don't want God, and they don't obey God. And then the law exposes that and silences all of our excuses.

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But Paul goes on to say that the good news is that salvation comes through the perpetuatory death of Christ, and not through keeping the law perfectly.

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So I am not justified, I am not declared right with God by my keeping of the law.

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If you think about sanctification, Paul writes in Romans 6 that we are not under the dominion of sin because we are not under the law, but under grace.

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We live in a realm where the king rules, but his rule is one that is an empowered rule by grace.

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And so it seems as if Paul is making it very clear, you're not brought into a right relationship with God by keeping the law, and you're not progressing in that relationship by keeping the law.

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But I want to say that that would be a shallow reading. There are other passages in the Bible that show us that the moral law, the basic right and wrong, the

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Ten Commandments sum these up, that these have a very important part in the Christian life.

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Let me read you a couple of passages. In John 14, verse 21, on that last, you know, long discussion with the

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Apostles that Christ has, recorded, you know, in John 13 through 17, John writes this,

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Christ is speaking, he who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me.

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And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will disclose myself to him.

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Those are some pretty strong statements. Who loves Jesus Christ? Who is a follower of Christ?

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We demonstrate our love by obedience. And what is the result? That as we walk in harmony with God, obeying

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His Word, there is a sweet intimacy, here described as an indwelling.

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Christ loves us, the Father loves us. John 14, verse 23, says it again from a different angle. There is an indwelling.

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God will make a home in us. Matthew 5, in the Sermon on the

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Mount, whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

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But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Now, I think that we could say, honestly, that our problem often is we have just enough

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Bible phrases and theological cliches to get ourselves in trouble, but not to benefit us.

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So we say we're not saved by the law, and we're not under the law, and those are certainly true. But what do those mean?

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When we think of the law in the Old Covenant, we often have a classic division of the law into three categories, and I think that this division is a very helpful one.

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There is the civil law, God's law to the nation of Israel for when they get into that land, how they're to live.

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Now, the civil law has many wonderful universal principles in it, like how to be thoughtful of your neighbor, and that's spelled out in specific case law.

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If you have farm animals, you have certain responsibilities so that that farm animal doesn't hurt a neighbor.

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If you have a house, you have a certain responsibility to be thoughtful. If you have a flat roof, like the Jews, you need to put a little fence railing around the roof because when people spend time on the roof, you don't want someone to accidentally, their child to fall off, and so being thoughtful.

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And so those principles can be applied throughout every generation, but the specific law there, the civil law, applies to Israel.

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Then there is the ceremonial law, and that, of course, is all those hundreds of regulations with regard to worship and sacrifice.

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Those have been wonderfully fulfilled in Christ's redeeming work.

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But there's a third category which doesn't end with Israel being in its land or with the fulfillment of the old covenant ceremonies, and that's what we call the moral law.

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And they are summarized in the Ten Commandments, but there are many specifics there.

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The moral law is universal. That is, all humanity, O God, obedience to His moral law.

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Why? The moral law has not been altered by the cross. It continues on forever.

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Why? Well, let's think of it. First, our obligation to obey

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God is not built on our ability. So Adam and Eve owed

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God obedience before sin, and when sin entered in by their choice, and their nature became sinful, and they went from having the ability to obey to now being dependent upon God's grace for the ability to obey.

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When that transition happened under the curse of our sin, Genesis chapter 4 onward, humanity is not allowed to say to God, well, since we no longer have the ability to obey perfectly,

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God, you can't expect us to. Our obligation to obey the law, the moral law of God, is based in God's character.

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It's based in God's rights. Because God is the kind of being He is, and because we have a relationship of creature to creator, we owe

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Him obedience. And that leads us to a second point. The cross of Christ has not fundamentally altered our obligation to express our love to God through obedience to His moral law.

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The cross of Christ removed the shame and the filth of the believer, as we look to Him, and that washing has occurred.

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And the life of Christ, not just His death, plays a great part in our rescue, because Christ perfectly fulfills the law, not just to be a sinless sacrifice, but to provide for us a righteousness which is imputed, which is legally placed upon our account, a mathematical term, an accounting term.

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It goes from, here is the righteousness of the perfect God -man, and we are united to Him by the

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Spirit, by our faith, and being made one with Him, the Son of God shares with His bride

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His righteousness. And so the law looks upon the believer and sees satisfaction.

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It's it is satisfied because we wear the perfect obedience of Christ. But that does not mean that the obligation to obey

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God has been removed by the cross. Another thing, there are definite changes in our relationship to the law in the

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New Covenant, but a putting away of the moral law is not one of them. So what are the changes?

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Well the law isn't over you, as I mentioned, the law isn't over you as a policeman or as a judge condemning you, yelling at you, telling you that you're failing again and again, because the law sees the believer as united to Christ.

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We have a righteousness, Paul says in the Corinthian letter, our sin has been placed on Him, He became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

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The righteousness of Christ shared with me in the same way that my sin was shared with Him. My guilt was placed on Him at the cross,

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His righteousness is attributed to me when I am united to Him by faith. So the law is satisfied with us because we're in Christ, but more than that, the law is now a friend of the believer.

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Since our debt to the law has been paid by Christ and our righteousness is secure by law -keeping, not my law -keeping,

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His law -keeping, then the law is free to be sent to us as a friend to guide and not as a policeman to condemn.

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The old writers used to say it this way, the law comes to the believer in Christ no longer from the hand of Moses, angry, but it comes from the hand of Christ, satisfied as a friend.

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The law as a friend becomes the guide to the

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Christian's desire to express gratitude and love. Again, John 14 verse 15,

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Christ says, if you love me you will keep my commandments. But how do I know how to express my love to God?

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God, I now love you, I have a new nature, you have forgiven me, I want to wake up today and live for you.

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But how do I do that? And the answer is, the law comes alongside of us and says, here is what pleases

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God still. Here is what displeases God still. These are unchanging.

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Adultery is wrong in the Old Covenant and New Covenant. There's no world in which adultery, murder, deceit, idolatry are okay with God.

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So the law lays a path on which our feet can walk and we see the footprints of every believer,

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Old Covenant, New Covenant. We see the footprints of our Christ, our

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Savior, never veering from the path. And even though we stumble and we drift, that's the path that Christian loves.

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And the law is a friend to show me how to show love to my new King. Let me say lastly about the law, that when we think of the

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Christian life, we can sum up the entirety of our response with this phrase,

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Christ commanded us, follow me. So we are followers. But here's where the law is particularly precious.

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How am I supposed to follow Christ? Well, we all know, and I'm saying this, you know, to show, make a point.

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So I know we already know this, but we know that we're not supposed to go dress in bathrobes and sandals and ride on a donkey through dusty streets in Jerusalem.

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We're not going to go out to people in the Middle East and do great miracles.

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We're not going to die for the world and be raised for their justification. So how do we follow

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Jesus Christ? Well, we have His specific teachings. We have the New Testament epistles which apply that so clearly.

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But have you ever considered that the moral path of your Savior was the law?

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That He loved to follow the law, which was an expression of God's perfect holiness and straightness,

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His righteousness? That Christ loved to walk in harmony with His Father by walking on that path that Psalm 119 talks about?

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In fact, one of my favorite things to do with Psalm 119 is to read it and to think, how would my

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Savior have read this when He was a young man, when He was ministering, when

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He was a boy in His home and His mother was teaching Him the Scriptures? Some of the verses don't apply to Christ because they speak of sin and forgiveness.

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But other passages, so many of them, would be wonderfully fulfilled in the person of our

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Lord when He, unlike us, can say, without exception, I delight in your law.

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Teach me your way. If you say that you're a follower of Christ, how do you know you're not just meandering off the path, meandering through a field, kind of in a fog, thinking, no, no,

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I am loving Jesus. I live for Jesus. And if someone were to ask you a very specific question, how do you know what what loving

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Jesus looks like right here? How do you know what the path of Christ would be right here?

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What would Christ do in this situation? And the simple answer is, what does the law of God say about this?

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What does the moral law, where is the path? It shines a light on that path.

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It dispels the fog. And many times in my own life, when I thought I was loving

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God and my heart was warm and sentimental toward God, when I read the Bible, I suddenly realized

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I was not showing God love. I was just kind of awful my own. And the law laid a clear path for my feet.

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I hope you'll see in the coming weeks, as we look just at some more examples from the

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Psalm, we certainly will only be able to hit some high points, what a kind gift it is that God has laid for our feet the unchanging standard, which is a reflection of His perfection.

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And it is the path our Savior walked. It is also the path, John 14, 21, it is the path that He still delights to meet

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His people on. So, we have the path before us. It's a great delight.

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Next week, we'll look at the heart response of the Psalmist when he combines verses 1, 2, and 3 with verse 4.