Psalm 119: He’

God’s Word is good.  It is so good that we cannot keep it on our own!  This seems odd, as all other rules in our world are for us, so we should be able to keep them, right?  When we consider the “law of the land,” they aren’t necessarily so preposterous that they cannot be upheld.  It wouldn’t make sense for the government to make laws we cannot comply to, would it?  So why then does God create a set of rules for us that are impossible to uphold?  It’s because we are looking at God’s Word from the wrong perspective and asking the wrong questions about it.

Many years ago my grandfather stated that his favorite book of the bible was Leviticus.  I honestly thought the “old man” had lost it!  After decades of studying the bible on a daily basis and leading countless bible studies in church, I couldn’t understand why he would pick that book.  Years after he passed away, I think I figured out why.  It’s because God’s Law isn’t about us, it’s about Him!  God’s law reveals His holiness!  It also reveals the depth and power of His grace, because He knows on our own we could never live up to it.  In the next stanza we will read more about God’s grace through His word, but today we look into His power and the importance of His statutes.

David’s posture in this stanza is a recognition that he needs God’s help to fulfill the Word.  Until now, he has been focusing on the righteousness and power of fulfilling God’s commands, but now we see a turn that reveals our own frailty in complying with it.  Years ago I read a book called The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley and began listening to his sermons.  It happened to be a year the winter Olympics were taking place (much like this past winter), and he used an analogy about skiing that I will never forget.  Obviously, I am paraphrasing here, but it went something like this:

Imagine you are an Olympic skier, and you are facing the most difficult triple black diamond hill you have ever seen.  You run the hill time and again and keep falling and crashing, failing the course.  That is God’s precepts!  Now Jesus comes along and runs the hill.  He hits it perfectly!  He wins the gold medal and then comes and finds you in the crowd and hands it to you and says, “you don’t have to try to do that ever again, I won the gold for you!”

Now, every human analogy trying to explain God breaks down eventually.  The ending is where this one, I believe, breaks down a little bit, but I want us to capture the idea here.  God made the perfect skiing track (His Word) and if we are to be holy as He is holy, we should be able to run the hill without incident just like Jesus did.  But we can’t!  That seems so unfair, doesn’t it???  That’s the point!  If it was possible as humans to live up to God’s standard, would He really be God?  In my opinion, He wouldn’t.  He would be another human construct, just as the graven images that humans created back then that Israel would gravitate towards.  It’s so much easier to live up to the standards of a manmade object because we know we can fully comply and feel “like god” instead of constantly being faced with the reality of our own frailty and brokenness.  It’s no different than the original temptation and sin we saw in the Garden of Eden.  There are two passages that come to mind in reference to this struggle we experience in trying to live up to God’s standard.  The first one is from Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount.  Right off the bat after his beatitudes He hits the crowd with this doozy:

17 “Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one tiny letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all takes place. 19 Therefore whoever abolishes one of the least of these commandments and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps them and teaches them, this person will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I say to you that unless your righteousness greatly surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter into the kingdom of heaven.

If I were in that crowd, I would have turned my head in confusion and said, “dude, are you serious???” Not only were the Pharisees known for their perfectionism, they even created more laws on top of God’s laws to make them that much more impossible, but they beat the people down spiritually when they could not comply!  His point, ultimately, was understanding that the Pharisees weren’t that righteous after all.  

SHAMELESS PLUG: if you want to learn more about this passage and the rest of the sermon, check out my book
 At The Feet of Jesus!

Later, in Romans 7, the Apostle Paul who is known as one of the most zealous followers of Christ once he had an encounter with Christ while persecuting the church, encounters the paradigm of being saved by grace while also trying to live up to God’s commands.  He was a Pharisee of pharisees.  He was taught by the wisest teacher in Jewish tradition and most likely a perfectionist and astounding legalist, but he recognized he still couldn’t do it:

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, ⌊sold into slavery to sin⌋. 15 For what I am doing I do not understand, because what I want to do, this I do not practice, but what I hate, this I do. 16 But if what I do not want to do, this I do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 But now I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that lives in me. 18 For I know that good does not live in me, that is, in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. 19 For the good that I want to do, I do not do, but the evil that I do not want to do, this I do. 20 But if what I do not want to do, this I am doing, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that lives in me.

Side note: I wrote a book about this too, you can get it here!

Yet Paul understood the power of grace, and that Jesus already ran the race perfectly and handed us the medal.  He continues:

21 Consequently, I find the principle with me, the one who wants to do good, that evil is present with me. 22 For I joyfully agree with the law of God in my inner person, 23 but I observe another law in my members, at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that exists in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself with my mind am enslaved to the law of God, but with my flesh I am enslaved to the law of sin.

He understood the concept that David is writing about in Psalm 119, stanza He’.  It is only through Christ that we are able to live up to God’s standard.  This is also where Farley’s analogy breaks down. It’s entirely possible that I am remembering it wrong or understood it wrong, so this is not to slight him in any way, but regardless, it highlighted an innate truth about God for me.  Not only is the ski slope impossible for us to run perfectly.  Not only did Jesus already do it for us and hand us the gold medal.  But, He also empowers us to be able to run it and enjoy it! People don’t ski so they can crash and slide down the hill and hurt themselves.  People ski so that they can enjoy the ride!  It’s a fun pastime.  To some, it’s even their career.  It is supposed to be fun!

David highlights the need for God’s help in this process.  His time was before Jesus, but he still understood this concept.  God’s law is perfect and can only be fulfilled by a perfect God.  Yet, He holds His people to this standard and we are told to be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.  This is only possible with His help!  He can empower us through His Holy Spirit to live according to His statutes.  This is great news!  This is the Gospel.  Jesus didn’t die just to save us from our sins, but so that we could live sinless!  We know in reading more of Pauls’ writings and even Peter’s that God’s humility in taking on the form of mankind wasn’t just so we could be wowed by miracles, signs, and wonders.  Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit to show us what is possible.  Jesus even said to His disciples, “The things I have done, you will do even far greater things.”  Imagine that: we have the potential to do greater things in this earth than Jesus did!  This wasn’t a challenge, rather an encouragement to what is possible with the Holy Spirit living inside of us.  He lived a perfect life, complying to God’s law.  He didn’t abolish the law so it was no longer relevant, He fulfilled it so it could be made complete.

Reminder: this isn’t about us and proving our own perfection or holiness.  This is about glorifying God.  His law is made for His glory, not our own!  It is easy to become pharisaical about it and we must guard against that way of thinking!  On the flip side, we must also guard against the thought of, “I am only human,” or “I am just a sinner.”  Consider how God can empower us through David’s words in this psalm:

Teach me and I will keep your statutes
Give me understanding so I can heed your whole law
I delight in your commands, make me walk in them
Incline my heart
Turn my eyes away
Revive me in your ways
Fulfill your word in me for Your glory
Your ordinances are good, turn me from disgrace
I long for your precepts, revive me in righteousness

This is all possible! This is God’s desire for us.  Not only is it good for us, but it is also glorifying to Him.  Too often we read God’s Word as though it is about us, but ultimately it is about Him.  Once we understand and accept that, we see it in a whole new light.  We realize that the One True Living God is holy and worthy of our adoration, but He is also good and loving and only expects out of us that which will give Him glory.  It doesn’t make sense for Him to create a set of rules He knows we will never be able to live up to without His help.  He cannot be glorified through that.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!