Well do keep your Bibles in hand and turn with me please now to the book of Psalms, Psalm 119. We sang this portion of the psalm earlier, verses 137 through 144, as we continue working our way through this longest chapter in the Bible. You will remember, of course, that Psalm 119 is an acrostic. That means that the first word of each line in each stanza begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, one letter per stanza, right through all twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. And this is now the eighteenth stanza, each line of which begins with the Hebrew letter, “Tsadhe.” “Tsadhe” is the first part of the Hebrew words translated in our Bibles as “righteous” or “righteousness.” And so the psalmist has a ready-made theme as he begins his meditation on the Scriptures in this part of the psalm. You’ll notice he mentions the righteousness of God and the rightness of His Word twice in verse 137, again in 138, twice more in 142 and one more time in 144. So this stanza is about the righteousness of God revealed in His righteous Word that makes a great difference to all of us as we navigate our way through an unrighteous world.
If you’ll look at it, you’ll see the stanza divides evenly in two sections, two parts, each part signaled to us by the contrasting subjects with which they begin. The first half begins with God, verse 137 – “Righteous are you, O Lord.” You are righteous. The second half begins with the psalmist, verse 141 – “I am small and despised.” You are righteous; I am small and despised. So those are the markers of the two sections of the stanza, and after that initial contrast, actually the teaching of each section unfolds in carefully parallel ways. So look at the text again. The first half of the stanza is about the righteous Word that shows us God, verse 137 and 138, and helps us navigate an unrighteous world, 139 and 130. So the first two verses, the righteous Word, show us God, and then the next two verses, that righteous Word helps us navigate an unrighteous world. And then the same pattern appears in the second half of the stanza. And so 141 and 142 are about the righteous Word that shows us ourselves. And 143 and 144, that same Word helps us navigate an unrighteous world. So you see the outline of the passage? The righteous Word shows us God and helps us navigate an unrighteous world, and the righteous Word shows us ourselves and helps us navigate an unrighteous world.
Before we unpack those themes, as always, let’s bow our heads and pray together and ask for the Lord to help us. Let us all pray.
Our God and Father, we pray with the psalmist that You would give us understanding that we might live, for Jesus’ sake, amen.
Psalm 119 at the one-hundred-and-thirty-seventh verse. This is the Word of God:
“Righteous are you, O Lord, and right are your rules. You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness. My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget your words. Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it. I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. Your righteousness is righteous forever, and your law is true. Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight. Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy, inerrant Word.
Let’s look at verses 137 and 138 first of all and notice how the righteous Word show us God. The righteous Word show us God. “Righteous are You, O Lord, and right are Your rules. You have appointed Your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness.” So the psalmist begins celebrating, doesn’t he. This is worship. He ascribes to God the perfection of righteousness. He is the righteous One in an unrighteous world. Now you understand that to say with the psalmist that God is righteous is to say that He is right and He does right. That is to say, all God is and all God ever does, it is always consistent with God’s own holy character as the perfectly just one. And to the psalmist, that’s really worth celebrating. Everyone else fails. No one else is impeccably consistent. The very best of us are flawed. But God is righteous all the time. Before he says anything else, the psalmist lingers here to celebrate the righteousness of the Lord.
And that’s important, I think – I wonder if you’ve noticed as we read it through – did you see that in this stanza there is only one petition, only one prayer, and it comes right at the very end of the last verse in the stanza, verse 144, and so the psalmist does not rush, does he, to ask for what he needs. First, he lingers in the presence of God and adores Him and celebrates that God is God in all His ways, righteous and true in all His judgements. That’s the pattern, let’s not forget, that our Savior the Lord Jesus has given to us when He taught us the Lord’s Prayer, isn’t it. Before we ever get to asking for things, we begin by adoring God not simply for what He gives us but for who He is. “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” It starts with adoration, with praise.
When you turn to God, do not rush to get to your shopping list of needs. Linger before Him and praise Him, and like the psalmist, let’s learn to make the attributes of God – the psalmist in particular here focuses on God’s righteousness – but make the attributes of God the primary fuel of our worship before ever we begin to think about the benefits of His kindness and goodness and glory for us. Think about who He is before we think about what He does for us. In human relationships, we are always right, aren’t we, to suspect the love of a friend if you only ever celebrate – let me, I’m having a moment! Let me rewind! We’re always right – I’m still at it! We are always right to suspect the love of a friend if we begin to think that friend only loves us for what we can do for them. Isn’t that right? There’s something wrong with our love, with their love, rather, if we think they only love us because of the difference we make to them and if we are an asset to them somehow. No, we understand, I think instinctively, that true love loves the lover, loves the beloved, for the beloved’s sake and not just for the difference the beloved can make. And so we need to learn with the psalmist here to adore God for who He is. He is righteous and true. He is righteous and true.
And did you see how in these opening two verses there is a perfect and beautiful correspondence between what God is like – He is righteous – and how God may be known, how He is revealed to us in His holy Word. Look at the first two verses again. “Righteous are You, O Lord, and right are Your rules. You have appointed Your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness.” Because God is righteous, well of course His Word must necessarily therefore also be right and HIs testimonies appointed in righteousness. The righteousness of God shines in the Word that He has given us. The psalmist adores God because He is righteous, but the implication of verses 137 and 138 is that the main way the psalmist experiences the righteousness of God, day by day, is through His righteous Word showing him what God is like, directing his own steps, governing his life, reminding him of what is just and right and good and true. The Word of God and the God of the Word fit together. And we cannot hope to know,much less glorify and enjoy the God of the Word unless we come to cherish the Word of God. The righteous Word shows us God.
And then in light of that truth, in 139 and 140, the psalmist shows us how that same righteous Word that shows us God helps us navigate life in an unrighteous world. As we have seen again and again as we have walked with the psalmist through these verses over the weeks and months we’ve had in Psalm 119, the psalmist has enemies and they are never really very far from his mind. In this stanza, in verse 139 if you’d look there, he tells us that his foes, his enemies, “forget God’s words.” Now he doesn’t mean, when he says they “forget,” he doesn’t mean they can’t remember what the Bible says. In fact they may well have been able to spout whole passages from memory verbatim. And still, even then he would be able to say of them that they “forget God’s words” because when he says they forget the Word what he really means is that however familiar they may be with the content of the text, when it comes to the way they live, the choices they make, the principles that govern their thinking and their decision making, the Word of God actually has no role whatsoever. It is no longer meaningfully operative in their lives. They forget the Word; it doesn’t occur to them. That’s his point. It never occurs to them to consult the holy Scriptures, much less ever to be constrained by its teaching at any practical level in the day to day realities of their lives. They forget the Word, sure, when they show up in the synagogues on the Sabbath they might know all the right words to say, they can navigate their way around the Bible, but there’s a radical disconnect between their head knowledge and the way they actually live their lives.
A few years ago I was given some money as a gift and I invested in this Bible, this lovely, large, calfskin Bible for me to use in the pulpit when I’m preaching. And it’s a nice Bible. And so I keep it in its box throughout the week and I only ever use it and bring it out on Sundays when I’m preaching. And that, I think, is actually a picture of the psalmist’s description, maybe actually of some of us. We know the Bible well enough for Sundays, but it stays in its box as it were, it stays unused, unapplied, inoperative, ignored, we forget the Word all the rest of the week long. God save us from Sunday Bibles. May His Word live and work and rule and guide and feed and teach and correct and shape us and help us all the week long.
His foes forget God’s words, and because they do, he says, “my zeal consumes me.” Do you see that phrase? “My zeal consumes me.” Now zeal, let’s be honest, zeal is an uncomfortable word for most of us, isn’t it? It evokes fanaticism and intemperate behavior. A zealot is a hothead, someone to worry about, keep your eye on; someone to avoid. But there is a holy zeal that ought to fill our hearts if we are Christians, especially when we see the neglect of lifegiving truth all around us. It ought to burn in our hearts.
Jesus, actually, exemplifies precisely this same holy zeal, didn’t He? You remember how in John chapter 2, when He drove out the money changers and the merchants who were selling animals for sacrifice in the temple, John says His disciples remembered that it was written, quoting Psalm 69, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Jesus was consumed with zeal for the things of God and the worship of God and the honor of God. The psalmist was consumed with zeal, that the Word of God might cease to be forgotten in his own generation. He wanted it to be embraced and loved and lived and trusted in. And so now let’s ask ourselves, “What am I really zealous for?” What are you zealous for? Your college team? March Madness and all that? Your child’s grades? Your career prospects? You will be most zealous for what matters most to you. Are you a zealot for the Word of God and for the things of God and for the glory of God? Jesus was, and the psalmist was, and so should all who follow Jesus Christ, zealous to make His Word fully known. Are you a zealot for the truth of God?
Verse 140 actually helps us see why the psalmist was so very passionate about the Word. Look there with me please. Verse 140, “Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it.” He loves the promise. He loves the Bible because he says it is well tried. That is to say, it is proven, it is tested and true. “Live this way,” he’s saying, “and see for yourself how good the Word really is.” “Taste and see” – Gary quoted this in his prayer – “Taste and see, the Lord is good.” Paul makes a very similar point, you may remember in Romans 12:2, where he tells us to, “be transformed by the renewal of our minds, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Put the Word to work in your life, live this way, put it into practice – you’ll begin to discern for yourself just how good and pleasing and perfect God’s will really is. You’ll begin to learn this life is the best life.
The great puritan Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, has a sermon in his collected works entitled, “The Pleasantness of a Religious Life,” meaning a Christian life, and he argues that, “True piety has true pleasure in it. The ways of religion are pleasant and peaceful ways. It is a great encouragement to a traveler to know that his way is not only the right way but a pleasant way, and such is the way to heaven.” The way to heaven, the way of the Word, is a pleasant way. “Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it.” “I’ve lived it out,” he’s saying, “and my experience proves that the life that the Word of God gives us is the best life to live. Who would want to live any other way?” “Taste and see, the Lord is good!”
Listen, haven’t you found life on your own terms to be weary and awfully full of regret? Haven’t you? When you go your own way, enticed by the bright promise of a shortcut to happiness, haven’t you found that the sin that tastes sweet in your mouth for a moment or two turns awfully sour in your stomach? But the promise of God is well tried. All who put it to the test find reasons to love it. “Fading is the worldlings pleasure, all is boasted pomp and show. Solid joys and lasting treasure, none but Zion’s children know.” That’s what the psalmist is saying here. The life that follows Jesus is cleaner, sweeter, better, happier than all the illicit pleasures of selfishness and sin. And so the first part of the stanza teaches us, do you see it, that the righteous Word shows us the righteousness of God and actually helps us navigate our way through an unrighteous world.
Now look at the second part of the stanza. If as verses 137 and 138 teach us the Word reveals God to us, so now 141 and 142 tell us the Word also shows us ourselves. The Word shows us God; it also shows us ourselves. The psalmist began the stanza by adoring God for His righteousness, but now do you see how he speaks about himself? God is righteous, he says. You are righteous, but I, “I am small and despised.” That’s his opinion of himself – “I am small.” This is the opinion of others – he is despised.” He’s not wallowing in self pity here, neither is it false modesty. This is, in fact, a sober assessment of himself as he really is now that he sees himself in this searching light of who God is as He is revealed in holy Scripture. “God is righteous, and in the bright light of His righteousness, I see myself awfully clearly now at last. The truth is, I’m small and despised.”
To make that point, he brings his view of himself together with the truth that he has been celebrating about God. Do you see it in verse 142? “I am small and despised…Your righteousness is righteous forever, and Your law is true.” What a contrast. What a contrast. When we see what God is really like, we can’t avoid seeing ourselves as we really are. “It is evident,” writes Calvin, “that man never attains to a true self knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God and come down after such contemplation to look into himself. For such as our innate pride, we always seem to ourselves just and upright and wise and holy, until we are convinced by clear evidence of our injustice, vileness, folly and impurity. Convinced however we are not, if we look to ourselves only and not to the Lord also. He being the only standard by the application of which this conviction can be produced.” “I thought I was something. I thought I was important, upright, worthy. I thought well of myself. And then I stepped into the dazzling glare of Your perfect righteousness, Lord, and suddenly, like bright sunshine on a summer day, exposing all the stains that I might otherwise have missed on a white cloth, suddenly now I see the truth. I am small and despised. Small and despised.”
“And yet,” the psalmist says in verse 141, “I do not forget Your precepts.” His foes, remember, they forget God’s words, but even though the Word humbles me – “I am small” – and life according to the Word might expose me to the ridicule of others – “I am despised” – even then I do not forget it. I stand by it. I live by it. And if you look at 143 and 144 you’ll see why. Once again, the righteous Word that shows us ourselves, here now also helps us navigate life in an unrighteous world. Verse 143, “Trouble and anguish have found me out, but Your commandments are my delight.” He said at the beginning, do you remember, that God’s character and God’s Word correspond perfectly. Now here we see that our need and God’s Word also correspond perfectly; they fit together. The psalmist is clear, isn’t he, that life is hard – “trouble and anguish have found me out.”
“Trouble and anguish – they are like a pack of wild dogs tracking my scent, hunting me down, no matter what I do I can’t seem to escape trouble and anguish. That’s my life.” Maybe it’s your life. Trouble and anguish. All too familiar to you. You just can’t seem to shake them. But the psalmist is reminding us that the Word of God works, even when trouble and anguish dog our steps. Look at what he says. “Trouble and anguish have found me out, but Your commandments are my delight. I love them. I delight in them. Not in my circumstances! My circumstances are miserable, but I delight in Your commandments. I delight in Your Word.” The Word works. It fits. It’s just what the doctor ordered for a life of trouble and anguish.
Listen, if your religion is only for outward show, formal, perfunctory, external, if that’s all that it is, well then when trouble and anguish comes – as come they certainly will – then your religion will fall apart. It will fall apart. Like a sandcastle on the beach, as soon as the first wave of the rising tide touches it, it will crumble. But the psalmist endures trouble and anguish because he finds his deepest delight in not in his circumstances but in the truth of the Word of God, which never crumbles or falls, no matter the waves that beat against it. The righteous Word endures. Verse 144, “Your testimonies are righteous forever.”
And now in the light of all of that, we finally come to the only prayer in this whole paragraph. Since the Word is the fountain of my deepest delight, since the Word helps me weather the storms of trouble and anguish, since the Word is righteous forever, here’s what I really need. Verse 144, “Give me understanding that I may live.” You see the psalmist knows that life before God, real life, eternal life, he knows it can only be his if God gives him spiritual understanding, perception, faith to see and trust, embrace and believe the truth of His Word. Only the righteous Word, the Word actually that exposes how small and despised he is, his unrighteous heart, that same Word, somehow he is able to see, that Word can save him and make him live.
Exactly “how” is not answered here. In fact, it’s the great dilemma of the Old Testament scriptures. How can God be righteous all the time as this stanza says He is? How can His testimonies be righteous forever and yet God can still accept unrighteous people, like the small, despised psalmist, or like me or like you, as if we were righteous in His sight all along? How can God be just and the justifier of sinners? It’s the great dilemma of the Old Testament scriptures. The apostle Paul actually answers that question for us in Romans chapter 3. Romans 3:21 – do you remember what it says? “The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe.” The Lord Jesus is the perfectly righteous man. His earthly life met all the requirements of God’s righteous law. And at the cross, He died to pay in full the righteous penalty our unrighteousness deserves. And that’s how, Paul goes on to say, God is able to be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. All the righteous requirements that God demands are met and paid for by Jesus Christ on behalf of everyone who trusts in Him.
And in the end, that is why those of us who trust in Christ delight in God’s righteous Word right along with the psalmist here. It’s not because it makes all our troubles cease, nor does it always bring our anguish to an end, but it brings us to Jesus. His righteousness is counted as though it were our own so that unrighteous sinners though we may be, small and despised as we are, we are welcomed forever into the presence of a perfectly righteous God, reconciled to Him, to be able to live there now and always in the presence of the righteous and holy God because of Jesus. That is the best life of all. It’s the best life of all.
Now isn’t it about time, isn’t it time you gave up the fading pleasures of the world? What are you doing? They are so gray and dull and threadbare. Things in the end, aren’t they full of hollow promises they can never fulfill? It’s high time that you came to put your trust in Jesus Christ who is the righteous one, and clothed with His righteousness, learn to live in the warm welcome of God’s embrace forever. May God make it so. Let’s pray together.
Our God and Father, how we adore You that Your Word shows You to us, opens our eyes and show us Your righteousness. Teach us to love You for it and adore You. And then as we adore You, would You help us by that same Word to navigate our way through a dark and troubled world. We know that the Word that shows us Your glory shows us how small and despised we really are; it shows us our sin. It shows us ourselves; topples us from the throne and puts us where we belong – in the dust. And yet there is mercy for us before a righteous God. You have provided Your Son, the righteous one, that hiding in Him, trusting in Him, resting on Him, You count us as though we were righteous and welcome us. May we, all of us in this room today, know for ourselves the joy of that welcome and begin to live the best of all lives – a life of fellowship with You. For Jesus’ sake, amen.