Well do keep your Bibles in hand and turn now with me to the Old Testament scriptures and to the one-hundred-nineteenth psalm, beginning today at verse 73. If you’re using a church Bible, that’s on page 513 and 514. We are considering this morning the tenth stanza in this long, twenty-two stanza psalm that gives us a unique insight into the motions of the psalmist’s soul as he engages with God by His Word. And this time, in this stanza, if you will look at it with me, you will notice he repeats two, almost identical phrases at either end of the stanza. Do you see them? He’s highlighting by this repeat language the theme around which he has especially focused his meditations. In verse 74 he says, “Those who fear you shall see me,” and then at the other end of the stanza, verse 79, he says, “Let those who fear you turn to me.” So, he wants God’s people, those who fear the Lord, to turn to him, to look at him, to see his life, to hear his words and to take heart and be encouraged by his testimony to the great faithfulness and goodness of God. And so, this is a stanza about being a faithful witness, being a faithful witness.
But these two parallel verses, verse 74 and verse 79, with their echoing language and themes, do more than highlight for us the big idea of this stanza. They do that, but they do more. They alert us to a wider pattern of parallelism that gives structure to this whole section. These eight verses have been arranged in what Bible scholars call a chasm. We can think in this particular case like a series of four concentric circles, four ripples that emanate out in ever widening rings from the center. Let me show you that in the text for a moment if you will look at it please. The outermost circle, the widest ripple if you like, you will see at either end of the stanza. In verse 73 he prays for understanding and in verse 80 he prays for a blameless heart. Do you see that? He’s praying about his inner life, his real self – his head and his heart. That’s the first circle. Then the next circle in toward the center, as we’ve already seen, verses 74 and 79, we have his great theme of bearing witness and being an encouragement to those who fear the Lord. Next, the third circle in toward the center, we have a contrast between the faithfulness of God in afflicting the psalmist, on the one hand, verse 75, and the falsehood with which the insolent have wronged the psalmist on the other hand, in verse 78. And then right in the middle of it all, the epicenter of the whole stanza, verses 76 and 77, focus on the steadfast love and mercy of the Lord. The steadfast love and mercy of the Lord. So this is a stanza about being a good witness – that’s 74 and 79; and as we move through these concentric circles, on either side of those two verses we are being taught how to be a good witness.
Essentially, the psalmist tells us we need three things if we are to be faithful witnesses. First, to be a good witness we need head and heart change. To be a good witness we need head and heart change. That’s the outer circle – verses 73 and 80. Next, to be a good witness we need to interpret affliction correctly. We need to interpret affliction correctly – verses 75 and 78. And finally, right in the heart of it all, to be a good witness we must learn to rest upon God’s steadfast love and mercy – verses 76 and 77. So that’s our outline this morning. Have you got it? To be a good witness we need head and heart change, we need to interpret affliction correctly, and we need to rest on God’s steadfast love and mercy. Now before we unpack all of that, let’s bow our heads and ask for the Lord to help us. Let us all pray.
Our God and Father, Your Word is spread before us. Our hearts are laid bare in Your sight. We pray, press Your truth down deeply into our hearts, into our consciences, and by Your Word, work mightily to slay sin, to ripen Gospel graces, to bring the unconverted to repentance and faith, to strengthen weak knees and feeble arms, and enable those under affliction to say in faithfulness, “O God, You have indeed afflicted me.” Teach us more of Your steadfast love and mercy, and do it all that we may bear faithful witness to You, to all the world, giving a reason for the hope that is in us, with gentleness and respect. For Jesus’ sake, amen.
Psalm 119 at verse 73. This is the Word of God:
“Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments. Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your word. I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me. Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant. Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight. Let the insolent be put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood; as for me, I will meditate on your precepts. Let those who fear you turn to me, that they may know your testimonies. May my heart be blameless in your statutes, that I may not be put to shame!”
Amen.
To be a Witness, We Need Head and Heart Change
Well, to be a good witness, first of all, we need head and heart change. In verse 73, the psalmist prays for “understanding;” the word is “discernment,” so that he may learn God’s commandments. That is, that he may learn to live and obey God’s holy Word. You’ll notice that he grounds his request for understanding, for discernment, on the doctrine of creation. Do you see that in verse 73? Look at verse 73. “Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.” He knows that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. The wise maker of heaven and earth has wired each of us differently and stamped upon us His own image and formed us for His own glory. All creation, but especially human beings, are made by God for God. Romans 11:36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory for ever, amen.” Revelation 4:11, “For you created all things, and by your will” – or perhaps better – “for your pleasure they existed and were created.” We exist for the pleasure and glory of God. Our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And the psalmist knows if we are to be good witnesses under the gaze of a watching world we must first fulfill our purpose under the gaze of God. If we are made for God’s glory the psalmist is reasoning, we must turn to our maker for help that we might live for His glory. There is no other source of wisdom, of ultimate wisdom, no other teacher like the one whose hands have made and fashioned us. So he starts by praying for understanding. He wants discernment, sound judgment, to live in God’s way and learn God’s commandments. He is praying for a renewed mind so that he can keep God’s commandments. A life that pleases God starts with a mind renewed by God.
But it’s not a matter of mind only, is it? It’s a matter of the heart. Look down at verse 80. “May my heart be blameless in your statutes that I may not be put to shame.” The shame that he wants to avoid here isn’t simply the shame of other people passing judgment upon him. No, it’s far more ultimate than that. It’s the shame of falling under the just judgment of God. So here again, the big idea is if we are to be faithful and effective witnesses under the scrutiny of our neighbors, we must first be blameless under the scrutiny of God. “May my heart be blameless,” he says.
Now that word “blameless” you understand doesn’t mean sinless. It’s an integrity word. It’s a faithfulness word. He’s praying for a new mind and a new heart that trusts the Lord and learns more and more to obey Him, to forsake sin, to keep short accounts with Him and lives in light of God’s holy Word. The key lesson I think here is really very simple, though it is profoundly challenging. The psalmist is reminding us that a good witness is not someone whose learned to put on a good show. A good witness is a person in whose mind and heart God has worked to bring renovation and transformation. They’re not conformed to this world, but they are being transformed by the renewal of their minds. They’ve had their hearts of flesh – hearts of stone rather – turned into hearts of flesh. There are now streams of living water welling up within them up to eternal life. God has made them new, and out of this inner renewal they live lives of increasing, open, obvious, public, growing likeness to Jesus Christ. They become good witnesses because God has made them new creatures.
You may remember this was the great lesson that Nicodemus did not understand in John chapter 3. Do you remember the scene? Nicodemus thought that a life that pleases God was a life of outward conformity to moral and religious standards. But Jesus told him what really mattered was a radical change of heart. “You must be born again, Nicodemus. Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” And so the psalmist is praying in our passage for God to work in his mind and in his heart. That is a work He begins in the new birth. It’s a work that He never stops performing till we come to glory. We are continually to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, every day, all the time, as Christians. This is the non-negotiable starting place of our faithful witness. You will never help another soul heavenward unless you yourself are already a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. You will never testify effectively to the transforming grace of God in Jesus Christ unless you have become a recipient of that grace for yourself. We can never be Christ’s instruments as He builds His kingdom in the world unless by the new birth we have entered that kingdom ourselves. The psalmist knows that the Christian life is not a matter of mere words, doesn’t he? It is a matter of renovating power. It’s not a matter of formalities and routines, but of head and heart change.
I grew up in a non-Christian home attending a liberal, mainline Presbyterian church where the Gospel was never preached. And so as a teenager, unsurprisingly perhaps, I rejected the Christian faith until a classmate at school began to witness to me, to share his faith with me. And what I found most compelling as he shared his faith in Christ with me, was the sense of spiritual reality that his honest testimony to God’s grace conveyed. This young man knew Jesus Christ; not just about Jesus Christ, but he knew Him for himself. His Christianity wasn’t like the so-called Christianity with which I had been familiar as a child – a matter of mere religious form, all talk and no power. No, no, this was the real thing. And when at last I came to saving faith in Christ, that’s what overtook me too. God erupted into my heart and into my mind and made me a new creature. I was born again.
And I want to ask you, with all the urgency that I can muster, if you know anything about that same reality in your own life. Maybe your religion is all talk and no power. Maybe it’s just words for you too, and you don’t yet know the real thing for yourself any more than I did as a child growing up in Scotland. You’ve begun to see, perhaps, how empty and useless a religion of mere words, mere form really is. And if that’s you, I want to ask you, would you begin to pray verses 73 and 80 for yourself? Pray 73 and 80 for yourself. Pray, “Give me understanding that I may learn Your commandments.” Ask God to work in your mind that you might begin to see His truth at last. “Open my eyes. Give me light. Give me understanding.” And pray, “Make my heart blameless in Your statutes that I may not be put to shame. Make my heart new. Make it clean. Turn my stony heart to a heart of flesh. Write Your law on my heart by the finger of the Holy Spirit. Lord, give me a new heart, a clean heart.” You see the teaching of this first concentric circe, the outer ring of the stanza? If we are going to be good witnesses, we must have head and heart change. There is no authentic Christianity, no true religion without it. So do you know anything of that great change for yourself? Do you, or are you just going through the motions? If we are going to be good witnesses, we must have head and heart change.
To be a Good Witness, We Must Learn to Interpret Affliction Correctly
Secondly, verses 75 and 78 – so the next concentric circle moving in toward the center, 75 and 78 – the psalmist tells us if we are going to be good witnesses, we must learn to interpret affliction correctly. Interpret affliction correctly. Now like the previous stanza that we looked at two weeks ago, back in verses 65 through 72, you’ll notice this stanza also falls under the dark shadow of affliction. Verse 75, “I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.” Now that sounds an awful lot like the sentiment of the previous section, doesn’t it? In verse 67 he said, “Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep Your Word.” And in verse 71 he said, “It was good for me that I was afflicted.” So, here’s another stanza about handling suffering well. And actually, that on its own is helpful for us to see, because that’s how suffering is. Suffering is rarely a one-stanza problem. Isn’t that so? Suffering is rarely a one-stanza problem. It’s effects tend to linger. The shadows of affliction rarely retreat quickly.
And so, verse 75, he tells us he has been afflicted. And the parallel verse, verse 78, tells us about the source of his afflictions. Would you look there for a moment, verse 78? “Let the insolent be put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood; as for me, I will meditate on your precepts.” He’s been wronged by the insolent. That’s the instrumental cause of his afflictions. Now let’s look at these two verses together – 75 and 78 – and I want you to notice the contrast between the faithfulness of the Lord in his afflictions and the falsehood of the insolent who afflict him. You see that contrast? The former, God’s faithfulness, helps him understand and endure the latter, human falsehood. The wicked have done it. They have caused his affliction. They were false and faithless toward him.
But in all of it, behind it, working through it, superintending and governing it, stands the afflicting hand of the Lord Himself and His afflictions, even when they come through the instrumentality of the falsehood of insolent, wicked men, God’s afflictions, the psalmist says, they are always faithful. They come from His covenant love. They express His faithful heart. He is reminding you in your afflictions that this world is not your home and though outwardly we may be fading away, yet by His grace, inwardly we are being renewed day by day. He is teaching you by your afflictions that you are indeed insufficient for life’s challenges, but His grace is sufficient for you and His strength is made perfect in your weakness. He is discipling you in your afflictions, calling you back to turn back from sin and backsliding to renew your repentance and your obedience. And He is training the muscle of faith in your afflictions, placing it under tension so that it grows strong and clings to Christ more tenaciously. Suffering brothers and sisters, never forget in faithfulness your God afflicts you; in faithfulness your God afflicts you.
And grasping that, learning to say with the psalmist amidst suffering, “In faithfulness You have afflicted me,” and living from that truth day by day is actually another important key to bearing effective witness. Remember, he wants those who fear the Lord to see him and rejoice, verse 74. He wants them to turn to him that they may know God’s testimonies, verse 79. That’s the psalmist’s agenda. They are to look at him and see in him a man who may well be suffering terribly, yet a man learning in his sufferings that God is always faithful. Few things magnify the trustworthiness, the real world, gritty dependability of grace like the example of a suffering Christian saying, through tears, if need be, “In faithfulness, O Lord, You have afflicted me.”
I think Paul had something very much like this in mind when he wrote to Timothy in his second letter to Timothy and said to him, “As for you, always be sober-minded.” And then listen to this, “Endure suffering. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry.” So, in addition to sober-mindedness, “Timothy, how will you fulfill your ministry and do the work of evangelism? You will do it by enduring suffering.” Enduring suffering and being an evangelist, it seems, go together. Bearing witness to the Gospel of grace and enduring suffering well, they go together. Christopher Ash calls the Biblical teaching about suffering, “the adversity gospel.” And he says this. “The believer in the adversity gospel is a powerful encouragement to others, much more powerful than the temporarily prosperous, pseudo-believer in the prosperity gospel. When I see the complacent comfort of the prosperity believer, I just become envious or I despair. But when I see the living faith of the adversity believer, I am deeply encouraged to persevere myself.”
Triumphant tales of suffering overcome, and everything turning out alright in the end, they often only leave those of us living with persistent sorrow or loss or sickness or pain, discouraged and confused. “Why hasn’t my story of suffering turned out wonderfully in the end like their story? Perhaps I’m still suffering because of some personal failure. Maybe God doesn’t love me as much. It must be my fault that my painful circumstances haven’t changed.” But when we hear stories of people whose circumstances may never change, but who endure faithfully their afflictions because they learn to see in them the hand of the faithful God who afflicts them, well their example provides the deepest encouragement to us to press on in our afflictions, doesn’t it? Their testimonies provide abundant evidence to us of the resilience of God’s grace, of the reliability of God’s promises, of the goodness of the Lord who never leaves us nor forsake us, but who walks with us to sustain and uphold us in every dark valley. “And so,” writes Ash, “it is good to hear of answers to prayer that changed circumstances, but it is better to hear of answers to pray that change people so that they persevere in unchanged circumstances.” Isn’t that helpful? “It is good to hear of answers to pray that changed circumstances, but it is better to hear of answers to prayer that change people so that they persevere in unchanged circumstances.”
To be a Good Witness, We Must Rest on the Steadfast Love and Mercy of the LORD
So first, to be a good witness we need a change of heart and of mind. Secondly, to be a good witness we must learn to interpret affliction correctly and learn to say to God, “In faithfulness, you have afflicted me.” And then finally, to be a good witness we need to rest on the steadfast love and mercy of the Lord. Look at the central verses, the epicenter of all these concentric circles in verses 76 and 77. Verses 76 and 77, “Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant. Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight.” Steadfast love and mercy – these two often go together in the Scriptures, don’t they? Psalm 40 verse 11, “As for You, O Lord, You will not restrain Your mercy from me, Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness will ever preserve me.” Psalm 103 verse 4, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.” Lamentations 3:22, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning, great is Your faithfulness.”
Here’s what’s right at the heart of the stanza because it’s really what’s at the very heart of what it means to be a good witness. The foundation of a transformed mind and a blameless heart, the root of the psalmist’s ability in all his suffering to see and to say, “In faithfulness, You have afflicted me,” the basis of the whole Christian life and of all effective witness lies right here in the steadfast love and mercy of the Lord. You may know that “steadfast love” translates the little Hebrew word, “hesed,” which is associated with God’s covenant faithfulness. Some translate it, “loyal love.” We could say it is wedding love. Paul describes it for us beautifully in Ephesians 5:25 when he says, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by washing of water with the Word so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.” This is the steadfast love of the Lord. It is covenanted love, wedding love. The love of Christ, the bridegroom, who binds Himself to His bride, the church, by sacred vows and gives Himself up for us all at the cross. It is Calvary love. Love that pays in full the debt of our sin, amid all the falsehoods of the insolent that wronged the psalmist, and under the afflicting hand of divine providence. It is Gospel love. Love in Christ. Love flowing from the cross. Covenanted love. Loyal love. Unswerving, unfeeling, unbreakable love that he prays will be his comfort.
Really he goes for comfort where the apostle Paul takes us for comfort at the end of Romans 8. Do you remember it? He goes to the unconquerable love of God and he says in effect, “I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate me from the love of God in Jesus Christ my Lord.” I am safe in the grip of omnipotent love and there is an ocean of comfort there. In the cross of Christ, where God has demonstrated His love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. There are never-ending supplies of comfort here in the knowledge that God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, made us alive together with Christ. We live, brothers and sisters in Christ, in the eternal embrace of God’s unfailing love, and we need to learn to rest in it, find our comfort in it, live from it with grateful hearts.
Here’s the real source of all faithful witness. Do you see it? It’s not just a skill you learn in an evangelism class, as important as evangelism classes can be. No, real witness flows first and ultimately from a grace you receive, not a skill that you learn. A grace you receive. It is the steadfast love of the Lord that never ceases, whose mercies never come to an end, flowing to us from the wounds of Jesus Christ crucified. Remember that He was afflicted, the suffering servant, the faithful witness. There’s a sense you know, in which this whole stanza speaks about Jesus. Or perhaps we might even say this whole stanza is Jesus speaking. Jesus speaks these words. After all, the insolent wronged Him, didn’t they, with falsehood. But behind all their evil schemes and all their dreadful afflictions, He could say in faithfulness, “God has afflicted Me. This was the plan and I embrace it meekly. Not My will but Yours be done,” that you and I, we might be redeemed. And so as we see Him, verse 74, we rejoice. As we turn to Him, verse 79, we come to know God’s testimonies. It is as we look to Christ that our minds are renewed and our hearts are transformed. It is looking to Jesus and clinging to Jesus and trusting in Jesus in whose cross God’s steadfast love and mercy have been lavished on us. It is there we begin to say, in turn for ourselves about our own sufferings, “In faithfulness, You have afflicted me.” You see, in the end, that’s the only way to become an effective witness. You look to Christ. You turn to Christ. You rest on Christ. And so may Almighty God, out of His steadfast love and mercy, draw us, all of us, to Christ who was afflicted that we might be redeemed.
Let’s pray together.
Our God and Father, we adore You for Your holy Word and we pray that now indeed, by the finger of Your Spirit, You might write it on all our hearts. Give us new hearts, renewed minds, and grace to say in affliction, “You have always been faithful.” Draw us to Jesus. Teach us to trust Him, and resting on Him, to be good and faithful witnesses. For we ask it in His name, amen.