Text: Psalm 119:1-8
Date: February 12. 2023
Event: The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, Year A
Psalm 119:1–8 (EHV)
How blessed are those who are blameless in their way,
who walk in the law of the Lord.
2How blessed are those who keep his testimonies.
With all their heart they seek him.
3Indeed, they do no wrong.
They walk in his ways.
4You have commanded that your precepts be kept completely.
5If only my ways were unwavering in keeping your statutes!
6Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.
7I will thank you with an upright heart
as I learn your righteous judgments.
8I will keep your statutes.
Do not abandon me completely.
We Walk in God’s Ways!
I enjoy going hiking, but one thing I don’t like is trails that are hard to follow. Maybe they’re not popular, so they’re not real well worn down. Maybe the signage around them is sparse if it exists at all. Maybe you look at a hiking map or the GPS on your phone and can’t make heads or tails out of what you’re supposed to do or where you’re supposed to go. And that’s a distressing feeling—not just not knowing where you are, but perhaps not knowing how to get back.
Roads and paths that are well marked are a true blessing. Whether hiking on a trail or driving across the country, if the signs in front of you or the directions from the GPS are clear, then you can have confidence that where you’re going is correct—and that you’ll likely get back home just fine as well.
Our psalm for this morning was a very brief section of the opening verses of the longest chapter of the Bible. Psalm 119 is complicated Hebrew poetry with a unifying theme: the blessing of God’s Word. And the psalm writer uses a lot of vivid imagery in the psalm, much of which compares God’s Word to a path or something that shows us the way to go.
But to fully understand what the psalm writer is saying, we need to understand some of the vocabulary. The term “law” and its synonyms can be used in a narrow sense and a wide sense. In the narrow sense, the word “law” in God’s Word refers to God’s rules and regulations. We might think of a summary like those found in the Ten Commandments. But the word “law” can also be broader; depending on the context, “law” can refer to the whole of God’s Word, both the condemning message of the narrow law and the restoring message of the gospel—the good news that God has rescued us from our sin.
And it’s this broader use of the word “law” that the psalm writer employs in the first verse: How blessed are those who are blameless in their way, who walk in the law of the Lord. To walk in the law of the Lord, to be truly blameless, cannot be someone doing their best to keep all of God’s rules. Because we can’t; no one can. While the expectation from God was in fact perfection, no one can be blameless by trying to keep the law because we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s expectations for us. No, the one who is “blameless” is the one who has been forgiven. So, the one who is blessed is the one who goes about in the whole will of God—knowing their sins clearly, but also knowing their Savior even more clearly. God’s Word charts a clear way through this life to know yourself and to know your loving God.
In v. 2, the psalm writer says that people are blessed who “keep his testimonies.” The Hebrew word for “keep” here is a different word than is used in the rest of these verses. While elsewhere the English word “keep” is being used in the sense of keeping the commands of God through obedience, this use of “keep” shades more toward protection. The person is blessed who loves and protects the testimonies of God—the covenant he’s made with his people. When we guard God’s Word with our lives—when we let the good news of God’s love have a place of prominence in our weeks, days, and hours, we are blessed by this. When God’s Word directs our path, we have the full confidence of our standing with God. This confidence and these blessings come through that Word we value and protect, because there God works trust in our hearts to be able to depend on all that he’s promised.
The back-and-forth of the next few verses is really telling about the life a believer in this world. While being blessed by guarding God’s testimonies, the believer seeks God with all their heart… Indeed, they do no wrong. They walk in his ways. These verses kind of make it sound like a believer will end up being perfect, that if you really loved God enough, you would finally stop sinning. That kind of thinking leads us to turn inward, examine our own lives, and walk away feeling hopeless. Because you and I? We haven’t been perfect and we can’t be perfect. Never mind what has come before today, we can’t even decide to be perfect for the rest of this day, the rest of this hour, and accomplish that. So are we outside of those who are blessed? Are we separate from those who truly value God’s Word because sin is present in our lives? Are we people who are not walking in God’s ways?
How comforting the psalm writer’s exasperation in v. 5 is! If only my ways were unwavering in keeping your statutes! Is perfection the goal? Of course! We always want to obey what God has said, we always want to follow his commands. But the psalm writer is clear and realistic that we won’t always do that. In fact, it might feel like we never do that because sin is such an ever-present companion. The more we want to do good, the more sin seems to attack. The more we strive to do what is right, the more wrong things end up like pits that we fall into.
God is clear in his Word about right and wrong. And if I were just left to my own devices, I would just make excuses for myself or rationalize my actions that what I’m doing or thinking or saying really isn’t wrong because I had good reasons! Maybe I find someone else to blame for my failures. Maybe I start distorting what God has said so that right becomes wrong and wrong becomes right.
But then I look into the mirror of God’s Word and I’m faced with the reality in black and white that I do not get to decide what is right and wrong. God sets that standard; I don’t. And I have failed to be a person that meets his standard. So I share the psalmist’s exasperated sigh, If only my ways were unwavering in keeping your statutes! Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.
But the psalm writer doesn’t give up and say, “Well, this is hopeless. I can’t ever do what God expects so I might as well give up.” No, in fact, he moves from this exasperation in himself to thanks: I will thank you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous judgments. Why is he thanking God? Because God’s judgment is that you are justified, you are forgiven, you are not guilty, because someone else has satisfied God’s demands for you.
Remember that Jesus said last week in our Gospel that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Jesus lived the life of perfection that God expected you and me to live. He fulfilled every command—he actually was “unwavering” in keeping God’s law. And that fulfillment of the law he did for you and me. Every command that Jesus kept perfectly is as if you and I did that. His life is our life. When the Father looks at us, he doesn’t see someone who fails, fails, fails. He only sees Jesus, his perfect Son, who lived for us.
And that is our motivation to walk in God’s ways. We don’t need to berate ourselves or belittle ourselves and determine we are such awful failures. We need to see sin for what it is—a failing on our part that has been solved by Jesus. And when we can see God’s love and forgiveness that way, we share the thanks and motivation that the psalm writer had for doing his best to keep and guard God’s Word—not to earn God’s love, but doing these things, walking in his ways, because that love has already been freely given to us.
The psalm writer closes our verses with this plea, “Do not abandon me completely.” I don’t really think he thought this was likely. He knew what God had promised—we know what God has done. While certainly we deserved God to abandon us because of our sins, he saved us instead. In fact, the Hebrew word translated here “abandon” is the same word that Jesus quoted from Psalm 22 when from the cross he said, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1, Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). We know the answer to that question. He forsook and abandoned Jesus to hell on the cross because that’s what our sins deserve. God will not abandon us, because he abandoned Jesus in our place.
This is the love of God. This is the joyful message of his Word. This is the reason that we walk in God’s ways, in thanksgiving for all that he’s done for us! Thanks be to God now and forever! Amen.
