The Psalms Have No Joy

¹Blessed are the undefiled in the way,
Who walk in the law of the Lord!
² Blessed are those who keep His testimonies,
Who seek Him with the whole heart!
³ They also do no iniquity;
They walk in His ways.
⁴ You have commanded us
To keep Your precepts diligently.
⁵ Oh, that my ways were directed
To keep Your statutes!
⁶ Then I would not be ashamed,
When I look into all Your commandments.
⁷ I will praise You with uprightness of heart,
When I learn Your righteous judgments.
⁸ I will keep Your statutes;
Oh, do not forsake me utterly!

Psalm 119:1-8 (NKJV)

When singing praises to God, we would all like to experience joy and excitement for what Christ has done. Some would argue that the Psalms simply do not convey joy as effectively as praise songs and hymns, and this type of thinking fueled the church at large to drift away from the singing of the Psalms during the 18^th century. Many Christians focus on the emotion evoked by the song rather than the meaning of the words sung to God; however, could it be that this thinking is backwards?

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

Colossians 3:16

Notice that in Colossians, the Psalms instruct and fill us with wisdom which leads to holy emotion, emotions set apart for the praise of God through singing. The Bible does not simply give instruction concerning our actions but also our thoughts and emotions, and these thoughts and emotions always tie into truths established by the Bible. In Psalm 51, God calls us to be contrite and completely dependent upon His mercy when repenting for our sin; God commands us to be forgiving and slow to quarrel, since He has forgiven us of our sins, in Proverbs and the Lord’s Prayer. Our lives in thought, word, and deed have been set apart as holy (1 Peter 2), and thus how much more should our worship of God be guided and set apart by His word! The Psalms have been set apart for the praise of God, and each Psalm contains both infallible truth and our response as Christians. David, in Psalm 119:1-8, starts by declaring the truths of God (vs. 1-3) and then continues by uttering his longing to obey and seek God with his whole heart (vs. 4-8). 

¹Blessed are the undefiled in the way,
Who walk in the law of the Lord!
² Blessed are those who keep His testimonies,
Who seek Him with the whole heart!
³ They also do no iniquity;

They walk in His ways.

In the first verses of Psalm 119, David proclaims who is truly blessed: the one who is not ruled by sin, walks in the law of God, and seeks Him with the whole heart. We can clearly see that this person is the one who puts his or her trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and diligently seeks to bring his or her own life into accordance with Christ’s teaching and example here on earth (Romans 12:1-2). Only through Christ can anyone reject sin and seek after God, and we can claim these truths for ourselves and look forward to heaven where we will be perfected and blessed in all fullness (Revelations 21:22-27). How wonderful are the truths of God!

⁴ You have commanded us
To keep Your precepts diligently.
⁵ Oh, that my ways were directed
To keep Your statutes!
⁶ Then I would not be ashamed,

When I look into all Your commandments.

          The truth of the blessed man permeates throughout the entire book of Psalms since it is our proper and intended relationship and standing with God. Psalm 1 reveals that the blessed man is like a tree well planted by water; the blessed man is the one who brings forth spiritual fruit and prospers in all he does. Yet after proclaiming the truth of such a desirable state, David then turns these truths unto himself with some amount of sorrow and longing, but not without hope.

The word in verse four that sticks to me the most is the word diligently. I can with reasonable confidence say that I pursue my academics diligently. I can with even more confidence confirm that I diligently seek sleep after a long day, yet often I find that I have not diligently sought to keep God’s precepts. At best I am often half-hearted and lax concerning God’s commandments. David also felt his own weakness and immediately cries out to God to aid him in his obedience.  “Oh, that my ways were directed to keep Your statutes!” is the prayer David lifted up, a prayer we should constantly lift up since we are yet weak here on earth. Notice that this is not a completely happy prayer; David admits to having felt shame when reading through the word of God. Many Christians today only want to sing about joy, but this is not a very accurate or realistic view of the Christian life. We often fail. We undergo trials. Enemies of God rise up, and for all of these, joy by itself is not always appropriate. Yet the Psalms provide a comprehensive selection of songs which covers the entirety of the Christian life. Psalms 119 gives me the words to voice the desires and frustrations that I undergo every day, and I am comforted that these prayers are founded in the truth of the scriptures and voiced in the Word of God, as opposed to being merely written by the hand of men.

⁷ I will praise You with uprightness of heart,
When I learn Your righteous judgments.
⁸ I will keep Your statutes;
Oh, do not forsake me utterly!

After meditating on the requirements for blessedness and the shortcomings in his life, David makes a resolution. He resolves in verse eight to keep God’s statues, and we must, as David did, set in our hearts to keep God’s commandments diligently and pray to God that this would be so. However, we must not have confidence in our own strength, but instead we must cry out to God to not forsake us and realize that “it is God who works in you both to will and do His own good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)  David could look back with sorrow at the times he ignored God and trusted in himself. An important distinction must also be made. David could not lose his salvation but could still displease God through his actions. An unbeliever on the other hand cannot please God and needs redemption through Jesus Christ. We must first be saved, and after that, God and His saving grace are our only source of personal obedience. The words of Psalm 119 are not to be sung or said lightly, yet the prayer for obedience is the proper response to the truths laid out in the beginning of the Psalm. The benefit of obedience is great: to be able to praise God joyfully with an upright heart.

Maybe when singing to God we would like to feel a sense of peace or raw joy, or maybe we search for an experience while singing to boost our spiritual life. However, let not these emotions be stirred by any hand but by the hand of God. Psalm 119 leads me to self-reflection, dependence on God, and resolution to obey Him, and as the word of God itself, Psalm 119 does this through and only by the truths of God. I thank God that He reveals how we are to live through the Bible, and in particular, how we are to worship Him through the holy act of singing both through truth and emotion, hardship and joy.

“Prayer and praise and all sorts of devotional acts and feelings gleam through the verses like beams of sunlight through an olive grove. You are not only instructed, but influenced to holy emotion, and helped to express the same.”

Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalm 119