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 

Free From the Lies: A Final Meditation on Psalm 16

     Unshackled from lies, full of freedom and joy –isn’t that where we all want to be?  There is such a burden lifted when we know that our entire lives are held safely in the hands of King Jesus, even when everything else seems overwhelming or insurmountable.  Only then can we truly rest in peace.  Towards the end of Psalm 16, King David expresses this condition in his response to the beautiful promise of God’s faithfulness and abounding love for his people.

⁹Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.  ¹⁰For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.  ¹¹You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

     David rejoices!  Our flesh dwells secure with the King of all Creation!  He has gone through so much to get to this point – years of shepherding out in the fields, being brave for the name of the Lord in the face of Israel’s cowardice against Goliath, years on the run from Saul, and the list goes on.  David also struggled with his own grave sin, such as his adultery with Bathsheba.  He chose not to control his own passions, but gave in to temptation.  Yet he knew the redemption that was to come for him through King Jesus.  Can you see David with me - kneeling, hands upraised and thankful for the glorious redemption of the King which would come through his descendant Jesus?  In his song “I Will Wait”, Marcus Mumford describes well such a position of humility:

But I'll kneel down
Wait for now
I'll kneel down
Know my ground

Raise my hands
Paint my spirit gold
And bow my head
Keep my heart slow

Cause I will wait, I will wait for you

     In this position of surrender in his heart, David knows what Jesus has done for him.  Despite the mistakes and disappointments of his life, he would always be in the palm of God’s hand and would never be abandoned to an eternity away from him in hell.  The Lord would illumine his path as he walked through life.  At the end, he would rest from his labors on this earth and go to be with God.  The presence of the Lord, that deep indwelling of the Holy Spirit, was with David and would continue to be with him until he saw the face of our holy Lord himself.  There was much suffering in David’s life on earth, but pleasures and ultimate joy awaited him in heaven.

     As God’s child, I can claim these promises for myself.  We can and should rejoice in what Jesus has done for us!  He has seen us in our wretched estate, and has made us his holy ones!  He has picked me up from the dirt and filth of my lustful thoughts and my pride over my accomplishments.  He has become my portion and my cup, and I can rest in the peace of knowing that he will forever protect and guide me, no matter how I feel in the present moment.

     In conclusion, I’d like to mention some more of my personal experience with this psalm and acknowledge some of the people who have made it so precious to me.  As I said earlier, I discovered the beauty of this psalm on my own at first.  However, I went to a program through my church denomination in the summer of 2011, where this psalm became the theme psalm sung by the youth at the program.  Many times in this first year at college, I have been discouraged, wondering where God was in the midst of my campus and my struggles.  But one day, walking along to somewhere, I remembered singing Psalm 16 with these youth.  I remembered our last day together, and I saw my old friends Emory and Abby hugging each other as they cried over the bonds of friendship our group had formed and the beauty of this psalm.  I looked around and I saw people like Emily, Sidney, Jesse, Dani, Caleb, Hannah, Jonah, Ethan, Michaela, Jonathan, and all the rest of these youth who have caused me to remember that there are other students embracing God’s promises for themselves.  When I remembered our voices singing together, I was pushed on to persevere and remember that the Lord Himself is my portion.  He carries me through to this day in the midst of confusion and difficult work, causing me to rejoice in himself.  It is a perfect example of the saints cheering on those who persevere in Hebrews 12:1-2:

¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

     The cry of my heart is that Christ would fix my eyes upon Him and the truth expressed in this beautiful Psalm, which has become my anthem and my song.  Mumford expresses this well again:

So tame my flesh
And fix my eyes
That tethered mind free from the lies

‘

     As you think about this Psalm, I hope that you will see the incomparable beauty and security of resting in the Lord and delighting that he is your portion and your cup.  May our minds be fixed upon Jesus, who loved you enough to endure the cross, knowing that he would rejoice in seeing us unshackled from Sheol and from corruption.

Guest Post by Elizabeth Magill 

My Portion and My Cup: A Meditation on Psalm 16:1-8

     The Lord speaks to people in different ways, and one of the ways he has spoken to me is when he will bring to mind a part of a verse that applies to a current struggle.  In the spring of 2011, God brought Psalm 16 to my attention in this way.  He has since used it as a promise and an anchor in learning to love him more than the expectations and dreams for my life, on which I tend to stubbornly insist.

     Psalm 16 is an incredibly powerful passage of Scripture that reflects the spiritual and physical struggles of King David.  He cries out for God to preserve his life and to help him find contentment in the lot which he is given.  He praises the Lord and speaks the simple, potent truth which we all need to hear – that there is absolutely nothing better and more secure than having the Lord Himself as our eternal portion in life.

¹Preserve me, O God, for in You I take refuge.  ²I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” (Psalm 16:1-2)

     David begins this psalm by crying out to the Lord to protect his life.  He had many challenges during his life, both from the circumstances of his life and the consequences of his sin.  There were times when he was fleeing from Saul who wanted to kill him, and the only hope he had for his physical safety was God’s protection.  Other times, his spiritual life was gravely in danger and he needed refuge from the lies and hatred of the devil.  In all these things, we can imagine King David kneeling down before the Lord, hands folded and praising him – “I truly have no good apart from you.”  As sinners, not one blessing comes to us apart from the great mercy of the Lord.  Let us rejoice in being his servants, for there is no greater place of peace.

³As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.  ⁴The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.

     The people of God have been saved by him and will ultimately be victorious in the end.  David delights in the community that they offer and longs to be a part of them.  He determines that he will stay within this community and will not run after another god.  Idolatry was rampant in Canaan and the lands around it.  For David, worshipping those other gods meant pouring out blood for them and repeating their names in worship or prayer.

     Personally for me, there is not a completely different religion with which I am struggling.  However, there are many idols which I have worshipped in my life by spending time, money, energy, and thoughts on them – figurative “drink offerings of blood.”  Throughout my life, I have desperately wanted to attend one of the most prestigious universities in the nation.  Being much younger than my siblings, I watched them go through college with success and I determined to get the best SAT scores and be smarter than all of them.  I was driven by this competition with my family members and fellow peers, causing me to work hard in high school and think that I could go to whatever school I wanted.  I applied to several schools with cutthroat acceptance rates, as well as a couple back-up schools.  I’ll never forget the night when I scrolled down a webpage at 12:15 am in the morning and found out that I was accepted to the school of my dreams, into the program of my dreams.  However, I’ll also never forget the day a couple weeks later when I scrolled down a webpage to find out that the financial aid I had been given would cause me an astronomical amount of debt.  It seemed unfair, because it was due to a unique financial situation in my family that I couldn’t control.  So many times I told my dad – “This is my big break!”  I could get a good job and pay off the debt later.  Here was the culmination of years of looking to academics as my god.  When I struggled socially or felt alone, I looked ahead to college in which I would “prove everyone wrong” and be successful, even if I felt small now.  My identity had been founded in my own ability and not in the way in which God loves me and allowed my hate to be nailed to him on a cross.  But then, then comes the beauty and the turning point of this psalm.

⁵The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.  ⁶The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

     The psalm takes a paradigm shift here, for David has been proclaiming what he will do in his relationship to God as he lives the world.  However, here I can see him raising his hands to God and crying out, “YOU hold my lot.”  It is not David or I or any of us who hold on to God, but it is He who holds on to us and has freely given himself to be our portion.  This is the statement of absolute surrender and rest – YOU hold my lot.  Because Christ holds our lot, we know that all will be well eternally.  There may be great blessing that comes in this life, but the lines will surely fall for us in pleasant places eternally.  Our inheritance is living forever with the one who loved and redeemed us, his broken enemies.  The university I ended up at is exactly the place where I need to be – I can see that Christ is “holding my lot” here and has directed me to places where I am needed and can be used to make His name known.  When my dreams for friendships and relationships have been broken and unfulfilled, Christ still holds my lot and I can rest in peace about the future.  He will perfectly provide for every situation, even if it is different than I expect or hope.

⁷I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.  ⁸I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

     David blesses the Lord, thanking him for the counsel that he gives him.  Although our hearts are often wayward and can be “deceitful above all things”, the Lord nudges us in the right direction through His Word, Christian community, circumstances, and His still, small voice in the middle of the night.  With this God at our right hand, we will never be shaken.  What precious, precious words these are!  Though we feel alone, though the tears come from our eyes in the still of the night, though we suffer the darkest nights of pain, yet we shall never be completely uprooted.  Our God is alive and present – He knows where you are, though you feel lost.

     As you think on the greatness and nearness of God in all our circumstances, meditate on these verses from Psalm 73 that reiterate the promise well:

               

²³Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.  ²⁴You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.  ²⁵Whom have I in heaven but you?  And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside you.  ²⁶My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Guest Post by Elizabeth Magill 

My Heart Is Steadfast

Note: The following is adapted from a devotion I shared at the CYPU Winter Conference at the end of 2012.

Psalm 57:5-11
5 Be exalted above the heavens, O God;
Let Your glory be above all the earth.
6 They have prepared a net for my steps;
My soul is bowed down;They dug a pit before me;
They themselves have fallen into the midst of it.  Selah.
7 My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises!
8 Awake, my glory!
Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.
9 I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to You among the nations.
10 For Your lovingkindness is great to the heavens
And Your truth to the clouds.
11 Be exalted above the heavens, O God;
Let Your glory be above all the earth.

Today I want to tell you about a man I used to know named Brad. Brad was a man with a troubled past who came to our church several years ago, and I can't read or sing this psalm without thinking of him. Psalm 57 was his favorite Psalm, and he loved to sing 57B. Whenever we were singing favorite Psalms at church, I would automatically start turning to 57B when he raised his hand. Sitting in front of him in church, I could hear him “making a joyful noise,” even if he wasn't the most talented singer.

One of the main reasons he loved this Psalm so much was that it related to his life so well. His life had been full of troubles. He had fallen into the pits of sin and had been ensnared in the traps of this world. A common way to catch an animal in ancient times was to find an animal trail and prepare a booby-trap so that an animal that stepped on a certain spot would be ensnared in a net or a claw, unable to escape. The Bible talks over and over again about snares of death and becoming tangled in the snares of sin. One example is Psalm 141:8-10: 

 

8 For my eyes are toward You, O God, the Lord;
In You I take refuge; do not leave me defenseless.
9 Keep me from the jaws of the trap which they have set for me,
And from the snares of those who do iniquity.  
10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
While I pass by safely.

 

As an alcohol and drug addict, Brad knew the feeling of being entangled in sin. Again and again, he fell into the traps of wickedness. Finally, his soul was so “bowed down” from his sin that he had nowhere to turn but to the Lord.

God worked in his life, and Brad began to be freed from his addictive entanglements. He could sing with the Psalmist in verses six and seven of the 124^th Psalm: 

 

6 Blessed be the Lord,
Who has not given us to be torn by their teeth. 
7 Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper;
The snare is broken and we have escaped. 
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.

The Lord is the only one who can save us from our sin and from ourselves. Brad was able to say with David in verse 9: “I will give thanks to You, Lord, among the peoples...for Your lovingkindness is great to the heavens.” 

I could end Brad's story here—it'd be happier and easier that way. Unfortunately, his story doesn't end yet. Until now, I've been talking about the hope that salvation through Christ gives us in escaping from sin, but the Bible also gives warnings about backsliding—falling back to sin after being saved. Sadly, this is exactly what happened to Brad. After many months of serving the Lord (not without struggles, of course), he went back to his previous sinful lifestyle. He came back to church a few times after that but has rejected our attempts to re-connect with him. He has turned his back on the Lord and is no longer in the visible church.

What are the applications which we can take to heart from Brad's story and Scripture? Specifically, how can we keep from backsliding?

• It's difficult to dwell on sad stories like Brad's, but we are nevertheless called to ponder our own faithfulness. Your youth, your upbringing, or your pastor doesn't make you immune to struggles and temptations. Sadly, Brad's case isn't all that rare in the church. We would do well to take to heart the words of Paul's exhortation in II Corinthians 13:5: "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!"
• Watch your influences.  Assess whether the people you spend time with encourage you in your walk with God. Be vigilant and examine what you put into your mind—the movies you watch, music you listen to, and books you read.
• Make your faith your own. Don't merely ride on the coattails of your friends' or your parents' faith.  Follow the command of I Peter 3:15 and "sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you."
• Beware the slippery slope. One small decision leads to a small consequence, which leads to another choice, which eventually leads to huge consequences. Before Brad completely rejected the Lord and His people, he failed to attend church services. Backsliding doesn't start when you renounce your faith or when you do a “really bad” sin. It starts with seemingly small decisions—like skipping daily devotions or church—but ends with enormous consequences.
• Love God's Word. Be in the Word daily, being refreshed with Scripture as you would water. How many days in the past week did you eat food?  How many days in the past week did you feed on God's word?  Deuteronomy 8 tells us that God gave the Israelites manna every day to teach them “that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” God was teaching them that, just as they relied on Him daily for food, they must rely on Him daily for spiritual nourishment.
• Love God's people. Look around you. You're surrounded by people who love the Lord. That's a huge part of the church. The church is a community of believers for accountability. If you love God's people, you will become more like them and will desire Christ-centered fellowship with them. You won't desire to turn away from the Lord and hurt those people.

We should long to sing the words of Psalm 57:7:  

“My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises!”

Broken Chains: Psalm 102

 

Broken Chains: Psalm 102

 

 

"Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
So that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord:
That He looked down from His holy height;
From heaven the Lord looked at the earth,
To hear the groans of the prisoners,
To set free those doomed to die,
That they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord,
And in Jerusalem His praise,
When peoples gather together,
And kingdoms, to worship the Lord.."
~Psalm 102:18-22

Christmas is one of the few times a year when people actually think about Jesus, more specifically in the context of His birth. Very few venture to think farther about what is was that Jesus actually came to do here on earth.

His birth was miraculous.

The very thought that the perfect Son of God humbled himself to be conformed to the likeness of his own creation is mind numbing.

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

Philippians 2:5-8

Ensnared by our own fleshly desires and spiritual rebellion, we, His creation, are prisoners, in the truest sense of the word. We have tied our own knots and bound our own chains in defiance before God; wretched before His sight, yet delighting in that sin because we know nothing else.

That is, until God sent His Son.

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light:
Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.....
For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given;
And the government shall be upon his shoulders,
And his name shall be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." ~Isaiah 9:2, 6

Emmanuel. Literally, in the Hebrew it means, "God with Us."

  God looked down upon His earth, upon His rebellious children, and....had grace upon them, upon us. He extended His mercy towards us and sent His Son. Through His sacrifice, the prisoners will be freed.

"But He was wounded for our transgression;
He was crushed for our iniquities;
Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
And with His stripes we are healed.
We all like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned every one to his own way;
And the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
~Isaiah 53:5,6

"But if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’
And believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,
You will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified,
And with the mouth one confesses and is saved."
~Romans 10:9,10

Through Christ Jesus, WE ARE FREE!!! No longer slaves to sin, but slaves to righteousness. Let this truth transform you.

"But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
 ~Romans 6:22,23

Perhaps the Holy Spirit is moving in your heart today, causing you to hate the life you are living and filling you with an intense desire for something more. That "more" is Christ Jesus.

That same Jesus who was born to a virgin, born in a stable, also is the one who bore your sin, my sin, all the sins of those who would come to faith in Him on the cross.

Never lose sight of this truth. As Christmas passes and life continues on, don’t let this truth become distant in your mind and in your heart.

Christian, you are called, kept and loved by your Savior. You are no longer a prisoner, like is says in Psalm 102. God had grace and mercy on you. Live a life that reflects that.

In this new year, remember who your King is. Remember who your Savior is.

With that awareness, it is a very merry Christmas, indeed.