“ABC’s of Thanksgiving,” Part-1, Psalms 119:1-8
Abandonment: An Undivided Heart
Outline
I. Introduction
II. Transition
III. Exposition
a. Background
i. Author Unknown
ii. Message Clear
1. Love for the Torah
2. Desire to live according to Torah
b. Structure
i. 22 Stanza Acrostic Poem, using Hebrew Alphabet
ii. The Law of God
1. 10 different words used synonymously.
c. Abandonment (Major Exegesis)
i. Honesty, no false pretense (v.5)
ii. Awe
iii. Abandonment
1. Yearning
2. Trust
3. Dependence
IV. Conclusion
V. Key Themes: Scripture as a foundation for worship; a love for God’s law;
Introduction
This is no ordinary rubber snake. Around my house it has a story. A few weeks ago I found this ordinary looking rubber snake beneath my pillow on our bed. I’m not that easy to startle by practical jokes though I must say it was a good effort on her behalf. I brought it to her while she laughed to tears and I explained that the joke had not had the full effect because it was just a little obvious. She enjoyed it nonetheless. I put the snake in my closet and waited a couple of days. Then I put it in our bathroom just beneath the laundry hamper, mostly under a heater vent so that its head and part of its body would be visible the next time she moved the hamper. A few days went by and then the scream came. I had gotten her but that’s not the best part of the story. You see, I put it back in almost the same location a day later. I got the phone call in my office saying “Way to go, that snake got me again!” But that’s not the best part. I put the snake in my closet and after a few more days I dropped it on the floor in the kid’s playroom sort of camouflaged by some toys and asked her to come in the room. I started talking normally about something or another and then jumped and yelled as though I had been scared by a real snake, she looked down, and it got her again!
You can bet that after all of that I am anticipating the payback… I know Christina well and it’s not that hard for me to scare her and I probably do it more often than I should. However, my aim in telling you this story is not to embarrass myself by telling you that I like to surprise my trusting wife.
In fact, it is probably in large part the depths of her trust for me which affords me the ability to so easily surprise her. She is safe so she is not on guard. When do we stop being surprised by the love that God has for us? When does life after knowing Christ cause us to become desensitized to the miracle of His love for us to the point that we are no longer surprised by His love and as a result, abandoned to His will?
When do we lose the awe that comes into every regenerate heart upon realization that the God of the universe, whose worth is infinite and matchless, has lavished upon me so great a salvation as this?
When does that revelation of the reality of His love dry up? When do we become so accustomed to diving in the depths of the ocean of His love for us that we prefer to sit idly in the shallows of the love that we offer back to Him?
Transition
C. S. Lewis once commented that “A man’s spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God.” I would go on to qualify that statement further that a person’s spiritual health is exactly proportional to their love for God and His ways.
In Isaiah 55:6-8 the word of God declares that we must “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.” (NIV84)
Our spiritual health lies in direct proportion to the extent that we turn to the Lord, jettisoning our broken thoughts and ways, and abandoning ourselves to love for God and a love for His precepts, His statutes, His ways.
For the next three Sundays – as we draw near to the celebration of Thanksgiving – we will look at the first three sections of Psalms 119 to learn the ABC’s of what it means to worship God in giving thanks, not merely for Turkey legs, but for who God is and for His love for us.
Exposition
Background: As with many of the authors of the Psalms, it is unclear who wrote Psalm 119. The message of Psalm 119, however, is very clear. Throughout the Psalms the author expresses a deep love for the Torah – the law of God.
The author is expressing his deep desire to live according to Torah – the instruction, the law – of God. Not only does he express his desire to love according to the law of God but his desire for us to live accordingly as well.
Structure: Psalms 119 is a 22 Stanza Acrostic Poem. It uses the Hebrew Alphabet as the basis for an acrostic poem expressing thanksgiving to God for giving His instruction in the law and the writer’s deeply heartfelt desire to live accordingly.
The title of these this sermon series come directly from that structure. We will be looking at the Aleph Beth and Gimel of thanksgiving to God for giving us Torah.
That is, we will be looking at the ABC’s of thanksgiving to God for revealing Himself to us through Sacred Scripture. One commentator offers an overview of the contents of Psalms 119 this way:
“This psalm reflects the view that the Lord, who abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness and who therefore freely and fully forgives his people when they confess their sins (Ex. 34:6–7), loves his people without limit, and therefore also guides the faithful in the way of life that is genuinely good and beautiful (cf. Ps. 119:124). The psalm speaks the language of one ravished with moral beauty, to which there is only one fitting response—to try to reproduce this beauty, as much as possible, in one’s daily life.”
The Psalmist love for the law of God is rooted in his love for God. He is utterly abandoned to God and his law. Interestingly, the writer uses no less than 10 different Hebrew words to speak of the law of God.
Interchangeably he uses words which have been translated Law (Torah), Testimonies (Edot), Precepts (Piqqudim), Statutes (Huqqim), Commandments (Miswot), Ordinances (Mispatim), Word (Dabar), and Promise (Imra).
Some scholars and commentators have attempted to develop artificial patterns to why the writer of Psalms 119 uses certain words when he does and in a certain order but no clear pattern emerges; only awe of God and love for His commands.
The author loves the law of God. He stands in awe of God and longs to live according to the law of God. He loves God and desires for others to live according to the law of God so as to manifest the beauty of the precepts of God in this world; in the here and now.
The writer understands that the beauty of God‘s precepts are no reserved alone for poetic beauty and symmetry, such as that with which he writes, but that the beauty of God’s law is when it is lived out in the lives of worshippers of God and thus made to be known not only in principle but in reality.
Major Exegesis: There is no false pretense to found in the Psalm. In verse 5 the writer cries out “Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees!”
In verse 2 the author is plainly expressing a great desire to worship the Lord with all of his heart and as a consequence walk blameless before the Lord as he upholds all of his statutes. “How blessed are those who observe his rules,
and seek him with all their heart.” (Psalms 119:2 NET)
The Hebrew word (Leb) translated in English as heart embodies a sense of the “inner man, mind, will, heart, understanding, the heart, the soul, the mind, knowledge, thinking, reflection, memory, the inclination, resolution, determination (of will), even the conscience, the seat of moral character, personal appetites, of emotions and passions and courage.
The writer of the Psalm is plainly aware of the worth and otherness of God. He obviously grasps with great certitude that God is infinitely worthy and therefore just in giving decrees. But he doesn’t stop there.
Most people “get” that God is transcendent, that is that if there is a God anywhere in the universe that He must be high and above. Many people take that so far as to suggest or assert that God is in fact disinterested.
While modern day atheists reject the very concept of God, there is an ever widening portion of the populace who, while they are not willing to reject the God completely, reject the notion that God as they understand Him is very interested in His creation. The idea goes that basically God set all of this material stuff into motion and then kind of checked out on it, leaving us on our own.
Such and similar agnosticism is commonplace in the modern culture. However, the Psalmist doesn’t stop short at a distant and in descript notion of God.
Rather than assuming God to be so vast and glorious as to be indifferent to creatures so base as we, the Psalmist recognizes that the same God who is glorious and powerful and just in establishing His decrees is also compassionate enough to do so.
In verse 124 of the same Psalm the writer prays to God saying “Deal with your servant according to your love and teach me your decrees.” (NIV84) More than 100 verses later in the Psalm the writer is still speaking of God’s worth and law.
The glory and grace and love of God are not divorced from His law and commands, they are extensions of it. When we love God we long to please Him.
The Psalmists awe is only increased when he looks at the glory of God and sees that God is not far off. He is gloriously transcendent, beyond anything we can fathom and yet loves us and condescends to us; comes into the mess of our lives!
He even indwells flesh in the form of His Son Jesus Christ; the mystery of Emmanuel, God with us. The Psalmist stands in awe of God and so should we.
However, awe does not leave us down here only gazing. Awe rightly results in abandon. In verse 3 the writer says that those who love God with their whole heart walk in His ways. In verse 4 he says that God’s precepts are to be fully obeyed. Then in verse five he laments with all of his heart and cries out “Oh that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees!”
The Psalmist longs to please God. He stands in awe of God and recognizes the worth of Him who created Him and graciously gave Him the law so that He and we would know how to relate to Him.
Then in verse 7 he prays to God “I thank you with a sincere heart as I learn your righteous rulings.” (CJB) The Psalmist gives thanks to God for giving His law and His love to His people. The Psalmist is in awe of God but not only for His majestic worth but also for His transcendent love.
God is not only high and exalted and worthy, He is also right here revealing Himself first in the law, then in Jesus Christ, and even now in us as the Holy Spirit lives in us and empowers us to please God propositionally; that is, making His glory and beauty manifest in the here and now; bringing glory down.
The ABC’s of Thanksgiving – awe results in abandon, that is, an undivided heart.
Conclusion
Jesus did not come to destroy the law or the revelation that had come before Him. He is the fulfillment of the law and in Him alone we find our ability to fulfill the law of God and manifest the beauty of His statues.
In Matthew chapter five Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. (v.17) I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (v.18) For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (v.20)
In Matthew chapter 7 He goes on to say, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (v.12)
The law is not abolished but fulfilled in abandonment to God through a love relationship with Jesus. Friends, don’t lose the awe that was fresh at salvation!
We who have been saved by so great a salvation as this must never take for granted the reality of His love for us and what that love compels in us – a great and burning desire to manifest the beauty of His precepts, the exquisiteness of His commands, in real terms in the here and now of our lives in this world.
Awe inspires abandon, that is, an undivided heart; something we all seek. Awe of God inspires a love for God which has the capacity to grip the heart and arrest the mind of the regenerate sinner; you and me. We stand in awe not of a God who is distant and worthy who only demands obedience, but of a God who though He is infinite in worth condescends, stoops low to us, and loves us. Awe of His great love for us, that the Lord of Glory would lavish us with grace, inspires abandon; an undivided heart. Amen.
Have you ever had difficulty in making yourself understood by a young child? Just try answering some of his questions: “What’s the sky made of? Why did Grandma have to die? Where did God come from?” It can be quite a problem. The difference between your mental ability and the child’s is not as great as that between the mental ability of God, the Creator, and you, His creature. What method did He use to communicate with man? Did He send a great cataclysm of nature to awe us into submission? No, He sent a little Baby to be born in Bethlehem. Of course, babies are born every day, but this was a very special Baby. He was God in the flesh. Amen.
