❖ Video
❖ Audio (Message)
ח (Heth) The earth is filled with the LORD’s love
Series: Finding the Gospel in Psalm 119ーA Hymn to the Law 8/22
Psalm 119:57-64
Andy Nagahara
The eighth in the series of Psalm 119, called Hymn to the Law, is the eighth paragraph in the entire series. It is verses 57 through 64, where the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Heth, is placed at the beginning of each line.
What is unique about today’s part is that the psalmist spends less time praying and desiring and more time confirming his own past steps and making resolutions.
Now let’s read on as usual.
1. The privilege that we can call our God “my LORD” (57,58)
57 You are my portion, O LORD;
I have promised to obey your words.
58 I have sought your face with all my heart;
be gracious to me according to your promise.
From the very beginning, we see the expression like “You are my portion, O LORD,” which we do not often use.
Would it be easier to understand if I paraphrased it as “my share of the inheritance?”
The ” master” is the one who rules in human relationships, and if it is the biblical relationship between a slave and his master, it is the master who owns, and the slave is the one owned.
In his relationship with God, however, the psalmist is saying that God is his own. This is evident when we think of Jesus. Jesus is the God who created us, but who serves us, who treats us like equal friends, and who was willing to suffer death for our sake.
To be equal means that we can choose how to get along with God. Were you aware of this? Jesus does not force us to do this and that. We can obey or disobey at our own will. It can also be an awful thing. Because it can lead us in the wrong direction so that we are moving further and further away from Jesus. How can we maintain a good relationship with Jesus? It is to know Jesus well.
For example, modern electrical products are multifunctional, and it is impossible for us to fully use them without carefully reading and understanding their instruction manuals. It may be rude to say that the Bible is God’s instruction manual, but we could say that it is an instruction manual on how to get along with God. So, the psalmist, who wanted to walk firmly united with God, decided to keep his word. But he knew it would be difficult for him to continue doing so on his own, so he said, “I have sought your face with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise.” Still, we sometimes go down the wrong path and don’t realize it for a while. The psalmist also was the same way.
Let’s read the next part.
2. You can turn your steps if you have made a mistake (5９,60)
59 I have considered my ways
and have turned my steps to your statutes.
60 I will hasten and not delay
to obey your commands.
In the past, the psalmist had the experience that his steps had gone wrong. When he eventually realized this, what did he do?
The expression in this part also uses a difficult term in Japanese, but “to turn on one’s heel” means to change direction. God is the one who allows us to fail and to change direction.The path called life is full of obstacles and temptations. And they are something that seems beautiful to look at and delicious to eat (Genesis 2).
We stray from the path toward God. That is the nature of sin as taught in the Bible. Sin is often described as turning one’s back on God, but it is never the will to turn in the exact opposite direction. I don’t think many people want to be clearly hostile to God. It is just to the extent that we want to live according to what we think is right. And we turn our gaze away from God.
If we only watch Jesus’ back (and by that I mean only what is written in the Bible, only what is said in the church) as we walk through this world, it will be a rather dangerous walk.It is rather important to shift our gaze a little bit, to observe the world around us, and then to look at Jesus to hear his will for it. However, we must be careful because our ” nature of sin” causes us to look at Jesus less and less often, and eventually we stop looking at him altogether and realize that we are far away from him.
The good thing about the psalmist was that he turned around as soon as he realized, quickly and with no pause, he tried to get closer to Jesus. This will be important for us as well.
It is fortunate to have a place of wanting to get back there again, when it seems like we have been walking our path with confidence, and then suddenly we realize that this is the wrong path. If that place is unclear, even if we realize we are walking in the wrong path, then we will not know where to turn.And even if we start walking away with some modifications, it would likely mean that the distance between us and Jesus would never get any closer. I wish Your Church could be a beacon for people when they are in such times. So, no matter how people leave, I want this church to be a place where they can come back to if they want to do so again.
3. The Law for withstanding obstructions (61,62)
61 Though the wicked bind me with ropes,
I will not forget your law.
62 At midnight I rise to give you thanks
for your righteous laws.
In the previous part, I talked about taking the wrong path in life, and many times it is others who become the triggers. Eve was seduced by the serpent, and Adam was seduced by Eve. No one can be a criminal if the person is alone on a deserted island. This is because there is no one there to seduce them, and there is no one there to be victimized by them.
The nature of sin in all people becomes concretely visible in relationships, for example, in crime. Some will approach you to make you an accomplice while others will try to harm you. In this psalmist’s case, perhaps metaphorically, there were those who wanted to bind him with ropes, take away his freedom, and make him a victim. And the motivation was an attack because the psalmist’s way of life of walking according to God was inconvenient for him.
Whenever we know God’s will and want to live according to it, the evil will works to make us despair, fail, and unhappy. And it works by using someone as the serpent that inspired Eve in the beginning of the world. The way to oppose this, says the psalmist, is to remember the Lord’s law, teachings, and speaking to us.
The psalmist who is enduring such attacks, suddenly wakes up in the middle of the night. Or perhaps anxiety overpowered sleepiness, and despite his efforts to sleep, he was unable to do so and finally got up to worship God. Yet it seems to have been a precious time of worship for the psalmist, a time of intimacy with God.
Can you sleep well until the morning without waking up in the middle of the night? I don’t have problems with sleep, but I still wake up in the middle of the night from time to time. And, even more rarely, my eyes may become completely wide-awake and I cannot sleep any longer. I know that people who worry about sleep duration and quality are afraid that they will wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to sleep, but I choose to think that God woke me up for some reason when that happens.
Then I would get up and worship God or read a text or reference book for the next message. So, I suggest that everyone use this as a time to be thankful, without worrying too much about waking up in the middle of the night. We can worship even in the middle of the night.
4. The earth is filled with the LORD’s love (63,64)
63 I am a friend to all who fear you,
to all who follow your precepts.
64 The earth is filled with your love, O LORD;
teach me your decrees.
If the opportunity to take the wrong path is provided by relationships, then walking right is also kept by relationships. There are not many who fear the Lord and keep His admonition, but the confession that such a person is the friend of one’s own is daringly included here, perhaps because it is essential for us to have friends who look up to the same Lord.
It is not at all about not relying on God and relying on people instead. For when we rely on the invisible God, we are also relying on the Church, whose head is the One who has once revealed Himself to us in visible form as Jesus. The church is not a building or a meeting, but this human relationship of ours.
You will find the Nicene Creed on the last page of the weekly bulletin in your hands. It is the written statement of the basic Christian faith(belief ) as established by the Council held in 381 A.D. Do you know what next Monday is? Yes, Halloween is also correct, but remember that it is the anniversary of the Reformation, which is the origin for Christians, especially for those of us in the genealogy of the Protestant Church. This Nicene Creed is an understanding of faith shared by all Christians today, since it was written long before that Protestant separation (1517), and even before the East-West Schism of 1054, which divided the Orthodox and Catholic churches. In the third line from the bottom of this, it says, “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.” It means that the church is holy and should be trusted as the body of Christ to which all Christians are connected. When we are connected to this body of Christ, we are okay, no matter how hopeless the situation in this world may seem. For this body has the power to support one another. That is why the psalmist asserts, “The earth is filled with your love. As long as we are connected to His body, as long as we continue to listen to His word, His love will abound on the earth, and we can continue to walk in its blessings abundantly.
(Prayer) Thank you, God, for allowing us to say, “You are my portion” through your mercy.
Even when we forgot to look up to you and found ourselves far away, you called to us and pulled us back to your path.
By your words, please help us to move forward step by step without fear, even when various problems stand before us.
Thank you for the church you have given us, which is a human relationship of those who believe in you.
By Your love expressed through each of them, and by Your mercy, guide us to support each other and to continue to walk through life joyfully with You.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ.
Summary
Believing in God or knowing the Lord is not something you can do with your own ability or will. Only by the mercy of the Lord, we are able to know Jesus and begin to follow him. There are many hardships and sorrows in this world, but remember that being able to live your life believing in Jesus is itself a great blessing, and let’s carry out the work of Jesus together with many friends who look up to the Lord in the same way.
For Discussion
1. What does “You are my portion” mean?
2. Why can we say, “The earth is filled with the LORD’s love”?