As we’ve been studying these Psalms of Ascent, we’ve seen again and again that difficulties and struggles are part of our lives. The psalmist is motivated to set out on pilgrimage, in Psalm 120, by a sense of disappointment with the world. This world is not all that he had hoped, so he cries out “too long have I lived among those who hate peace.” But then, right away, we find him looking desperately around and asking, “Where will my help come from?” It’s true, as Paul and Barnabas told the church at Antioch, that “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). But if we only talk about these difficulties, it’s easy to get the wrong picture of the Christian life. If we become obsessed with the difficulties of life in this world, we’re looking at things from the wrong perspective. It’s fashionable in popular culture to caricature Christians as joyless people whose main mission in life is making sure that no one has a good time. One of Satan’s strategies is to use these kinds of lies to close people’s minds to the truth of the gospel. Thomas Merton tells how he grew up with an irrational suspicion of Catholics: “This was one of the few things I got from Pop [his grandfather] that really took root in my mind, and became part of my mental attitude: this hatred and suspicion of Catholics. There was nothing overt about it. It was simply the deep, almost subconscious aversion from the vague and evil thing, which I called Catholicism, which lived back in the dark corners of my mentality with the other spooks, like death and so on. I did not know precisely what the word meant. It only conveyed a kind of a cold and unpleasant feeling” (The Seven Storey Mountain, p. 29). Many people in our culture feel that way about Christianity. They don’t know exactly what it is, but it conveys “a kind of a cold and unpleasant feeling.”
We can give the impression, if we’re not careful, that the Christian life is a grim struggle from beginning to end, that true disciples, at best, are uncomplaining stoics who endure bravely the harshness of life in God’s kingdom. We may not be having a very good time, but we’re determined to stick it out till the end. The psalmist is certainly aware of the difficulties of life in this fallen world, but at the same time he claims that there’s no contradiction between godliness and happiness. In fact, he seems to assume that these two things go together.
The psalmist states his main point in verse one. This verse really summarizes the whole psalm: “Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways.” The Hebrew word for “blessed,” ashre, is often translated “happy.” Here’s how it reads in The Message: “All you who fear God, how blessed you are! How happily you walk on his smooth, straight road.” Or the New Living Translation: “How happy are those who fear the Lord.” The psalmist is saying that people who walk with God have good reason to feel happy about their lives. They’re not grim stoics who are determined to hang on till the end, no matter what. They’re people who are conscious of living under God’s blessing; they’re happy people. They endure suffering, because they’re living in a fallen world. But they’re conscious of how much they’ve received from God’s hand, of how much they’re continuing to receive each day from His rich abundance.
Notice how he describes these people. First, they’re people who “fear the Lord.” This is a common theme in the Old Testament. For example: “Happy are those who fear the Lord. Yes, happy are those who delight in doing what he commands” (Psalm 112:1, NLT). Or this, from the beginning of Proverbs: “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Only fools despise wisdom and discipline” (1:7, NLT). Or, a little later in the same book: “Fear of the Lord gives life, security, and protection from harm” (19:23, NLT). How should we understand this idea of fearing the Lord? It really goes against the grain of the contemporary tendency to approach God casually, even flippantly. We want to see Jesus as our buddy, and we habitually speak to God in ways which ignore His infinite majesty and holiness.
There are two opposite extremes in this area. On the one hand, we can become so aware of God’s transcendence, so conscious of His absolute holiness, that we only approach Him with slavish, cringing fear. If we go too far in this direction, we won’t dare approach Him at all. Scripture clearly calls us to come boldly into God’s presence, as children who’ve been freely accepted through the perfect sacrifice of the Son. But our tendency is to swing from one extreme to another, and when we become aware that God accepts us fully and invites us to come boldly into His presence, we’re in danger of forgetting what it means to stand in the presence of the eternal, almighty God.
It’s helpful to notice how people in Scripture respond when they’re given a clearer vision of God as He is. When Moses saw the burning bush he was curious and moved closer to have a look. But then God spoke to him out of the bush: “‘Do not come any closer,’ God told him. ‘Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground.’ Then he said, ‘I am the God of your ancestors....’ When Moses heard this, he hid his face in his hands because he was afraid to look at God” (Exodus 3:5-6, NLT). Here’s how Daniel responded, when he was given a vision, in answer to prayer: “I, Daniel, am the only one who saw this vision. The men with me saw nothing, but they were suddenly terrified and ran away to hide. So I was left there all alone to watch this amazing vision. My strength left me, my face grew deathly pale, and I felt very weak. When I heard him speak, I fainted and lay there with my face to the ground. Just then a hand touched me and lifted me, still trembling, to my hands and knees. And the man said to me,’ O Daniel, greatly loved of God, listen carefully to what I have to say to you. Stand up, for I have been sent to you.’ When he said this to me, I stood up, still trembling with fear. Then he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Daniel...’” (Daniel 10:7-12, NLT).
It’s tempting to dismiss this by pointing out that these are Old Testament characters. God dealt with these people in terms of the Law, but now He deals with us in grace. God revealed His holiness in the Old Testament, but now He reveals Himself as our loving heavenly Father. The fear of the Lord, from this perspective, is an Old Testament theme, which really has no place in the minds of Christians. The apostle John is often called the “beloved apostle,” because he had such a close relationship with Jesus, and because love is such a strong theme in his letters. In his account of the Last Supper, John refers to himself in this way: “One of Jesus’ disciples, the one Jesus loved, was sitting next to Jesus at the table” (John 13:23). He was conscious of being “the one Jesus loved.” And yet, when he saw the risen Lord on the island of Patmos, he says this: “when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, ‘Don’t be afraid!’” (Revelation 1:17). Jesus Himself said: “Dear friends, don’t be afraid of those who want to kill you. They can only kill the body; they cannot do any more to you. But I’ll tell you whom to fear. Fear God, who has the power to kill people and then throw them into hell” (Luke 12:4-5).
The fear of the Lord is not an Old Testament theme. It’s a biblical theme. Those who are walking in persistent rebellion, who refuse to bow before God’s authority have good reason to be afraid. In 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” This sermon has been subjected to much ridicule and hatred in the modern world. But Edwards was doing nothing more than expounding the biblical teaching on God’s wrath against sin. He describes, at some length, the precarious position of sinners outside of Christ, stressing that the only thing keeping them from the fullness of God’s wrath is His mercy and good pleasure. He’s certain that if they could see clearly their position as sinners before a holy God, they’d be overwhelmed with fear and would flee to Christ for refuge. Here’s how he concludes the sermon: “Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom: ‘Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed’” (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2, p. 12). Those who are continuing in rebellion, refusing to bow before God’s lordship, have every reason to fear. As the author of Hebrews says, “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).
But what about those of us who’ve been reconciled to God by His free gift of grace? Paul says there is now “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1), so we don’t live in dread of God’s wrath. For us, the fear of the Lord means worshiping Him with reverence and awe. “Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be destroyed, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28-29). Eugene Peterson does a good job of explaining what this means: “The Bible isn’t interested in whether we believe in God or not. It assumes that everyone more or less does. What it is interested in is the response we have toward him: will we let God be as he is, majestic and holy, vast and wondrous, or will be always be trying to whittle him down to the size of our small minds, insist on confining him within the boundaries we are comfortable with, refuse to think of him other than in images that are convenient to our lifestyle? But then we are not dealing with the God of creation and the Christ of the cross, but with a dime-store reproduction of something made in our image, usually for commercial reasons. To guard against all such blasphemous chumminess with the Almighty, the Bible talks of the fear of the Lord--not to scare us but to bring us to awesome attention before the overwhelming grandeur of God, to shut up our whining and chattering and stop our running and fidgeting so that we can really see him as he is and listen to him as he speaks his merciful, life-changing words of forgiveness” (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p. 116).
This fear of the Lord is more than just an inward feeling. It affects the way we live our lives. The psalmist adds a second phrase, which fills out his meaning: “Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways.” Those who fear the Lord obey Him. Fear of the Lord and obedience are inseparable from each other. Proverbs 8:13 says, “All who fear the Lord will hate evil.” Or Proverbs 14:21: “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death.” Here’s one more, from Leviticus: “Show your fear of God by not taking advantage of each other. I, the Lord, am your God” (25:17).
One of Satan’s strategies is to corrupt our understanding of God. He did that with Eve in the garden: “God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become like God, knowing everything, both good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). He persuaded her that God was only watching out for Himself, trying to keep her from becoming like Him. And very often Satan tries to make us think about God in ways that undermine our reverent fear of offending Him. Surely He won’t care that much if we sin! He’s just waiting to forgive us–where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more–so we can go ahead and do what we want, then ask forgiveness right away. Paul urges us to remember both the kindness and the severity of God: “Don’t think highly of yourself, but fear what could happen. For if God did not spare the branches he put there in the first place, he won’t spare you either. Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is severe to those who disobeyed, but kind to you as you continue to trust in his kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off” (Romans 11:20-22). One of the most dangerous sins is the sin of presumption, because it leads us to sin carelessly and to take God’s mercy for granted. The fear of the Lord protects us from this sin, and leads us to a life of reverent obedience. “Blessed are all those who fear the Lord, and walk in his ways.”
People who fear the Lord, who know something of God’s holiness and majesty and who see themselves as they are before Him, don’t presume that God owes them something. They don’t come to God claiming things from Him. During the late 1970's, I remember hearing a lot about Christians who referred to themselves as “king’s kids.” As children of the king, they thought they were entitled to the best this world has to offer. King’s kids shouldn’t be driving old, beat-up cars. They should be prosperous and successful. A lot of these people got into trouble with their faith, and part of the problem was that they were cultivating a presumptuous spirit, rather than the fear of the Lord. That’s one extreme.
But those who do fear the Lord can go too far the other direction. I heard a missions speaker once tell a story about working with an older woman on the mission field. She had been there for many years, and he was young, enthusiastic, and excited about the prospect of being involved in the work of missions. They were working on a difficult project one day, and he blurted out, “I wonder what kind of reward the Lord will have for us.” And she answered him, harshly and full of disdain, “I don’t deserve any reward from the Lord.”
It’s true, of course, that we don’t deserve any reward from Him. But He delights in doing good things for us, and He rewards our efforts to serve Him, not because we deserve it, but because He is gracious. That’s the point of verses 2-4. The psalmist is illustrating the principle he stated in verse 1. God delights in giving good things to those who fear Him. If Satan doesn’t succeed in tempting us to see God as an overindulgent but helpless father, he’ll try to make us think of Him as an austere task master. A.W. Tozer said, “Nothing twists and deforms the soul more than a low or unworthy conception of God.... The truth is that God is the most winsome of all beings and His service one of unspeakable pleasure.... The fellowship of God is delightful beyond all telling. He communes with His redeemed ones in an easy, uninhibited fellowship that is restful and healing to the soul. He is not sensitive nor selfish nor temperamental. What He is today we shall find Him tomorrow and the next day and the next year. He is not hard to please, though He may be hard to satisfy. He expects of us only what He has Himself first supplied. He is quick to mark every simple effort to please Him, and just as quick to overlook imperfections when He knows we meant to do His will. He loves us for ourselves and values our love more than galaxies of new created worlds” (“God is Easy to Live With,” in The Root of the Righteous, pp. 13-15).
God delights in doing good things for those who fear Him. We don’t deserve it, but He graciously rewards our efforts to please Him. The psalmist illustrates this principle in a way that would connect with people living in his culture: “You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table.” Then he concludes that section with these words in verse 4: “Thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord.” Or, here it is in the Jerusalem Bible: “Such are the blessings that fall on the man who fears Yahweh.” In other words, these are the kinds of things God delights in doing for those who fear Him.
Are these promises we can claim from God? If we’ve fulfilled the conditions, can we expect that God has bound Himself to ensure that our lives turn out this way? No, they’re not promises. This is a wisdom psalm, and its approach is similar to the book of Proverbs. The wisdom literature in Scripture makes observations about the way God has ordered His creation. For example, Proverbs 22:6 says, “Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it.” I’ve often heard this interpreted as a promise, that if we teach our children the ways of the Lord, He promises to keep them on the right path. So if they stray from the right path, it’s because we haven’t done our part. But that’s not the intention of this verse. The point is that God has so ordered His creation that if we teach our children the Lord’s ways, they won’t easily turn their backs on Him. That’s the way He has made us.
So our psalm is not promising that things will work out this way for those who fear the Lord. We, just like others, experience the trouble and grief of living in a world that has turned its back on God. But in fearing the Lord and walking with Him we’ve stopped trying to go against the grain of God’s created order. If you’re committed to learn how to fly without any mechanical assistance, you’re going to have a very frustrating and difficult life, because God didn’t create us with that ability. Sin is like that. It goes against the grain of God’s world. In following Jesus Christ we’re seeking to live in the way we were created to live, so purely on the natural level it’s more likely that we’ll be happy and content. But in addition to this, God is pleased with our feeble efforts to serve Him, and He delights in caring for us and bringing good things into our lives. The things the psalmist lists aren’t extravagant. But they’re part of the life we were created for, a life overflowing with God’s blessing, surrounded by His constant presence.
This psalm concludes with a benediction, in verses 5-6: “May the Lord bless you from Zion all the days of your life; may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem, and may you live to see your children’s children.” The psalmist is not just grasping after a blessing for himself. He’s not self-absorbed, watching out for number one. He wants to see God’s blessing on his fellow-pilgrims, and he is especially concerned for the well-being of the corporate body. A life blessed by God is not lived in isolation. We’re on pilgrimage as part of God’s Church, and our well-being is tied to the spiritual health of the body.
“Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways.” The way to experience a life of blessing--a happy life--is to cultivate the fear of the Lord. How do we do that? We don’t begin with our feelings, by trying to make ourselves feel a certain way. We begin by seeking to know God as He is, by cultivating a larger vision of God. And we need to be intentional about this, because our natural tendency is to reduce God to manageable proportions.
Spend time in God’s presence, worshiping and praising Him for who He is. You’ll probably need help with this, because our knowledge of God is very limited and our thoughts tend to revolve around our own needs. Sing hymns and choruses, especially ones that exalt God’s majesty. “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise,” “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and “O Worship the King” are good choices to begin with. Try singing a hymn, then stop and pray through it, and then sing it again. This gives the words time to sink into your mind. Pray the Scriptures in the way I suggested a couple of sermons ago. And try using written prayers to fill your mind with higher thoughts of God. A Diary of Private Prayer, by John Baillie, is an excellent guide for prayer. It has morning and evening prayers for each day of the month. Using these will help you pray about things you wouldn’t think of otherwise and will help you develop a language for worship. The purpose of all these things is to cultivate a larger view of God, to learn to worship him with reverence and awe.
The effect of this is just the opposite of what the world leads us to expect. As we learn to fear the Lord, we become more aware of His presence and blessing on our lives. We’ve been delivered from the kingdom of darkness and made part of His eternal kingdom. Our sins have been forgiven, and we’re no longer living under His wrath. We look forward to eternity in the presence of God, the source of all good. And we have His promise to accompany us all through this earthly pilgrimage. We experience His blessing throughout our lives in more ways than we can number. Surely we, of all people on earth, have reason for happiness. Even when we endure suffering, we do so in the light of an eternal future that far outweighs even the most severe trials here on earth. “For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever” (2 Corinthians 4:18, NLT). “All you who fear God, how blessed you are! How happily you walk on his smooth, straight road” (The Message). “All honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by his boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation, because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for his children. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.... So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though it is necessary for you to endure many trials for awhile.... You love [the Lord Jesus], even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him, you trust him; and even now you are happy with a glorious, inexpressible joy. Your reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:3-6; 8-9, NLT).
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