A Proper Pursuit of Holiness

Psalm 141 is a bold prayer of David’s. He cries to the Lord for help to resist temptation and pursue holiness. This psalm is a great picture of a humble, worshipful pursuit of God.

1. Worship

First, his prayer is placed in the context of worship: “I call upon you…let my prayer be counted as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!”

Before we can learn to, hope to, try to resist sin and put it to death, we must first pursue worship and the fear of the Lord. For resisting sin is either worship or sin in itself, for Romans 14:23 reminds us that whatever is done apart from faith is sin. Thus, if we try to kill sin apart from both a desire to please God and a trust in the promises of the gospel that ultimately motivate my pursuit of holiness, then my pursuit is sinful. This rules out a religious mindset that seeks to accomplish our own righteousness apart from an awareness of our great need of Christ.

But here, David’s orientation is “I cry to YOU;” he is not hoping in himself. Rather, he is actively turning from himself and to God. This is the heart disposition the Proverb means where it says, “in all your ways acknowledge him,” and then one can hope that the Lord will keep straight and direct his path.

Here, then, we have a practical application picture of that. David acknowledges the Lord in worship, then proceeds to his request in which he hopes the Lord will graciously direct him.

2. Guard My Mouth

“Set a guard over my mouth…watch over my lips!”

David knows that one of the most dangerous parts of our bodies for sin is the mouth. James builds out this idea in James 3:6-8, “the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life…no human being can tame the tongue.”

If this is all true—that our tongue is so easily taken up by our flesh for sin and that we, on our own, cannot reign it in—then we must not try. Rather, like David, we must acknowledge the reality of our weakness to control our words and throw ourselves at the mercy of God to forgive us where we have sinned with our lips and to set a guard over our mouths that our evil might be restrained and put to death by the Holy Spirit working within us.

3. Guard My Heart

“Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds.”

Here again, the key is to begin by acknowledging my own iniquity—the evil bent of my heart that inevitably leans me toward doing wicked deeds. David’s saying, “Lord, I know my heart will want to go here or there and do evil! Please don’t let me. Keep me close and don’t let me wander and believe lies and worship created things rather than you, Creator God!”

Paul speaks here as well regarding what we busy ourselves with saying, “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not things are on earth.” (Col 3:2) When you recognize that your tendency is to busy yourself with wicked, you have to also, like David, acknowledge that such deeds spring out of where your heart is and thus where your mind is. So killing sin begins with being “raised with Christ.” If you have become a Christian, you’ve been given a new heart and have the Holy Spirit and no longer have to set your mind on things that are on earth. You no longer have to busy your mind and heart with earthly things, earthly pleasures, earthly preoccupations. By the Spirit, you can set your mind on matters of the Kingdom, of righteousness, of salvation for yourself and others. You can busy yourself with good deeds (Eph. 2:10).

4. Embrace Rebuke

“Let a righteous man strike me – it is a kindness; let him rebuke me – it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it.”

The most loving thing our fellow worshipers can do for us sometimes is to call us out in our sin, to not hold back what might be offensive or hurt—it is a kindness—it is real love. David adds, it is an anointing thing, a blessing, a consecrating thing to be loved so well by a friend that they will not let you continue unquestioned, unrebuked, in your sin.

So again, the prayer is: “I know that I need to be rebuked: 1) Please send someone to call me out and 2) please give me a heart of humility that realizes what a gift it is to be loved like this that someone else would desire my holiness and a healthy relationship with God for me.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we have to like rebuke or that it feels good. But what is comfortable and feels good is rarely what is actually good for us. Yes, it’s painful. But, yes, it’s also good for you.

5. Gaze & Refuge

“My eyes are toward you…in you I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless.”

Only the man whose eyes are fixed on God, whose refuge is God, can request that he not be left defenseless. Yet when God is his refuge, he has chosen the strongest defense there is.

Our gaze must continually be turned to Christ. There are innumerable things that will attempt to steal your gaze and cause you to hope in them for satisfaction, identity, joy, peace, fulfillment, and all of them but Christ will lie. Our hearts will even affix themselves to good things like family, work, friendships, success and security, but these things cannot keep their promises if we hear from them that they will satisfy, keep, protect and save us. When our gaze drifts from Christ alone for these things, idolatry is close at hand.

There is a close connection between where our gaze lies and what we count as our refuge. What you think about, dwell on, long for and enjoy most is where you will run for security when trouble, frustration, fear, stress and weakness arise. If your gaze isn’t upon Christ, then he will not be your refuge and you will be defenseless.

Now we’re back where we started, for truly gazing upon Christ and taking refuge in him is Christo-centric, God-honoring worship.

God’s Sovereignty and God’s Love: For You And for His Own Glory (Part 1)

People often talk about “The Problem of Evil and Suffering” and many try to use it to disprove the existence of God. While I don’t think that the existence of evil disproves the existence of a sovereign, loving, Creator-God, I think that it does prove the fact that every person has a sense that something is not right with the world. Our world seems broken. The strong consume the weak. The whole worldview of Naturalistic Evolution is built around the principle of the “Survival of the Fittest.”

If you read the news, watch TV or even just look around at all, all the pain, destruction, and oppression of the weak in our world, both from natural and human causes, is hard to miss, and it’s distressing. Our world is broken. The Bible attributes the pain, destruction and breakdown of human relationships we deal with each day to a result of sin entering the world; and sin is defined as anything that humans do in rejection of God and God’s authority over our lives. We reject God and exalt ourselves instead. He has designed the world to work in a certain way and when we as the human race rejected that way (beginning with Adam), all our relationships – with God, with each other, and with the created world itself – broke down.

In Psalm 73, Asaph observes these truths and is heartbroken over it. He begins by acknowledging God’s character and faithfulness to his people (1), but quickly admits his difficulty with what he sees in the world. From his perspective, people bent on greed, selfishness, malice and cruelty are prosperous and have little difficulties in life; while those who reject their old, sinful patterns in pursuit of God’s way suffer and are beaten down, poor and afflicted. Asaph “nearly stumbled”, when he observed that the ungodly increase in wealth, become fat with fine eating, and are ever-increasing in their pride, arrogance, violence, boasting, and rejection and cursing of the heavens (3-9). He also mourns the fact that Israel, God’s people, are sympathetic to them as they “turn back to them, and find no fault in them.” (10) Asaph admits, upon seeing that this is the way the world seems to be going, that he feels his godly efforts have been in vain—that he is wasting his time and effort: “All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.” (13-14)

Next time, we’ll look at how Asaph responds once he gets alone with God and considers the reality of their prosperity and how God is really treating them.

A History of Faithfulness and Its Result.

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.” (ESV)

Such beautiful words of worship! I want to pursue a heart like David’s here, “earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for you.”  He is just engulfed in desire for God’s presence and overwhelmed with with an awareness of his need for it.

“as in a dry and weary land, where there is no water”: He compares his need for (and present lack of) God’s presence to dying of thirst in the desert. God’s presence is essential to his soul like water is to the body. But moreso, his spiritual need transfers also to a physical need, “my flesh faints.”

His praise of God is rooted in a history of God’s faithfulness.

“because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you”

The only way he could say that is if he experienced that love in the past, and it gives way to future worship; “my lips will praise you.”

“So,” — Therefore — on the basis of that confession of God’s steadfast love, he resolves to do something. Lifelong worship ensues. And not just quiet, inner, contemplative, unexpressed thankfulness, but public, body-involved, hand-raising, loud worship – “in your name I will lift up my hands”!

“My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips”: This is my favorite verse here. He declares with such certainty the outcome of his disposition toward God, of his faith in and love for God:  To paraphrase,“my soul will be satisfied, as with the best food in the universe, and  it will bubble up out of me into praise!” Oh how I want to be that kind of worshiper! To be so consumed with Jesus, with gratitude for my salvation and awe at his glory that I can confidently proclaim that my soul is satisfied in him alone and finds rest and assurance nowhere else! Isn’t that the big problem with us as humans. We constantly scrape and yearn and desire something to satisfy our souls. We relentlessly, tirelessly set the hope of our souls on things that do not satisfy. They make us happy for weeks or months at best (but sometimes only minutes), but ultimately fail, fade and break—disappointing us at best and devastating us at worst. Isn’t God the only one who can satisfy? Wouldn’t we do well to seek having our hearts stirred up and our hopes and dreams met in Him?  Yet, this isn’t something you can simply set your mind to do. You can’t demand that your soul be satisfied in and treasure God. It has to be rooted in something, some awareness of who He is for you, some certainty that he will be something for you.

That’s what we find in the gospel. God became a man—the God-Man, Jesus. He lived a perfect life and died a sacrificial death in our place and for our sin, and only belief in that history of his love, faithfulness, and devotion to you can save you. And this isn’t just some cognitive affirmation of historical facts, but a vigorous dependence on those historical facts, and a vigorous trust and hope that the same God who worked that in history will work it for your future.

David’s sentence didn’t stop with “my soul will be satisfied…” The structure of the whole sentence is this:

“My soul will be satisfied…and my mouth will praise you…when I remember you…FOR you have been my help“

And there is the ground for all this worship. It’s rooted in a history of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness in the past. John Piper calls this kind of future-affecting, faith-producing reflection on God’s faithfulness and goodness toward you in the past “Faith in Future Grace.” I think he’s on to something. This seems to be David’s way of stirring his affections up for the Lord, and I feel it must also be mine.

Your Perspective on Life, and Reality

Psalm 49 has been interesting to read and think over. It’s different from some of its neighboring Psalms because rather than being addressed to God (Ps. 45), about God, his attributes, faithfulness and glory (Ps. 46-48), or a narrated message from the mouth of God (Ps. 50), Psalm 49 is more of a practical wisdom Psalm. It’s more like the voice of a teacher addressing his students, or a father addressing his children — a voice saying “Listen and pay attention to what I’m about to say! This is how the world works. This is how life is!” So upon thinking about the psalm, I wanted to write about it, but not do any sort of verse by verse explanation or commentary. I just wanted to discuss what I think is its main theme.

What is your starting point?

When you think about life and what it’s all about, where do you start, that is what do you start with? Finish the sentence, “Life is all about…” Money? Relationships? Family? Sex? Success? What is it? What is that one thing that gets you excited about living? What big project are you seeking to accomplish? Why do you live? These are humanity’s biggest questions, right? So what’s your starting point? The psalmist challenges the normal perspective on life as being in general the accumulation of wealth and security and the desire to live forever and enjoy whatever you deem to be good when he says:

Why should I fear in times of trouble, when the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me, those who trust in their wealth and boast of the abundance of their riches?…even the wise die; the fool and the stupid alike must perish and leave their wealth to others. Their graves are their homes forever, their dwelling places to all generations, though they called lands by their own names. Man in his pomp will not remain; he is like the beasts that perish.

If we’re honest, the majority of our culture trusts in wealth, riches and possessions, though very few would even say they have “riches and wealth.” However, In comparison to most countries in the world, every American who ate breakfast this morning is loaded. We think that if we are secure with enough money in the bank account to buy groceries and pay our bills, that we’ll be okay – by definition, this is trust. So it would be wise, according to the psalmist to get a different starting point.

You are going to die.

So perhaps a better perspective is this. Reality tells you that you are going to die. Death is a little fact that we so often sweep away into the back of our minds because it makes us uncomfortable. We’re all very aware that we can’t carry our possessions into death, and our friend the psalmist cheerfully reminds us of this in verse 17. “For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him.” So what’s the point? You spend the 45 years of your working life accumulating wealth and contributing to your 401K and Social Security, and then die long before enjoying it all (well, any of the Social Security, but that’s a different blog post), and leave the rest to your kids.

What I’m getting at with all this is that it doesn’t matter what you most value in life, or what you work for the most. Most of the time those are very good things. It’s good to work hard and be efficient and be able to leave a legacy to your children. It’s good to have a great family and enjoy great friendships and to marry the person you love. Those are not bad things. But they become bad things when we trust in them, when we hope in them to give us security and happiness and peace. The psalmist says back in verse 5, “Why should I fear in times of trouble?” His trust is not in possessions, success, or power. His trust is in the God who made him. We would benefit from the psalmist’s perspective on life. This perspective is rooted in reality: You are going to die. You cannot take things of this world with you. You need to know and trust the God who created and rules everything.

So how can I know Him?

Start with the Bible. Get one (I’d recommend an English Standard Version, ESV) and read it. The Gospel of John is a good place to start reading and meet Jesus, the God-Man, who came into human history as a baby, born of a virgin, worked as a humble carpenter, and loved and served the people of his community. This Jesus revealed himself to be God through many signs and wonders, and ultimately by dying on the cross for sin and then resurrecting from death, defeating sin and death. He is now ruling and reigning over all creation and will come again in a physical body to establish his kingdom in a new heavens and new earth.

Walking in Faith Through Unexplained Suffering

Psalm 44 is a good picture of how Christians, saved by grace by our loving God who is a good Dad who loves his kids, live by faith. The psalmist demonstrates four ways in which a person who knows and loves God responds to him through all manner of difficulties in life. In the psalmist’s case it was national affliction by neighboring enemies. In your life and mine, these struggles and afflictions take different forms: struggles in personal or family relationships and friendships, work issues, school stresses, or real issues with physical illness or pain. Many times these things come not as a direct result of our own stupidity or wickedness (though often they do) or of someone else’s (though often they do), but they just happen, unexpected and unexplained. The question is, “How should we respond to these things if we are truly Christ followers who know and love God the Father?”

Remembering & Rejoicing

In Psalm 44:1-8, the psalmist reflects on who God has been for Israel in the past. H e remembers and retells how their fathers told them (in obedience to Deuteronomy 6:20-25) how God loved Israel and delivered them from Egypt and drove the nations out from before them and established Israel as a nation in Canaan in their place.

Verse 5 notes how God has historically made them prosper and have victory in war, and verse 6 is clear in stating that the psalmist’s trust for strength and success is in God and not in himself. He is looking back on God’s good character and nature has has known in the past and trusting in his promises for the future. This has given rise to much faith and rejoicing in their faithful God, which he says will continue “forever.”

These verses show the psalmist remembering and rejoicing in the past grace of God, which fuels trust in him for future faithfulness and grace.

Honesty About Your Pain

The next main thing we see the psalmist doing in Psalm 44 is simply being honest with God. He feels that God is not being faithful to them. They are suffering much pain as God’s people, and verse 12 even says God has sold them for cheap. Now Israel is “a byword” and “a laughingstock” among the peoples.

This kind of honesty in prayer is good for us. Sure, it can become murmuring and complaining if we aren’t careful. But if we can and should be honest with anyone about our pain, it should be God. If anyone knows about pain and can empathize with us it’s God. Jesus bore the most intense pain and rejection of all—and not just bearing the cross and the beatings he endured. He took our sin on himself and bore the very wrath of God that was meant for us. But since that is the case, we can, as Hebrews says “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

The main question here though is “Why?” Why are they so afflicted? Why does God permit such adversity for his people? The text does not say, but it does argue that it certainly can’t be one thing that would explain it.

Affliction Despite Their Faithfulness?

The psalmist is deeply perplexed at their suffering, and God’s apparent distance from them in it. He says in verse 17: “All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant.” They had not been covenant-breakers. This is a fitting response from an ancient Israelite, for God had clearly threatened them concerning their covenant keeping, promising curses upon them if they were disobedient and unfaithful. These promises are found in Deuteronomy 28:15-68. A few of these curses are found in this psalm:

• Deut. 28:25 (cf. 10-11): “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them.”
• Deut. 28:37 (cf. 13-14): “And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away.”

So it’s appropriate that he sees what is happening to them as from God, and is eager to defend Israel saying that they have not been unfaithful to the covenant. The funny thing is that we often do the same thing with God, though without the same warrant. We experience pain and difficulty and frustration and think, “Ah! I must have done something to offend God! He must be angry at me and now I’m getting what I deserve.” But this is inconsistent with our faith in Christ. The gospel says to us that God has no more wrath for those who are in Christ (Romans 8:1). We are forgiven and cleansed and our sin is covered by the blood of Jesus. Paul says in Colossians 2:13-14, “And you who were dead in your trespasses and sins, God made alive together with him having forgiven all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with it’s legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”

Plea for a Faithful Rescue by the Faithful Rescuer

Finally, the psalmist simply prays for rescue. Verse 26 says, “Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” The psalmist reaches out once again in prayer, but this time not in explanation of pain, but it a confident plea to God, trusting in his goodness and faithfulness, believing that his God is a loving and good Dad who loves his kids and who will not be far away forever. He is essentially saying, “Yes, we are experiencing much pain, but you are God, so for your sake we endure this. We don’t understand it or why this is happening, but we trust you. We believe you’re out for our good and that you are working good in us and for us!” He makes his plea on the basis of God’s character and on his desire to defend and uphold his own glory as Deliverer.

We, too can and should look to God in faith of who he is, knowing that he wants good for us and that he is always working in us to conform us to the image of Christ. Often he will even use pain and unease to do that, not because he is wrathful, but so we look to him in faith through our unexplained and unexpected suffering. John Piper, from whom I’ve learned much about faith, gives a helpful definition of patience in his book Future Grace. He says of patience:

“It’s a deepening, ripening, peaceful willingness to wait for God in the unplanned place of obedience, and to walk with God at the unplanned pace of obedience—to wait in his place, and go at his pace. And the key is faith in future grace.” (Future Grace, 171)

This post has not been largely about patience, but there is a sense in which it is a very needful thing to grow in during times of unexplained suffering, and cultivating such patience will also help to grow our faith in the God who controls our unexplained sufferings.