GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
PSALM 119:68-69
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68 You are good, and what you do is good;
teach me your statutes.
Statutes emphasize the Word of God in its permanence. During the exodus, when the Israelites were on their way to Mount Sinai, they came to a spring they called Marah, or Bitter. There the Lord showed Moses a piece of wood, and by a miracle the wood made the water sweet to drink when Moses threw it in the water. A reminder for us about the cross of Christ that turns bitter sin into sweet forgiveness! Then the Lord gave a statute, a permanent promise, to his people: “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to all his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD who heals you” (Exodus 15:25).
All of the Lord’s statutes are good, and they are for our eternal good. “God is not only good in himself,” Gerhard writes, “but he also radiates and communicates his goodness outside himself which… is called kindness.” As James says: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17).
The good that God is, is morally good; this means that God is good of himself without any imperfections (“his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless” 2 Samuel 22:31) and therefore without any moral imperfections. God has no sin; he is holy, the Holy One (Habakkuk 1:12). When he gives a gift to man, it is flawless and holy, whether it is his commandments, his statutes, his Word, his Holy Spirit, or his Holy and Only Son. And when God does a thing, whether it is the act of creation, or of proclaiming a message, or chastising me on account of my many flaws and sins, it is also good, for my eternal good.
69 The arrogant have smeared me with lies,
but I keep your precepts with all my heart.
Our God does not say, “Love your neighbor when he’s nice to you.” He says, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). He tells us through the Apostle Paul to take all of the things we usually only think of in the ideal circumstances of wedding day (1 Corinthians 13), and to apply those things to everyone, even to a boss who is overbearing, thoughtless, hurtful, arrogant, and who demands far too much without showing compassion or understanding. And God commands that we love co-workers and family members who are equally difficult; or a spouse who does not show love, who is caught up in selfish pursuits, and who makes it a point simply to argue or disagree. Or a parent or spouse who is abusive, when it is truly hard to love. But as Professor Daniel Deutschlander writes: “If we understand the context of following Jesus, then we may make an astonishing discovery: We were not seeking happiness by bearing the cross, but we discover that there is no happiness without it” (italics his). When we must bear up under such crosses as David describes: “The arrogant have smeared me with lies,” we learn that loving our neighbor often means a kind of suffering that is not going to serve myself, but which will achieve the result God intends with his precept: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Remember Joseph and what he faced under the scorn of his family (especially his brothers), under the lust of Potiphar’s wife, under the forgetfulness of Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer (Genesis 37:23-28; 39:11-18; 40:23; 41:1). But he learned through holy patience and meditation that where others intended to harm him, “God intended it for good, to accomplish the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20).
As Luther teaches in the Table of Duties, “Obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men” (Small Catechism IX:10). And we should apply the rest of the Table of Duties in the same way, with what we owe to pastors, to teachers, to the government; as also as husbands, as wives, as parents, children, employees, employers, young people, and even as widows. The Lord would have us bear our crosses each day with prayer and joy, whether smeared with lies or spattered with faint praise (for both hurt and would crush the spirit). But we walk the path laid out before us by God our Maker, who “directs you in the way you should go” (Isaiah 48:17). For “he prepares the way so that I may show others the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:23).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Psalm 119:68-69 God is good