The Dawning Light

Often I hear and witness objections to being a Christian and to the scripture simply because there is a perception that you must be good in order God to accept you. Yet, when you dive into a study, it is clear that God’s acceptance of you into His presence is founded to two principals: 1) Love the LORD your God and 2) Love your neighbor. These are the two commandments that exceed all others and when you do them, you are fulfilling all the requirements.

That is a simple explanation, however, what does Love God and Love your neighbor really mean? Practically speaking, how should that look?

In today’s culture, it is challenging to determine how to live a righteous lift with your neighbors. Do you stand up and fight for what is right, enforcing the laws of God in your nation? Do you simply turn a blind eye and ignore it?

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How do you live in a culture that is not “behaving” the way God would want?

This question poses a few challenges: What does a “Godly” culture look like? And, is that what God wants? In other words, does God want a culture or does God want a person? That is a really important question.

One thing you notice when reading through scripture is how Israel is asked to live when they go into exile into other lands and nations. The pattern is similar to what we see in the New Testament, when Paul advises Christians how to live in and among a people who do not understand or know about Jesus.

The Psalm we are looking at today speaks to the character and right-behavior of a person who follows Yahweh, the God of Israel. It is a sister Psalm to 111 and in a group of Psalms that address these topics. Today, we are going to look at Psalm 112 and see if we can extract some information as to how God defines a person that does good things, what that looks like and what the expected result will be.

Psalm 112:1-10

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1 Praise the LORD!

Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,

who greatly delights in his commandments!

Anyone who has spent any time reading through the 613 laws would not see them as something that is a great delight. There are many and they are impossible to keep each and every single day. However, there were provisions on how to enter and remain in sacred space, where you were in fellowship with Yahweh.

The great (strength or power) delight in the commandments is derived from the desire to be in the presence of God, and to be in that presence, a way was made. You keep these commandments in fear of the LORD, as in God takes seriously the way he has made for his people to be with him. And the expectation is that people will take that seriously too.

When that is done, that person is blessed. What is the blessing? Living in the presence of Yahweh.

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2 His offspring will be mighty in the land;

the generation of the upright will be blessed.

3 Wealth and riches are in his house,

and his righteousness endures forever.

Now, we we go through these, we will be reminded of the opening verse. It links these together, otherwise we could end up with some bad theology! By that I mean you could read this to say that every upright person will have wealth and riches in their house. But you cannot just extract these verses and make them stand alone, they need to be viewed in context.

The context here is that the person who “fears the LORD” and “greatly delights” in the commandments sees these things. But we will see that wealth and riches have a purpose. They have been given for a reason.

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4 Light dawns in the darkness for the upright;

he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.

5 It is well with the man who deals generously and lends;

who conducts his affairs with justice.

I know I sound like a broken record here, but it is critical for us to understand exactly what righteousness looks like in the world. In this, the light dawns for the one loyal to God, and that light comes in the darkness.

The light is what brings grace, mercy and righteousness to this persons life. The expectation is the blessed person who fears the LORD and delights in the commandments will be: gracious, merciful and righteous. The implication is this person is in a position to show these characteristics. And as it turns out, every human has the opportunity to do this. Unless you are living totally alone, isolated from all human contact.

Further, this blessed person uses the wealth of their house to be generous, lending without interest and being honest and fair in their dealings. In other words, they are a river towards others, they are not storing up treasure for themselves. Gracious, merciful, righteous, generous and honest are the words used to describe the blessed person.

You get the sense this is how this blessed person is defined. They are the epitome of these things, it is what you think when you think about them. They are rooted firmly in these characteristics, and they shall not be moved.

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6 For the righteous will never be moved;

he will be remembered forever.

7 He is not afraid of bad news;

his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.

8 His heart is steady; he will not be afraid,

until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.

I really appreciate these verses in today’s culture. Too often we are just willing to allow ourselves to be moved. In the context of this Psalm though, moved from what?

We asked the question, is God looking for a good culture or a good person? This Psalm is concentrating on the individual, and when individuals follow Yahweh, obeying his commands, loving God and loving neighbors, the culture will begin to change.

Notice in these verses, the blessed person is not moved by the culture, he is not afraid of the culture around him, he places his trust in Yahweh, that God will ultimately overcome the evil that exists in the world. This person does not see their duty as to eradicate evil, rather they see their purpose as to be a blessing in spite of the evil around them.

And being that blessing in spite of the evil around them, that is how they measure victory.

That is a radical departure from western Christianity, which can adopt a message that says the world must behave before believing. God’s system is built in the opposite manner. You believe first. Loyalty comes after belief.

Pay close attention to the next verse, because the tense is going to change to how this blessed person is seen at the end of their days on earth.

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9 He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor;

his righteousness endures forever;

his horn (strength) is exalted in honor.

Look at the tense change, “He HAS distributed...” More than that, notice how this person is remembered:

Given Freely and Given to the Poor. And for that, this person’s righteousness endures forever.

His “Horn” or this persons strength is what is exalted in honor, yet, here is a question...

Who is the source of this person’s strength? It is Yahweh.

And how will those who do not believe, do not follow and are not loyal, how will they respond?

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10 The wicked man sees it and is angry;

he gnashes his teeth and melts away;

the desire of the wicked will perish!

Those who are true enemies of Yahweh will be ugly and hateful, angry and frustrated.

This should not be a surprise to anyone who believes in God and follows Jesus.

This is setup like a fight between good and evil, like a superhero movie!

So what do you do with your superpower?

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Use your power for good

This Psalm describes a characteristics of a very power person, so powerful they have the ability to change the lives of the generation that follows. Yet, it is written about an individual.

Never doubt the power a single, dedicated follower of Jesus can make in this world. If there is any lesson to be learned from the characters of scripture, despite all their failures, and there are many, small moments of faith changed the course of history for God’s people.

Those moments of faith were marked with the very characteristics we have seen in this Psalm.

These characteristics are the very ones God wants to see from his people when the culture is not behaving in a way that is in agreement with God’s character.