Established and Restored

Have you ever built something? Maybe you have directed something? When I was a kid growing up at CoBeAc I would frequently build something in the craft shop. My mom would build a suit of armor out of the broken down cardboard boxes from deliveries.

When I think of directing, i think of a orchestra or choir director who leads each instrument or voice to accomplish the task, the goal provided to them. I think of a police officer directing traffic after an event at a sports arena.

Both of these scenarios help us understand the action God takes toward those who are righteous before God.

How often do you find yourself discouraged because you have sinned again? How often does that discouragement then turn into more sinful decisions because you have begun a spiral downward into thinking that has been distorted by your sin? This thinking causes you to doubt God. It causes you to begin to view life incorrectly. What once did not bother you now bothers you. You see all the “unrighteous” people prospering and you begin to ask questions of God about why them. You see yourself as better than them because you are righteous, you have been saved by God. Well, in those instances you are not living any different than the unsaved person who has no real hope of defeating the failure that took place.

No matter the reason for your discouragement or failure or the trouble you might be in we see from the Psalmist, God is there!

Context

In our Psalm this evening, the Psalmist writes explaining that God desires and does bless his people. He deals with the question people of all generations are puzzled about—why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer? This evening we are not going to dive deep into that question. We are going to look at two verses that will encourage us to live right before God! The answer David gives in this Psalm is that ultimately the righteous are the ones who prosper and the wicked will face an immense judgement.

Main Truth: We can aggressively live for God because God established our journey and restores our walk during difficulty.

I. God established our life’s journey.

a. God strengthens our relationship with Him through His Word. He helps us to persevere in our walk with Him. He helps us to stay living in His righteousness.

i. He also gives protection (vv. 23–24). “Ordered” means “secured, established” (Psalm 119:133 Order my steps in thy word: And let not any iniquity have dominion over me[1]), and even if believers stumble, God will pick them up and get them going again.[i]

ii. The law of God must be a commanding ruling principle in the heart; it must be a light there, a spring there, and then the conversation will be regular and uniform: None of his steps will slide; it will effectually prevent backsliding into sin, and the uneasiness that follows from it.[ii]

iii. Observe, God orders the steps of a good man; not only his way in general, by his written word, but his particular steps, by the whispers of conscience, saying, This is the way, walk in it. He does not always show him his way at a distance, but leads him step by step, as children are led, and so keeps him in a continual dependence upon his guidance;[iii]

b. Ps 145:14 “14 The Lord sustains all who fall And raises up all who are bowed down.”

Ps 40:2 “2 He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.”

Pr 20:24 “24 Man’s steps are ordained by the Lord, How then can man understand his way?”

Ps 119:5 “5 Oh that my ways may be established To keep Your statutes!”

2 Co 4:9 “9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;”

Je 10:23 “23 I know, O Lord, that a man’s way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps.”

Ps 37:17 “17 For the arms of the wicked will be broken, But the Lord sustains the righteous.”

c. God supports and delights in our relationship with Him through His power. The delight that David speaks of is that God delights in the righteous and shows His divine favor to those walking in the way God has established. We need not be surprised by what happens in our lives. God has providentially ordered it. He delights in every part of the journey he has us on because it gives us the opportunity to daily depend on him and bring him glory. This should excite us about life. This should give us daily anticipation of what God has ordered for us to do. Even when we stumble over the uneven path because God graciously reaches down to pick us up.

II. God restores our walk amid difficulty.

a. He can keep us from stumbling (Jude 24 “24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,” ), and He can restore us if we do stumble. Why? Because the Father delights in His children and wants them to learn to walk.

b. God will not suffer the righteous to be tried and tempted with more than they can handle. 1 Corinthians 10:13 “13 No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

c. The simple meaning is, that when God visits his servants with severe afflictions, he at the same time mitigates them that they may not faint under them;1 as Paul declares, 2 Cor. 4:9, “We are persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” John Calvin and James Anderson, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 2 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 38.

Commentary on the Book of Psalms (Psalm 37)

That the miseries of the godly are so tempered with God’s fatherly mercy, that they fail not under their burden, and even when they fall, sink not into destruction. From these words we learn that the godly, although they serve God sincerely, and study to lead a blameless life, are not suffered to continue unmoved, and always in the same condition, but are often afflicted and cast down by various trials; and that the only difference between them and the unbelieving is, that their falls are not deadly.

Commentary on the Book of Psalms (Psalm 37)

Solomon speaks still more expressly when he says, “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again,” (Prov. 24:16:) and by these words he teaches us, that the godly are not only subjected to frequent afflictions in this life, but that they are visited with daily trials, and yet are never forsaken of the Lord. We must also shortly observe, that even the slightest fall would be enough to destroy us utterly, did not God uphold us by his hand.

d. The good man may be afflicted; but so long as “the root of the matter is in him” (Job 19:28 “28 “If you say, ‘How shall we persecute him?’ And ‘What pretext for a case against him can we find?’” ), God will not suffer him to be defeated. For the Lord upholdeth him with his hand; literally, the Lord supports his hand. If he falls, God (as Luther says) “catches him by the hand, and raises him up again.”

e. Ps 56:13 “13 For You have delivered my soul from death, Indeed my feet from stumbling, So that I may walk before God In the light of the living.”

The Psalmist is here expressing the weight of life on him and how he was stumbling and struggling to keep walking before God. God reached down and delivered him before he died. You may be going through something in your life’s journey that is heavy and you feel like you can’t make it. God is here! Pray! God delights in you and in his grace will restore your footing and help you get up and keep in walking before him!

Ps 116:8 “8 For You have rescued my soul from death, My eyes from tears, My feet from stumbling.”

Conclusion:

Our God is unfailing in his protection! He has ordained, set up, established your path, your journey. He will not be unfaithful in directing your steps, your daily life! Let’s be encouraged that God is our protector and that he delights in our lives! Let’s live confidently because God watches over us! Let’s live actively because God directs!

Tomahawks in hand, the Indians crept toward the strange tent. As they cautiously peered under the flap, their intention to kill was forgotten. There, in the center of the tent was a man on his knees. As he prayed, a rattlesnake crossed his feet and paused in position to strike. But the snake did not strike. It lowered its head again and glided out of the tent.

It was a long time later when David Brainerd, the man in the tent, found out why the Indians at the village received him with such honor as they did. He had expected that they would want to kill him. The reason for their change of heart was the report their comrades had brought of the marvelous thing they had seen. The Indians looked upon David Brainerd as a messenger from the Great Spirit, which indeed he was. In all good work the protection of God is with the worker.[vii]