July 1, 2024
Learning to love law...a conversation with David Brickey
Get ready to unlock the profound wisdom of Psalm 119 with local evangelist David Brickey. Have you ever wondered what the longest chapter in the Bible reveals about our relationship with God's law? In this episode, David brings fresh insights and personal reflections, guiding us through the psalmist's deep-seated desire and remarkable confidence in God's statutes. We'll explore the unique acrostic structure of the psalm and the multifaceted perspectives it offers, including the tension between humanity's failures and God's enduring grace.
Our conversation doesn't stop there. We delve into the historical context of God's law, from Mount Sinai to the Deuteronomic era, exploring key moments that shaped Israel's relationship with divine commandments. Through a heartfelt discussion on the balance between the Pharisees' rule-keeping and the deeper spiritual meanings intended by God, we emphasize the importance of sincere devotion over mere outward compliance. David shares his thoughts on how Psalm 119, particularly verse 25, emphasizes the transformative power of God's word and the need for continual introspection and reliance on His guidance.
As we reflect on the emotional depth of Psalm 119, you'll hear about the psalmist's struggles with grief, self-deception, and the dual nature of loving God's law while feeling inadequate. Discover how everyday actions, when viewed through the lens of God's blessings, can hold sacred significance. This episode underscores the journey of discipleship, the value of repentance, and the importance of seeking God's mercy in every aspect of life. Join us for a meaningful exploration of Psalm 119 that promises to enrich your spiritual understanding and devotion.
Be good and do good.
Chapters
00:00 - Exploring Psalm 119
12:05 - Exploring God's Law Throughout History
22:22 - Seeking Understanding Through the Law
26:37 - Reflecting on Life Through God's Word
32:31 - Understanding God's Law and Mercy
Transcript
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In this episode of Balancing the Christian Life, we examine Psalm 119.
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Welcome to Balancing the Christian Life.
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I'm Dr Kenny Embry.
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Join me as we discover how to be better Christians and people in the digital age.
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Quick, what is the longest chapter in the Bible?
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You might know that it's Psalm 119, and if you're like me, you do make a differentiation between Bible chapters and the Psalms.
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I think of the Psalms as the songbook of the Hebrews back in the Old Testament.
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However, that's not even a very good way to think about what they are.
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What they are is wisdom literature that teaches us something about God.
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I am sure most of them were sung.
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I am sure that they probably knew their songbook probably about as well as we do, and I think that's one of the things that makes the Psalms themselves some of the most important pieces of literature in the Old Testament.
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The Old Testament.
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These were passages that they would know and they would be able to apply to the Messiah that would come much, much later.
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I'm talking today to David Brickey, and when I was talking to David about what he wanted to talk about, this is what he brought up.
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He wanted to talk about the longest psalm in the Bible, psalm 119.
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I've got to confess I don't read Psalm 119 very often.
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In the back of my mind I've always thought it's a repetitive psalm.
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The major theme of Psalm 119 is the law of God, and the psalmist will talk about it in many different ways.
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As a 21st century American, I'm never really excited about talking about law, but I understand that I'm jaded, that I am affected by basically the law of the land and that's not exciting to me.
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However, the psalmist is very excited about what the law of God teaches us.
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David brought that out to me and I think you'll hear that in this conversation.
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David Brickey is a local evangelist to me.
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He works at the Henderson Boulevard Church of Christ in Tampa, florida.
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However, he's from the Washington state area, which is a beautiful part of the country.
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He and his wife have two children and he's been one of the guys that have gotten to know better because of that little book club that I have with Edwin and, occasionally, mark Dunnigan.
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So let's start here, david.
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Why did you want to talk about Psalm 119?
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Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm in the Bible.
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I wanted to understand more about it.
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I don't know if I've yet accomplished that, but as I read through it a couple of things really struck me.
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The psalmist is a very different person than I am.
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Maybe other people read this psalm and they're like this describes me.
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I have this kind of ardent desire for the law of God and this confidence in the law of God and the word of God and the statutes of God, but for me.
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I read through it and I'm like, wow, I wish I had a margin of what this psalmist has and the way he thinks about God's word.
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That intrigued me about it.
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So you know a little bit about this psalm.
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Yeah, I do know a little bit about this psalm.
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Tell me where you're at on it?
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Yeah, I think it's interesting.
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Obviously, we know that it's an acrostic and in my mind I had always thought about this as an equivalent to Proverbs, where verse three may or may not have any relationship to verse four.
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But that's not true of this, because one of the things that you see is, when he's on Aleph, all of those form a complete thought, and when it comes to focusing on God's law, he will look at it from his point of view, and then he will look at it from God's point of view, and then he will look at it from his point of view, and then he will look at it from God's point of view, and then he will look at it from his adversary's point of view, and that all of these are different points of view that he will basically tackle in each one of these little things.
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So, anyway, those are my observations about it, but what are yours?
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Yeah, that picks up some really cool things about it.
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You think, oh, this is about the law of God, and yet it goes on for 176 verses.
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The stanzas are eight lines, organized around each letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
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You said it's an acrostic psalm In the English.
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We're really not going to pick that up, except for the fact that in most Bibles it's got Aleph, beth, daleth, and for those of us who don't know Hebrew we're going to be like, okay, is there any benefit for me even understanding that this is an acrostic psalm?
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I'm not sure that it's necessary.
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Reading through it in English you already picked up on.
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Each stanza seems to be really self-contained on an idea or concept around the law of God.
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Interestingly enough, each line of each stanza, so every eight lines of the stanza, starts with the same Hebrew letter.
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That's the way this is structured acrostically.
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There's another 22-letter acrostic in the Bible in its Lamentations 3.
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We really don't know who wrote this psalm.
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It's traditionally been attributed to David, but there's nothing in the psalm that would have to be the case, or even indeed that it's probable that it's the case.
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Maybe this is some unnamed psalmist.
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We're looking at a six to 800-year period where this could have been written in Israel's history before the exile has been completed and you've got the compilation of the canon of Hebrew scriptures.
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So why an acrostic?
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Any of us who have been in English class know the rules of poetry give a structure that then force the author to put his thoughts within something that is confined and something that provides discipline to the writer, which is interesting.
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That it's an acrostic poem was chosen for a poem that's all about law and word and statutes and ordinances and structure.
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Because I don't know about you, kenny, law is something I have a complicated relationship with, because when I hear the word law, I think thou shalt not.
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I think someone else telling me what to do, I think someone else has authority over me and I am a human being who is very resistant to other people telling me what to do, and I suspect that there might be times when your listeners resonate with that.
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I just go through the law of God and I'm like, wow, the psalmist just loves this law, these words, these testimonies.
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And I found myself discovering, as I read through this psalm and meditated upon it, all the ways in which I can change the way I think about God's law.
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I'm not somebody who generally likes law.
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The fact of the matter is I have a conflicted relationship with American law because I think one of the things that I know in the US form of government, at least tangentially I have the ability to affect what laws are enacted.
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The law that most directly affects me is my homeowners association.
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There are 200 houses in my neighborhood, and my voice is still not very big.
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God's law is different, though.
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How is God's law different than my HOA, or even different than the United States of America, telling me what I can and cannot do?
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That's a really good question, Kenny, because the way we think about law is we do think in terms of statutes given by someone else.
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We have a very legislative mindset.
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Historically speaking, we see a sea change in the way laws practice in the Western world around the time of the Napoleonic codes, where Napoleon is imposing this new rational law on communities across Europe.
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Prior to that time, you have a tradition of English common law, and common law is the idea that law is evolving over time when people ascertain what is true justice and we're going to figure this out.
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But the idea is justice exists and we can find it and discover it.
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That might be a little bit closer to antiquity's conception of what law is or should be.
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Is that law exists and we need to discover it?
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In the case of God's law, we can sometimes read onto it, our statute mindset.
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God is just making statutes for us to keep and abide by.
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When we step back and think, actually, what God is doing is revealing something that exists for us and we can either decide to live the way the creator of the universe has said this is the way to live and flourish, or we can decide that law is actually not true and I'm going to believe a lie.
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That's really the choice you're making.
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You're not making the choice.
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Oh, let me choose between 18 different rulers or 18 different law givers, and all of them have valid sources of authority.
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No, you're choosing between the creator of the universe and a bunch of false laws and things that will lead to death.
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And I think this is something that has really impressed me as I read through this is, when you read through Psalm 119, you're going to notice there's not a whole lot explicitly said about what the law of God is.
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Very little is explicitly said in this Psalm about what is the law of God, or what is the law of God I should be meditating upon.
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Oh sorry, and so I was just going to mention.
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So then we have to think where am I going to actually decide?
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What am I going to actually think about?
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What is it I actually love about what God has done?
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Do you mind if we just read the first stanza of Psalm 119?
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Go for it.
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So, verse one, Psalm 119, I'm reading from the New American Standard Version 1995.
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How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.
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How blessed are those who observe his testimonies, who seek him with all their heart.
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They also do no unrighteousness.
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They walk in his ways.
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You have ordained your precepts that we should keep them diligently.
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Oh, that my ways may be established to keep your statutes.
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Then I shall not be ashamed when I look upon all your commandments.
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I shall give thanks to you with uprightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments.
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I shall keep away with the initial impression that the psalmist thought a lot of the psalmist and his ability to keep God's law.
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And then I read through a little closer and I kept seeing these glimmers of the psalmist crying out to God and asking hey, I need my ways to be established in your ways and I need you not to forsake me utterly.
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I am completely dependent upon you to order my way after you and after what you've declared, and after your righteousness.
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If I keep your ways, Lord, then I will do no unrighteousness, Then I can give thanks to you with uprightness of heart.
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Then I can give thanks to you with uprightness of heart.
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It can be easy to read Psalm 119 and start feeling like man.
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Can I relate to this guy at all?
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He seems like he's really good at keeping the law of God, Until I started to understand that, in the background of everything that he's saying, there seems to be this really ready recognition.
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I haven't lived by these laws.
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There have been times when I haven't, and yet I still have the confidence that I can keep walking with my God.
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So is God just declaring this as the sovereign or is he describing the nature of reality and you need to comport yourself with that to have life?
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At the end of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy, chapter 30, after the reading of the curses and the blessings Moses says there, to read from Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, he says I set before you today the way of life and the way of death.
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And the really interesting thing about Deuteronomy is he's like you're going to choose the way of death, that's what you're going to do, and you're going to be exiled, You're going to be driven out of this land of promise I've given you, as I read through Psalm 119 and I'm thinking about law, ordinance, the word of God, the promises of God all of that's bouncing around in my head of different periods in Israel's history when they received law and when they failed to live up to that law.
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I mentioned one episode.
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Any other episodes that come to your mind about law giving in the children of Israel's history when you look at the children of Israel.
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If there's an opportunity to go awry, they will.
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And you can go throughout all of the kings of both the north and the southern kingdoms.
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There were a handful of good ones, but most of them were bad.
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And even during the good ones, the children of Israel were not always obedient.
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But you ask for one instance, it's the whole story.
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It's the whole story of Israel, by the way, which is our story as well.
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Yeah, so there's.
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I'm going to push back a little bit on one thing.
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You said, saying it's their whole story, because I do think it's important to make some specific identifications of periods when Israel received specific law, just for the sake of understanding the story.
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Because if we say it's all the same story but the particularities of it are important, because I could say the same thing about, like Psalm 119, it's just one idea the law of God, and yet there's a reason.
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There's 22 stanzas all built around just one letter of the Hebrew alphabet that explore different facets of it.
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And I think we see that in the history of God's people throughout time.
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I think that the general theme you mentioned of it's everywhere, that is obviously true.
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And then you've got as particular moments Mount Sinai.
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They're given the law immediately after that.
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And it's interesting because we hear Mount Sinai and we think 10 commandments and it's often been called the 10 words.
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And it's interesting because we hear Mount Sinai and we think 10 commandments and it's often been called the 10 words.
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And that's because these are the words the Lord spoke.
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And then he gives these 10 sections of word about how they are to live now that they're in covenant with God.
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You have the Deuteronomic law given by Moses after the rebellion of the generation who couldn't enter into Canaan and after the rebellion of their children, with the sin of Baal Peor of going in, being seduced to engage in sexual perversion with the nation that was immediately outside the promised land.
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So you have these two major periods of rebellion and it's all right around the giving of law and the giving of this covenant.
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And God is saying just be with me and I'll be with you.
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And Moses is like, hey, I need you to go with us because we can't do this without you.
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And God's like, yeah, I'll have mercy on who I'll have mercy on in Exodus, chapter 33.
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Then, to get back to Psalm 119, it's like what does it matter if this guy loves the law of God so much?
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Has he kept it?
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Has it accomplished anything for him?
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I think the psalmist recognizes all that.
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You can't be a man who loves the law of god like he does and not recognize that we are sinful, filthy people that need cleansing to be in the presence of a holy god.
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That is throughout the psalm.
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So I start in that first stanza.
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Verse eight ends with do not forsake me.
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That's a recognition, the righteous thing for you to do God would be to forsake me.
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That would be the right thing, but, on the other hand, actually the righteous thing for God to do because he's a merciful, long-suffering and gracious and full of loving kindness to those who love him is to have mercy.
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If you go back to Exodus 20, god spoke all these words saying I'm the Lord, your God.
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I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and I want to focus on verses five and six.
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You shall not worship them or serve them, the idols of the nations around you or any idol that you can make the likeness of anything that is heaven or above the earth.
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You shall not worship them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God visiting at an equity of the fathers, on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.
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Now we have contrast contrasted here those who hate God and those who love God, those who love him and keep his commandments, those who hate him.
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But then you think about the history of the Jewish people and you think, oh, who actually loved God and kept all his commandments.
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Not a single one of them loved God and kept all his commandments.
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Not a single one of them loved God and kept all his commandments.
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And we have a really obvious admissions.
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I've caught myself making the assumption that this was somehow a mystery to the Jewish people.
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It just wasn't.
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They knew this and they were intimately aware of this, at least to those who are paying attention.
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And the psalmist, whoever wrote Psalm 119, was no different from that.
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Then it becomes a recognition that my state, without the law of God, is ordering my life however I see fit.
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Oh, I've been living after these lies, but I have a path forward.
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God is gracious in giving us this beautiful structure of which to conform our lives to, the way Psalm 119 closing shows us this very explicitly.
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In Psalm 119, verse 176.
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Just listen to the way this last stanza ends.
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Let my cry come before you, o Lord.
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Give me understanding, according to your word.
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Let my supplication come before you.
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Deliver me according to your word.
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Let my lips utter praise for you, teach me your statutes.
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Let my tongue sing of your word, for all your commandments are righteous.
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Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts.
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I long for your salvation, o Lord, and your law is my delight.
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Let my soul live that it may praise you and let your ordinances help me.
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I have gone astray like a lost sheep.
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Seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.
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There's this really obvious call out from the psalmist, saying I have wandered like a sheep, and this really bold request that he needs God to take action.
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I don't know if you've ever been praying for forgiveness from God and promising you're going to repent of something, promising, hey, I'm never going to do that again.
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I'll never raise my voice again.
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I'll never lust after a woman again.
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I'll never be angry again, lord, I'll never lose control again.
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Lord, please, I'm going to do it.
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I'll do it, lord.
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I've made it very much about myself in making those calls for repentance and the psalmist here recognizes yeah, I've gone astray from what I know, because I know you've taught me this.
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I know I've gone astray and I need you to seek me and I'm not going to forget your commandments, even as I've wandered like a lost sheep.
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Seek me, lord, be ready to help me, in verse 173, for I have chosen your precepts.
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Why is God's law any different?
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than any other law.
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What we see in this psalm is that God's law and his word is true.
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We can't always be certain.
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The laws written by human authors are true Only insofar as they're a direct reflection of the divine law and of what God has commanded.
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That's the only way we can be certain they're true.
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This Psalm identifies that God's law is truth and it's righteous, so we don't have to worry that this is some kind of unjust thing.
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So verse 160, the sum of your word is truth and every one of your righteous ordinances is everlasting.
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So sometimes what we do when we're considering the law of God, we do import our frustrations with law in general onto the law of God.
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We import ideas of hypocrisy about the law of God.
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Oh, the community I'm in.
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I'm seeing people not live by the law of God and yet say we should live by the law of God, all of which the psalmist probably would have agreed with.
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He has many calls out of the wicked who set traps, the enemies of the righteous, those who don't abide by God's law.
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So I think you'd be in good company with the psalmist there.
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But the problem's not with the law, the problem's with the ones trying to keep it and trying to live by it, and the ones who need the mercies of God.
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That's where the problem lies.
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It lies with the rebellious human heart, not with the perfect words of God.
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As I've been reading through this and considering okay, we've got law and we've got all the good things it does for you.
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The truth of the word of God, and thinking about the way that this is adjudicated in the epistle to the Romans, is there was none who is righteous.
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No, not one.
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Jesus came to die for those who are not righteous.
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It wasn't to set aside the law, but to fulfill the law, and it was to complete the law.
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And now we're given the admonition.
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For us who are Gentiles, who have received the message and the gospel of Jesus Christ, admonition for us who are Gentiles who have received the message and the gospel of Jesus Christ, it's enough for you to abstain from fornication, from idolatry, from blood, and to no longer go in the ways of, essentially, the pagans around you.
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And now love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul.
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Love your neighbor as yourself.
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As Paul writes in Romans, love is the fulfillment of the law.
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When we start thinking, what law should I be meditating upon, because there's eight sections in the Psalm where the Psalmist says I meditate on your law.
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I rise at night to meditate on your law.
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I look forward to the night watch so I can meditate on your law.
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Okay, what portion of the law am I going to meditate on and where am I going to go to understand what about this law gives me wisdom?
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For me, there's so many different places you could go to.
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You could go to the 10 commandments, the 10 words, and be like what about this?
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It has wisdom and it has goodness and beauty in it.
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You can go to the Shema love the Lord by God with all their heart.
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You could go to the Sermon on the Mount about what Jesus describes as the law of the kingdom of heaven.
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And why is this so righteous, so beautiful?
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Let this Psalm encourage you to carry a portion of God's word with you and let it convict you of the need for repentance of the sins that are plaguing you and the surety that God is with you.
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And God gave you this so that you could be more like his son.
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I think one of the things that happens is we often find ourselves surrounded by rule keepers who fancy themselves law keepers.
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The law reveals the character of God.
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When you violate the law, you're violating the character of God.
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You are basically adopting who God is, and sometimes that's going to look like a bunch of checkboxes.
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There should come a point where you understand that might in practice be legal, but it's not ethical.
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I think it is completely possible to be among your brethren and not be fulfilling the law of Christ on what he's asked you to do.
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Taking the example of the Pharisees, the rule keeping of the Pharisees they had created such a rabbinic tradition of how we're going to go about keeping the law and it turned into this whole.
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Here's all these loopholes, how to avoid keeping the law, and I think Matthew 23 really paints they tithe, mint and cumin and deny the weightier matters of the law.
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A nice picture of these really light herbs and the weightier matters of the law.
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Ultimately, I always push back on the idea.
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