“Teach me, O LORD, the way of Your statutes, And I shall keep it to the end... I have inclined my heart to perform Your statutes Forever, to the very end.” Psalm 119:33, 112
Today we conclude this series of discussions from this amazing psalm with a call to action spanning the whole of our lives. We have traced the psalmist’s thoughts concerning the imperatives of guarding the heart from sin, pleading for God’s wisdom to do so, delighting in His law, accepting the peculiar blessing of affliction when received with the right mind, the stability and direction the Lord’s word gives, the necessity of pursuing these things with the whole heart, the impossibility of success apart from prayerful dependence on God, and the assurance that He is always faithful in every circumstance. In light of such grand themes, it is essential that we recognize the overarching purpose of it all, imitating our Father’s faithfulness to the end.
We must never lose sight of this principle as we continue our march towards eternity. I would argue this is the center of human existence and the core component of what makes any deed a sin. When we go back to our origins in the garden, we see the purpose of our creation is bearing the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-28; 5:1). This principle is the reason harming another human is such a heinous crime in God’s eyes (Genesis 9:5-6). So significant is this inherent characteristic of humanity that God will not even tolerate ill-speaking about our fellow man (James 3:8-12). This explains my reasoning about our central reason for existence, but how does this relate to the sinfulness of sin?
In its most basic sense, the word sin means to fail to meet a standard or goal. It becomes a specialized term meaning to violate God’s law (1 John 3:4), but the underlying idea is that of missing the mark. If the mark of being human is to bear the image and likeness of God, as we have established above, then anything that makes us less like Him is sin. All of us have and continue to miss the mark of bearing His image and likeness (Romans 3:23), and this is why we needed Christ’s atoning sacrifice (John 1:29). The new life in Christ (Romans 6:3-4; 2 Corinthians 5:14ff) demands the attitudes and pursuits set forth in this great psalm, all in pursuit of imitating His unswerving faithfulness throughout our lives (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:1).
At least four times in this psalm, the psalmist proclaims his determination to keep God’s will forever, to the end, etc. (vv. 33, 44, 93, 112). There are other allusions to the same, but these are all explicit proclamations. It makes sense that all the themes we discussed build toward this aim. What use is knowing His will, having His wisdom, knowing how to guard the heart from sin, etc. if we stop short of eternity? The crown of life belongs to those who finish their course, being faithful even to the point of dying for it (2 Timothy 4:6-8; Revelation 2:10). Faithfulness must transcend circumstances, and the psalmist has covered a wide range of circumstances along the way.
This all leaves us with but one question to put to ourselves. Are we fully dedicated to pursuing the Lord’s will and ways to the end? Will we be faithful unto death and receive the crown of life (Revelation 2:10), or will we be of those who shrink back to destruction (Hebrews 10:35-38). As the Hebrews writer said, ”But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul” (Hebrews 10:39). May we always seek Him with our whole heart and thereby never wander from His commandments (Psalms 119:2, 10; 2 Peter 1:8).