“The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness”
[Psalms 18:20-27]
As I spend time with children these days, I see myself in my third child, Karis. It is the attitude of the heart that says to God in greed,'God, It's not fair!' I once gave 10 chocolate pieces to the children. At that time, Dillon, the first child, and Yeri, the second daughter, seemed to eat one by one. But the youngest daughter, Karis, just finished eating ten pieces as she wanted to eat and asked me to give her more. So I told her that she shouldn't ask me for more because I fairly gave each of you 10 pieces. Then Karis said to me, “It’s not fair!” Not only then, but Karis has been complaining about not treating her fairly, especially compared to her older sister. Looking at it, my wife and I thought that we have been trying to be fair to all three children as dad and mom, but nonetheless, it seemed unfair to Karis. Despite the fact that I gave the three children equally ten pieces of chocolate, I wondered if we were telling Heavenly Father that He isn’t fair. Although we may not say that God isn’t fair, we may have that thought in our mind. Just as Karis said she wanted to eat more because of greed, but I didn’t give to her and she said it was unfair, I think we are praying to God for more in our greed even though Heavenly Father treats us fairly. I think if we tend to complain to God and say He isn’t fair if He doesn't do what we ask for. We have no choice but to experience God’s justice if we aren’t satisfied only with our Heavenly Father.
If we look at Psalms 18:20 and 24, the psalmist David confesses that the Lord rewarded him according to “my righteousness”. Our God is righteous God, and He is clear in rewarding those who are good and in punishing those who are evil (Park). With the kind He shows Himself kind and with the blameless He shows Himself blameless (v. 25). With the pure He shows Himself pure, and with the crooked He shows Himself astute (v. 26). The Lord saves an afflicted people but he abases haughty eyes (v. 27, Park).
However, we seem to be thinking a little out of balance. We believe in, rely on and try to enjoy God's love, grace, mercy, and goodness among God's divine character, but we don’t focus on God's holiness and righteousness. So, even if we live in front of the holy and just God without obeying his commandments, we are living lightly without thinking of true repentance for sin, in the words of ‘I am just living well by the grace of God.’ Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this is “cheap grace.” While forgetting the seriousness of sin and repeatedly committing the sin of disobedience, we interpret God's grace, love, and faithfulness in our own selfish desires, and we believe that we are still living the right faith. If we say that we are living by the grace of God, this is a great misunderstanding. Apostle Paul says that those who truly know the grace of God labor more than anyone else in the Lord's work by that grace (1 Cor. 15:10). If we are truly believers living by the grace of God, we must devote ourselves more to obeying His commandments before holy and just God.
That’s what the psalmist David did in Psalms 18:20-27. He devoted himself to keeping God's way (v. 21). He wasn't a man living his life of faith, just by crying out for cheap grace. He was a wholehearted man to obey the commandments that God revealed in His Word. He is challenging us through the words of Psalms 18:20-27 that we, who are justified, will live a righteous life which is our responsibility. David lived a righteous life pursuing “my righteousness,” the back of the coin, if “His righteousness” is the front of the coin.
Now we are committing a very serious sin against God. We, who are justified by the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, must live righteous life for the glory of God while living in this world. But it seems like we are just emphasizing the fact that we are justified by God’s grace and don’t live righteous life. We are living with the illusion that we live our lives of faith without making every effort to produce righteous fruit. So even though we may be proud of living a long Christian life, we cannot find the fruit of righteousness in our own lives like a fig tree that is without any fruits. It’s the fig tree but there is no fruit. We are living the life of faith that isn’t bearing any fruit. This is our figure of unbalanced lives. It is an unbalanced life of faith, focusing only on justification (righteousness) received by grace from God and then failing to live a righteous life faithfully in the fear of God.
David's balanced life of faith lived to keep God's way more and more by fearing God in God's holy grace. He didn’t wickedly departed from his God (v. 21). Here we must receive precious lessons through the life of David. We can divide the lesson into three: (1) We must yearn for'God's revelation', (2) We must make 'right confession of faith' based on the revelation of God, and (3) We must live a 'right life' according to the right confession of faith. But Satan is attacking us. Although we must receive God's revelation through the Word of God, Satan is keep on attacking us by blocking His revelation to us through His Word. In a word, Satan's efforts are bringing ‘a famine of hearing the words of the Lord’ so that God's revelation does not come upon us. Look at Amos 8:11 – “Behold, days are coming," declares the Lord GOD, "When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the LORD.” We have reached a time of spiritual drought. There are countless spiritual deaf and spiritual blind people sitting in the chapel every Sunday in the chaos of hearing the word of God. The God's people, who have eyes but cannot see even’s God’s providential words and have ears but cannot hear the words of God pouring out like a flood, sit in the chapel every Sunday and cannot hear the word of God. Even the servants of God who proclaim the Word are preaching the voice of God that has not been heard. As if the deaf people talked to each other, in the chapel every Sunday, there are absurd things happening in the sight of God. Like the words of Isaiah 1, the things that God hates and can no longer endure are done every Sunday in the chapel. Satan seems to be succeeding now. Satan is making us to want to have our ears tickled and accumulate for ourselves teachers in accordance to our own desires and to turn away our ears from the truth and to turn aside to myths (2 Tim. 4:3-4). Satan seems to be succeeding now. God's people are leaving the word of God. He made it too light to keep his commandments. Satan is successful in rationalizing out responsibility for obey God’s commandment and is making us to consider the sins of disobedience very lightly. And Satan makes us to consider ‘cheap grace’ the most valuable. He is making us to keep God’s holiness and justice far away from us. Therefore, in the end, we are leaving the truth of God and wickedly leaving God to live the weekday. But David did not. He listened to God's Word and lived in obedience to Satan's attacks and temptations. He didn’t live in the word drought, but in the plenty word. So he confessed with confidence that God's all ordinances were before him and never put away God's statutes from him (Ps. 18:22).
David not only committed himself to keep the ways of the Lord (v. 21) he also kept himself from his iniquity (v. 23). He feared God wholeheartedly and kept himself from his iniquity (Park, Delitzsch). Indeed, David was a wise man. As the Bible says in Proverbs 16:6 that a wise man fears God and departs from evil, David was such a man. Pastor Yoon-sun Park said: ‘… He disciplined his body and made it his slave because he regards himself as dangerous in rebellion. A wise man first guards himself by regarding himself as dangerous’ (Park). Are we guarding ourselves first by regarding ourselves as dangerous? One of the reasons is that the thought that we are okay with ourselves lies deep in our minds. If we truly know our rebellion, we cannot but guard ourselves. We are in fear because we know too well that we are prone to commit sin against our holy and just God if we don’t guard ourselves. We are afraid of sinning and that we will go further and bringing the name of the holy God shame. We are afraid of covering up the glory of God. So we must always wake up and pray. We must always stay alert and be guard ourselves, knowing that Satan will make us to commit sin against God when we show him even a small gap.
I visited a nursing home this week with a saint. We went to see the saint’s relative after prayer even though I met his relative first time in my life. His relative had a heart surgery and a knee amputation on on of his legs due to his diabetes. However, his relative confessed that it was God’s discipline that his heart and leg was like that. And his relative confessed that ‘There is only the Lord in my life.’ When I heard that confession I thanked God with my heart. It is a precious confession. What a precious confession, even when the leg is amputated, while confessing that there is only the Lord, acknowledging the discipline of God's righteous love. God is just God. God rewards us according to our righteousness. God protects us and gives us the grace of salvation when we fear God wholeheartedly and keep the ways of the Lord (Park). We must strive to lead a righteous life as those who have been justified by God's grace.
As I devote myself in pursuing a righteous life as I look at His reward,
James Kim
(Learning the balanced life of faith)