WADING RIVER CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

SERMONS IN PRINT

Peter Vibert 08/21/05

Psalm 112 The Good Life

Everybody wants to live the good life, but it’s not so easy to find. Many of you could tell stories of how you have searched for it, only to find it slipping away when ill health, family troubles, money problems arise. It’s hard to find and keep the good life; or in more biblical language, it takes wisdom to find the blessed life, and by no means everybody does it. There are many snares and temptations along the way that can stop us reaching the blessed life.

1) The Fear of the LORD

Psalms 111 and 112 are a matched pair; each is an acrostic starting with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet; one describes the greatness of God, the other the blessed life of the godly person. Psalm 111 ends with words that are found repeatedly in the OT – in Proverbs 1, in Job 28, and in this Psalm – “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” To find the blessed life, you need wisdom; if you want wisdom, you must fear the LORD.

What does it mean to “fear the LORD”? It is not being afraid of God. It means knowing and obeying God; it is the OT definition of what we call faith. It means having respect and reverence for God; acknowledging who he is, and that he has a legitimate claim on our lives as our Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer. It means to regard his words as truth, his commands as important. To the believer of the OT, it meant to study and rejoice in torah – the Law and revelation of the character of God.

To seek and to know and to love and to obey and to delight in the LORD is the beginning – the most important part – of getting wisdom and entering the life of the blessed. Here is where we must all start: “Do you know the Lord?” Do you have faith in God? For us, that means have we put our trust in Jesus the Son of God, the promised Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the World? If we have entered the life of faith, we have entered the path of wisdom and blessedness, we have found the door that leads to the “good life” – what Jesus called “the abundant life” that he came to offer.

2) The Blessings of Faith

Psalm 112 tells us of the blessings that flow to the person of faith. There are four major ones: posterity, security, wealth and reputation. In OT terms, these are very physical and immediate blessings. In NT terms, they may be less tangible, more “spiritual,” more internal, but they are none the less real for all that.

The promise of posterity to the OT man of faith is that “his children will be mighty in the land... a generation of the blessed and upright.” I think there is no parent who would not wish this for his or her children: that they would live a life of goodness and positive influence on others, that they would become what the New English Bible calls here “a blessed generation of good men” – and we might add, “women.” Among the many things that delight me today is the sense that the next generation of young people – say those between 15 and 35 today – represent a wonderful hope for the future in so many ways. They are more responsible, more moral, more caring, more ready to help those in need, than the two generations that have preceded them. I believe we will – of we are blessed to live so long – rejoice in what our children’s and our grandchildren’s generation will do, and how much our society will change for the better when they are in power, when they hold the wealth, when they make the rules and shape the values of our culture. “A blessed generation of good men and women” is something devoutly to pray for and to nurture. This is the part of the good life that “endures,” that goes on into the future. In Psalm 112 it is promised as the posterity of the man who “fears the LORD.”

The person of faith also has security – seeking at all times to put his or her trust in the LORD, not fearing bad news, not shaken by troubles or disappointments or evil times, but steadfast in trusting God. A heart that is truly rested in the love and grace and power of God can endure many things that would quickly sweep away others who do not have faith, or whose faith is in reality no more than a hope that God will continue to be good to them. The blessed person learns that God provides for the needs of his people – in OT terms, “wealth and riches are in his house.” We who live this side of the teachings and example of Jesus know that wealth can also be a source of temptations and a hindrance to the life of faith, but Jesus also taught us that our heavenly Father provides for our needs just as he does for the flowers of the field and the birds of the air. People of faith do not fear disaster, because God cares for them, always.

The man who “fears the LORD” is also blessed with a good reputation: he is known by his peers as a good person, and he is honored for that –not necessarily publicly, but in the way people think of him. A “good name,” as we used to call it, is no small thing to own. If your home is the one on the street where the kids tend to congregate or want to sleep over; if your help and advice are sought when there is trouble at home or at work; if you are the member of the family everyone turns to when a problem needs to be sorted out, then the blessing of “a good name” is one you can enjoy.

3) The Call of Faith

But you will, I am sure, have noticed by now that Psalm 112 is not all about the blessings of faith; it also describes some of the responsibilities. The “blessed man” who “fears the LORD” is called to certain behaviors and attitudes. In particular, he or she is gracious, compassionate, just and generous.

These virtues are part of the life of faith. In a way, they are gifts of God, like the blessings of posterity and security. But they also have to be received, practiced and cultivated – as any other gift does; musical ability, for example. People of faith should be gracious to other people, because God has been gracious to us – that is his character, and we are meant to mirror it in our dealings with others. Sadly, some believers are hostile, abrasive, angry, critical – not only of other people in general, but of fellow people of faith, or even of family members who are near and dear to them. Anger, bad language, lack of respect, “don’t care” attitudes ruin the lives of many families. People of God should be gracious, graceful, grace-filled... If God were ever to treat us the way we often treat one another, we would all be doomed to destruction in short order. Be thankful for what God has done for you, and what he has given you! Try acting graciously, and see if that doesn’t change your life and everyone else’s for the better!

People of faith should also be compassionate: showing mercy, being kind. A smile and an offer of help will do far more than any amount of frowning, complaint or criticism. A person of faith should be fair in their dealings; honest and just. Don’t favor one child over another; don’t expect your spouse to do all the work. Be fair, take your share; ask yourself what you can do to contribute to the life of the family, or the workplace, or the community, or the church. Don’t be a slacker who watches and enjoys the fruits of other people’s labors and never does a thing except complain.

Finally, and this is the responsibility that gets most words in this Psalm, and which the Apostle Paul picks up on his NT letter to the Corinthian church: be generous! If God has blessed you, share your blessings with others in need! Give freely, lend to those who have little or nothing, care for the poor. Make giving a priority in your life, not a matter of what’s left over when you have spent or consumed all you want. Where does charitable giving, including giving to your church, figure in your budget? It’s not just a question of how much (tho’ if you are giving away – let us say – barely 1% of your income, you might want to ask by what standard that is enough!) – but it is a question of priority. Do these gifts come out of your first dollars each month, or your last? Does charity or the church or the poor get what you have left over, or a pre-determined amount that is as important a commitment to you as your mortgage payment? I have often said and will repeat: in an area as affluent as this, generosity ought to be the primary response to the way God has blessed us. The man of faith “scatters his gifts to the poor” and shows in that his grateful attitude to his God, who has given him so much.

4) The LORD is Righteous

But by now you are saying to yourself – well, I’m person of faith, but this is all beyond me. I feel like a failure when you confront me with commands to be gracious, compassionate, fair, generous. I don’t really live like that much of the time. Does that mean I don’t have faith?

The answer lies in the person and the acts of the LORD himself. If you were to read back through Psalm 111, the companion acrostic that talks of the character of God, you would find that he is described in just the same terms as the man of faith. He is gracious, compassionate, just, generous... His posterity and his great name, his righteous deeds will be remembered forever. He is a light to others, he is security. It is a reminder to us that the acts of God are what make possible the life of faith; that he is placing and forming his character in us through the work of his Spirit. His acts shape our lives, in ways historic and current, in ways visible and internal. What he has done for us in Jesus makes it possible for us to live lives of freedom and faith today. What he has done to draw us to himself makes it possible for us to trust and obey him. What he is doing in our lives today is shaping us into the people he designed us to be.

And there is one more thing to say: as we have noted before, only one person lived the blessed life perfectly; only one person fits this Psalm – Jesus. He is present and he is “typified” in every Psalm: he is the one who “fears the LORD” and who lives the blessed life of grace, compassion, generosity, security. But for those who call themselves Christians, God’s promise is that he unites us with Jesus; we “live in him” and he “lives in us” in a spiritual union. And so his character is formed in us, and we become like him – that is the goal of our existence, according to the NT.

So do not fear your inadequacy: “fear the Lord,” – that is, trust him and ask him to help you obey him; to make you generous, just, good, merciful. That is the good life you have been seeking! The alternative, as the Psalm concludes, is a life of bitterness, transience, and futility. Blessed, rather, is the man who praises and fears the Lord.

Let us pray...