I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant;
For I do not forget thy commandments.
Imagine a silly sheep that somehow has gotten separated from the flock and has even, for the moment, escaped the shepherd’s watchful eye. Now this one sheep is alone and vulnerable to predators. Suddenly he realizes that something is wrong and begins to bleat pitifully. He has turned aside but still has the nature of a sheep, uneasy in isolation. He has a weak memory and little sense of direction, so all he can do is cry out and wait for the shepherd. He has become familiar with that warm voice and will follow him when it is heard once again, but that will very probably not prevent similar distresses in the future.
Such as this was no uncommon occurrence in the agrarian culture of the ancient Near East. Certainly David had more than once been that good shepherd seeking the lost sheep while the rest were safely in the fold. Without doubt he had known the joy of finding the straying one, laying it on his shoulders, and carrying it home again.
Now the sweet singer of Israel confesses that spiritually, he had been more like the sheep than the shepherd, and that he needed the Lord once again as the Shepherd of his soul.
The simile of our text is as touching as it is suggestive. The shepherd is the wise guide, the caring veterinarian, the faithful provider, the fearless defender, and sometimes even the playful companion. He knows his own sheep like no one else. He gives names to each one. He notices each one’s quirks and peculiarities, and relishes them. In taking care that each sheep stays healthy, his fingers are found combing through the sometimes-matted wool while he inspects each one closely, so that he even smells like his sheep, and they, like him.
Assuming a roughly chronological order to the composition of the Psalms, David had before written, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psa 23.1). This man of God knew that his Lord possessed every good quality of the best shepherd, and that he related to his beloved ones with a covenantal love far surpassing what is observed in even the most beautiful earthly parallel that can be imagined.
Our text in Psalm 119 is the eighth verse of the 22nd strophe, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, this being the letter “taw.”
This very last verse, the 176th, contains a confession, a plea, and an assurance, and so forms a satisfying conclusion to this Psalm of psalms. In this verse, the sinful man is abased, the seeking Lord exalted, and the hope of salvation proclaimed.
A HUMILIATING CONFESSION
“I have gone astray like a lost sheep.” This is the statement of a deeply devout soul. He still considers himself a sheep and not a wolf, and certainly not a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He has had a profound sense of belonging to the Lord, and formerly he was found in comfortable fellowship with the Lord’s people and in the blessed experience of the Lord’s loving embrace. In earlier days he had felt the exhilaration of ardent and sincere praise to God with his people in the Temple. Inner communion with his God had inspired private raptures, a spiritual ecstasy that can only be appreciated by other saints when they recall their best frames of mind.
But lately things have not been the same. He feels spiritually weary; in large measure his strength to serve the Lord is sapped. His heart has been deeply troubled by encroaching doubts of his interest in the covenant of grace. The tug of worldly pleasures seems stronger than he remembered, and he feels relatively cold with respect to spiritual things. Powerful temptations have been alarmingly present. He can barely bring himself to sustained and contemplative contact with the biblical text, for its blazing purity lashes his conscience with stinging reminders of his failures in duty and even his indulgences in forbidden pleasures.
What is the diagnosis of this invisible and yet keenly-felt malaise? These are the miserable symptoms of remaining sin. This is the kind of chastening the Lord sends upon his beloved ones when they regress spiritually, for he is determined not to lose a single one. They may stumble and disgrace themselves for a time, but by his grace, they cannot fall into complete and final ruin.
And so David plainly confesses before the Lord and the church that he has sinned. He has beaten a retreat from the only Savior, and that for no good reason. Once again the occasional wanderer has behaved in a foolish and inexcusable way, and there is no other means for returning home than to admit this, sheepishly, to the faithful Shepherd.
God’s moral law looms large in Psalm 119. As Scripture is mentioned in nearly every verse, many instances suggest a narrower focus on God’s revealed will for his people, as here. Later, Isaiah would write in a similar vein on behalf of God’s chosen people, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way” (Isa 53.6). That is to say, instead of following the narrow way specified in God’s commandments and pleasing to him, we have chosen to gratify ourselves in whatever sinful lusts grip our carnal hearts. Sin is simultaneously a departure from God and from his righteous written standard.
Surely it is not news to you, if you have been a Christian any length of time, that you must be frequently making the same kind of humiliating confessions to the Lord. The closer grace draws you to God, the more you realize your spiritual shortcomings and shameful lapses from pleasing him in everything, and the more frequent and heartfelt your confessions to him will become.
A DESPERATE PLEA
More humble and heartfelt words can hardly be imagined than these, “Seek thy servant.” It is the simultaneous admission of a good spiritual identity as God’s servant with the knowledge that the only hope for rescue from wandering into sin is God’s sovereign pleasure to accomplish it. The one who prays thus intelligently and sincerely also exhibits a faith in God’s omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, along with his grace and mercy, for these qualities are necessary to account for how the Lord saves all who thus call upon him.
This divine seeking is a fitting way to characterize Jesus’ entire ministry. “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19.10). Jesus commanded his emissaries, “Go . . . to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 10.6), and proclaimed that to these he was especially sent (Matt 15.24). Nevertheless, he had “other sheep” which “are not of this fold,” and “them also I must bring” (John 10.16). Now it is perfectly clear that he was referring to elect Gentiles who, along with elect Jews, would complete the one undivided, unified, true and spiritual church of Jesus Christ.
But it is not only unconverted people who must cry out to the Lord Jesus to be saved (Rom 10.13). This prayer is the sensitive Christian’s daily bleat. “I am your servant, Lord, but I have sinned again. I can hardly believe it, but I have foolishly wandered from you once again. Hear my plea and rescue me! Come and find me where I am and take me back to yourself! Give me the double-blessing of forgiveness and cleansing. Let this broken and contrite heart rejoice once again in your great salvation, and I will praise you!” None can pray this way with more ardency than those who have fallen from the greatest heights of a heavenly frame.
A SWEET ASSURANCE
Despite the presence of remaining sin, a true saint like David can say, “I do not forget thy commandments,” and this sincere inner testimony justifies a confident expectation that prayers for spiritual restoration shall be answered once and for all. “Seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments.” “Lord, by your Spirit you have written your righteous law upon my heart in the love of it, and you will surely complete the good work you have begun in me.”
Dear reader, can you truly affirm these things about yourself? Has the glory and praise of God’s Word resonated in your heart as we have studied Psalm 119 together? Do you find its 176 verses excessive, or rather far too few in view of the Bible’s sterling excellence? If you deeply and sincerely love the Word of God, assuaging your thirst for God by it, and fueling your praise to him with it, then you can be sure his grace has once-for-all loosed you from the bondage of sin and that he is leading you into the complete enjoyment of the liberty of all God’s children in his gracious immediate presence. Doubt no longer, and trust him evermore. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matt 5.6). Amen.
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