Thou hast dealt well with thy servant,
O LORD, according unto thy word (Psa 119.65).
God intends to glorify Himself in saving His people. One of the main ways He does this is by eliciting their grateful praise for His saving acts toward them. This they offer freely to Him, without coercion, and joyfully, without grudging, because one of the inevitable effects of His saving work in them is to win their hearts as His true worshipers.
This verse in the Psalter shows us such a person engaged in grateful worship, both joyful and free. In prayer he speaks directly to the Lord. This drawing near is a form of worship most intimate with the Lord Himself. Indeed we worship God by proclaiming His salvation to others, and the Lord hears us then, too, but He especially loves it when we praise Him “to His face,” as it were.
Yet this praise was not reserved for the psalmist’s private devotions. He gladly speaks to the Lord before the congregation, setting a godly example for us with the purpose of inciting us to pious imitation. If one believer drawing near and praising God is intimate, so a host of us doing the same together possesses a degree of intensity that approaches the eternal praises of the redeemed in the consummated kingdom of glory.
First, the psalmist characterizes his relationship with God. Second, he characterizes the way that God had treated him in that relationship. Third, he recalls the covenant of love that had, and continued, to express God’s commitment to lavish such grace upon him. These are simple but powerful ideas that, once we understand and embrace them, fuel our zeal to praise God for His dealings with us, too. And thus motivated, we excel in the purpose for which God made us—to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.
I AM YOUR SERVANT
There are two kinds of people in this world—those who love the true and living God and those who don’t. God-lovers are also His servants1, trusting His guidance, caring about His directives, fearing transgression, and eager to please Him well in all things. Today we might call them real Christians, since Jesus is the preeminent “Servant of the Lord,” and real Christians are those who follow Him. They are not perfect, but this is the actual direction of their lives. They are radically oriented toward righteousness; they are essentially good by grace (Luke 8.15). They have been effectively changed from the inside out by their mighty Lord and Savior.
Others may not seem evil at all, but their total lack of sincere faith and zealous obedience toward the God of Scripture exposes them as otherwise than God’s servants. Scripture characterizes them as intent on pleasing themselves instead of Christ (2 Cor 5.15). Christ died for all His elect with the deliberate purpose of bringing them to live no longer for themselves in self-idolatry, as they all did on account of their sin, but rather to live for Him who loves them so much that He died for them and is so powerful that He rose again from the dead. Now since that wretched self-idolatry was the condition of all the saved before they were saved, it is plainly the universal condition of all who are as yet unsaved, and will always be the condition of the reprobate (i.e., the non-elect).
Second, these who are not God’s servants are, perhaps unwittingly, servants of Satan. So said Jesus to Jews who didn’t believe on Him (John 8.44). So said Paul of all unbelievers (Eph 2.2-3). So said John so clearly when he divided all humanity into two great groups, spiritually-speaking (1 John 3.7-10). Not everything about biblical theology is so black and white, so clear-cut, but this is.
So the case with everyone except real Christians is that they are not God’s servants, but working against Him. This is a devastating diagnosis of their spiritual condition, but one which we must embrace if we would really understand how to help them, and one which they must humbly confess if they would see their need of a Savior at all.
If you are a real Christian, then this is the first provocation of your praise to God! You can gratefully say to the Lord, “I am Your servant,” because He is the One who made you His servant.
YOU HAVE TREATED ME WELL
Though not grammatically correct in English, the Hebrew might be rendered most literally, “You have done good,” and this is particularly true in connection with the psalmist, God’s servant. The Hebrew word for “good” has a very frequent OT usage and can take on the broadest sense of the term, including practical goodness and moral goodness. The AV rendering of the verbal phrase is thus completely justified, “dealt well with.”
First, this implies God’s liberty to deal with His creatures as He pleases, dealing generously with them, or not so generously. Let me state three propositions of biblical truth which run contrary to popular beliefs, even among professing Christians. 1) God is good to all people, much better than anyone deserves from Him (against the idea of human merit). 2) God is under no obligation outside of His own sovereign pleasure to be good to any. He is free to bless or not bless as it pleases Him (against the idea of human sovereignty). 3) God does not bless all alike; some people receive so much more from Him than others and the difference is attributable to sovereign grace, not anything good in themselves (against the idea of spiritual egalitarianism).
It is beyond a devotional message to offer proof of these provocative assertions, but they undergird the psalmist’s grateful confession in our text. He knows God has dealt with him in pure grace, that it was a matter of divine sovereignty, and that God has granted him what was denied others. This is no small part of why the psalmist approaches God in prayerful praise with thanksgiving on his lips! The popular denials of God’s sovereignty in our salvation account in large measure for the scarcity of exuberant praise to Him for it! If we would totally repudiate as we should any notions of self-merit, self-determination, and “equal-chance-ism”, we would find ourselves much more inclined to praise God freely for the salvation-blessings we enjoy. We have some of this worldly and God-dishonoring mindset still within us and it dampens our grateful praises.
YOU HAVE KEPT YOUR PROMISES
Almost as an afterthought, the psalmist confesses that the Lord’s gracious dealings with him are in accord with the gracious promises of the covenant He made with His servants, contained in Holy Scripture. The blessings were “according unto thy word.”
This correspondence between blessings promised and blessings actually granted highlights the faithfulness of God, another of His glorious attributes. God’s faithfulness is everlasting (Psa 119.90), established (Psa 89.2), unfailing (Psa 89.33), infinite (Psa 36.5), great (Lam 3.23), incomparable (Psa 89.8).
Although He was never under any obligation to do so (for there is nothing higher to which He is accountable), God, out of the mere goodness of His nature, has made countless promises to anyone who would trust Him for them, and now, if we may say so reverently, He is bound by His Word to fulfill them. Of course this is not literally true, for God is infinitely true and faithful and needs no contract compelling Him to do what He promised beforehand. He who freely made the promises in the first place is just as ready to do what He said. And this is what the psalmist is confessing that he has experienced in his relationship with God.
Here the grateful worshiper most aptly calls Him “LORD,” the unique name of Israel’s God which evokes, among other connotations, His covenant and His faithfulness to it. No other “god” of the nations had so covenanted with them in the first place, nor kept the terms of the covenant in the second, as the Yahweh of Israel had done with His people. He is uniquely to be praised; the gods of the nations are mere idols.
This same divine faithfulness is continued to, and even more apparent in, His spiritual Israel today, that is, real Christians. Why did the Father in heaven send His Son into the world? Because He would deal well with His servants according to His Word! Why did He send the Spirit on Pentecost? Because He would deal well with His servants according to His Word! Why did He propagate the glorious good news of salvation by Christ throughout the world and quicken faith in His elect as they heard it? Because He would deal well with His servants according to His Word!
We did not deserve Christ the Savior, nor His gracious Spirit, nor the faith we now have to believe the gospel. God has, in sovereign mercy, given them all to His servants. In all these things God has dealt well with us and kept His ancient promises!
Besides this, there are countless examples of His faithfulness in His gracious dealings with His people.
God is with them, and they know it; however, He is never far from them, nor long; He does not depart from them, nor withdraw His gracious presence from them totally and finally: [His covenant] assures them of His protection, that He will be all around them, guard them, and secure them, preserve and keep them by His power, through faith unto salvation, as He does; for though they may fall into sin, yet they rise again by His grace; and though they fall into temptation, and by it, yet they are delivered out of it; they are kept from a final and total falling away; . . . in a word, this [gospel] promise is expressive of their enjoyment of God here, and for evermore.2
Thus, whatever our personal circumstances, as real Christians we have ample grounds for grateful praise to the Lord, both joyful and free, for we can truly testify of His gracious faithfulness to us. Amen.
Notes:
1. “Worshipers of God,” TWOT 1553a.
2. John Gill, A Body of Divinity, Ch. 23, “Of the Faithfulness of God.”
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