People are rarely selfless.
God made us with five senses and bodily desires that need to be satisfied. Naturally, we are only aware of what our desires or our wants tell us to do. And while one can hope that as we age we can become more empathetic and understanding, we start from a place of natural selfishness that makes real selflessness highly unlikely!
This is what makes God’s intervention in our lives all the more mind-blowing: He doesn’t have to save us – but He does because He’s righteous! That’s exactly what we are shown in Psalm 129.
The Psalmist describes the injustices done to Israel: “They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,” he says. Plowmen have plowed my back. They have taken advantage of me and profited off of my suffering.
Isn’t that the way the world is? As the famous quote says: the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. We are all familiar with the real or feared ways in which we have been stepped on, taken advantage of, betrayed, or crushed.
And yet, the amazingly good news comes in verse 4, “But the LORD is righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.”
Because God is righteous, or just, He is interested, able, willing to step in and help the unhelpable, the lost causes, the marginalized. God is interested in doing this, contrary to worldly expectations, purely because this is the way that He is.
He is righteous! That same righteousness, which causes his indignation to rise against sin and evil, also causes Him to save the weak, the beggars, the crushed, the underdogs, the meak, and the mild. It is because He is righteous.
This righteousness is what gives the Psalmist the confidence to be able to look squarely in the face of the wicked and say with confidence: “may they be like withered grass, may they come to nothing, may they be turned back in shame.”
For God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
Ryan Lunde
Young Adults Pastor