Latest / Reformed Thinking / Delight in the Will of God: New-Covenant Obedience in Christ (Psalm 40:8)

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Delight in the Will of God: New-Covenant Obedience in Christ (Psalm 40:8) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to The Deep Dive, the show where we take a stack
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  of sources and build a shortcut to becoming truly well informed.
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  This is our specific audio program, Reformed Thinking, and
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  today we're focusing our attention on a single verse.
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  Just one verse, but it's one that contains, well, an entire
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  world of theology. It really does.
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  We're looking at Psalm 40, verse 8.
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  It's a remarkable statement, tying together doctrine, human
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  desire and daily duty. And here's the verse for
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  everyone. I delight to do your will.
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  Oh my God, your law is with within my heart.
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  Now, what's so striking about that, and our sources really
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  hammered this home, is how how radically it pushes back against
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  the way our culture thinks. How so?
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  Well. The common view of obedience to
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  God, even sometimes inside the church, is that it's a heavy
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  thing, an obligation. It's something that costs you
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  your freedom or your personal happiness.
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  Right. The assumption is that obedience
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  and joy are sort of mutually exclusive.
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  If you have to obey, you must be losing out on some kind of
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  happiness or autonomy. Exactly.
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  But Psalm 40 .8 just flips that entire idea on its head.
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  It presents obedience not as this kind of grudging
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  submission, but as an eager, willing, almost joyful
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  conformity glad submission. So our mission for this deep
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  dive is to use the theological notes and essays we've gathered
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  to really break this verse apart.
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  We want to get into the Hebrew meaning of words like heart and
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  delight. And then we need to see its
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  theological function, you know, where does it fit in the larger
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  story of salvation? And then finally, we have to
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  look at how the New Testament understands this verse, which is
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  all about its fulfillment in Christ.
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  OK, so lifted into it, our conversation is going to unfold
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  in three basic movements. First, we'll define the core
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  pieces, the heart, delight, the law.
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  Then second, we'll see how they fit together to create this
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  ideal picture of piety. And in doing that correct a few
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  common theological errors. And finally, we'll reveal who
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  the true perfect speaker of this verse is.
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  And that's really the climax of the whole idea it is.
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  So let's start at the beginning. Section 1.
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  To really understand verse 8, the sources all insist that you
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  cannot take it in isolation. You have to see it in its
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  context. You.
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  Absolutely have to the power of this confession, I delight to do
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  your will. It's entirely built on what
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  comes right before it. The whole structure of Psalm 40
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  moves from deliverance to devotion.
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  And that order is not accidental.
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  Not at all. It's critical for getting the
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  mechanics of grace right. The Psalm starts with God's
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  action, not the psalmist resolution.
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  I mean look at verses one through 5.
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  The psalmist is waiting, and it says God inclines to him and
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  hears his cry. He's passive in this.
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  God is the one doing the work. Completely, he is lifted, the
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  text says, from the pit of destruction in the miry bog.
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  And that imagery is so visceral. Isn't it a muddy, life
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  threatening pit? It speaks of total hopelessness
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  and then the sudden secure rescue.
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  And God doesn't just pull him out.
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  He then sets his feet on a rock. He gives him a firm new
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  foundation to stand on, and he puts a new song in his mouth.
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  That new song, that stability that sets up the proper
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  causality right away. It does.
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  The devotion that we read about in verse 8 is positioned as the
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  fitting response to a rescue that has already happened.
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  It's not the condition for the rescue, it's the result.
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  Of it. So if you were to skip verses
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  one through 5, you could easily misread verse 8 as some kind of
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  requirement for salvation. Yeah, you could read it as if I
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  can just work up enough delight, then maybe God will rescue me.
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  Which would be a total inversion of the Gospel.
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  It would completely flip the biblical order of salvation on
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  its head. Our sources are clear.
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  The obedience in verse 8 is the fruit of grace.
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  It's never the means of earning God's favor.
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  It's because the psalmist has been delivered that he is then
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  enabled to obey joyfully. The whole structure seems
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  designed to protect that core idea.
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  God's gracious initiative comes first.
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  Justification. Renewal.
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  That's the precondition for any human joy and submission.
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  That's right. And that really speaks to the
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  tension that a lot of believers feel, you know, the fact that
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  obedience often feels like a struggle.
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  It does. It feels like effort.
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  But if it's understood as a response to a grace that's
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  already been given, then even the effort itself is enabled by
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  this new spiritual life. The obligation becomes a joyful
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  ability. It's like if you're still in the
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  pit, the law just stands at the top and tells you you're guilty
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  for not being able to climb out. Right.
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  It condemns you. But once God has placed you on
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  the rock, well, now the law functions differently.
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  It becomes the pathway for how to walk on that new stable
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  ground. The change of your location,
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  your standing changes how the law relates to you.
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  That's. A great way to put it, it
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  changes everything. OK, so with that foundation of
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  Grace Slade, let's move to the internal part of the verse.
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  Your law is within my heart. When we see the word heart in
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  the Old Testament, we really have to hit the brakes and
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  correct our modern assumptions. We tend to think of the heart as
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  just the seat of our feelings, emotions.
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  And that modern view is just it's theologically thin.
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  If the heart is only about feelings, then Psalm 40.8 just
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  means I feel good about God's will.
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  And that's pretty weak. It's subjective, very, but in
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  Hebrew anthropology, the heart, the Lut or Lut tense, is the
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  absolute core of the person. It's the governing center.
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  Our sources define it as the center of thought, will, and
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  affection. It's the whole inner person.
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  So I've heard this analogy before, and I think it's
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  helpful. If the modern view of the heart
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  is like the computer screen or speakers, the emotional output,
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  the biblical view is that the heart is the CPU.
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  It's the central processing unit where the logic and the choices
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  actually happen. That CPU analogy is excellent.
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  It really helps you grasp the integration of all these
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  faculties. So if God's law is written there
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  in the CPU, do it has to affect all three of those core
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  elements? OK, so let's break those down.
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  What's the first one? It starts with the mind, the
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  thought. This is about intellectual
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  ascent. It means you understand and you
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  actually approve of God's commands as being good and right
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  and wise. You don't see the laws
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  arbitrary. You see it as perfect wisdom.
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  Perfect wisdom, and if the mind approves it, that then directs
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  the other faculties. The heart is also the center of
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  volition, so the will becomes actively engaged in choosing
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  those commands. You're not dragging your feet,
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  you're actively ascending to the choice.
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  So you think it's good and so you choose to do it right?
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  And then finally, the affections your deepest desires are
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  actually drawn toward the commands.
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  You genuinely begin to cherish the law, not just agree with it
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  on a cognitive level. So having the law within the
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  heart is almost like having your core operating system rewritten.
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  Yes, if the original OS, you know our fallen human nature, is
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  full of bugs and glitches that lead to sin, then the new OS has
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  God's law as its source code. The default setting is now aimed
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  toward obedience. That's it exactly.
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  And when the source code is aligned with a designer's
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  intent, the execution of tasks so obedience becomes natural.
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  Now there's still friction from the old hardware, let's say
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  that's our struggle with remaining sin, sanctification.
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  But the fundamental direction of the system has been changed from
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  self rule to God's rule. And this internal alignment,
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  this rewritten source code, is what makes the first half of the
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  verse even possible. I delight to do your will.
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  It is the Hebrew verb here. Leopu is, well, it's theological
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  dynamite. What does that term really bring
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  to the table that like or enjoy doesn't?
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  Tapo is much stronger. It means taking pleasure in
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  desiring or being inclined towards something.
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  It's defining the speaker's entire posture toward God's will
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  as positive, willing, even passionate.
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  It's the language of an eager orientation of the heart.
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  So TAPO is basically a direct rejection of the idea that
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  obedience is just something necessary you have to get
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  through. It's not submission.
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  Not at all. The sources make it clear that
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  true biblical obedience has to begin with internal pleasure,
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  not external pressure. What's the difference?
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  Well, if your obedience is driven only by fear of
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  punishment, or maybe by the hope of some external reward, that's
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  servile. That's not oppo.
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  The delight described by the psalmist is intrinsic to the ACT
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  itself. OK, but this raises A practical
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  question, and I think it's one a lot of our listeners might
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  struggle with. What if you're in a season of
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  wrestling? You know, maybe you're
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  struggling to pray or worship feels dull.
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  Does that mean you're failing to experience a Bay?
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  That's a really valid tension, and the sources address it by
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  making a distinction between the ideal principle and our
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  sanctified reality. OK Psalm 40.8 describes the
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  operative principle of a renewed heart.
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  So even when the feelings of delight might be low because of
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  trials or our own sin, the fundamental orientation, the
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  volitional choice, the intellectual ascent that remains
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  intact, the core of the heart still desires God's will even
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  while the flesh is fighting against it.
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  I see, so the desire is still there even if the emotional
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  intensity isn't always at its peak.
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  Precisely. The sources use an analogy for
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  this that I found really helpful.
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  The difference between paying your taxes and pursuing a
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  passion. Yeah, that's a great one.
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  Paying taxes is reluctant consent.
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  You do it because of external pressure to avoid the penalty.
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  There's no delight there. But a philanthropist funding a
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  project they believe in, or a sculptor who works tirelessly in
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  their studio? That's Theo, right?
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  The work might be hard, the hours might be long, but it all
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  flows from an internal inclination, an internal
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  pleasure. The key is that the act of doing
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  the will becomes the source of joy itself, not just waiting for
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  some reward at the end. Exactly.
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  The faithful builder finds joy in the precision of following
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  the blueprint, not just in thinking about the finished
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  house, because he trusts the architect and he knows the plans
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  are good. And that delight isn't just an
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  abstract feeling, it's anchored in something very specific.
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  Action I delight to do your. Will the joy is directed toward
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  concrete obedience. This isn't some vague mystical
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  sentiment. And that will is immediately
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  specified by the second-half of the verse.
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  Your law is within my heart. The law here is the Hebrew word
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  Torah. And it's important to understand
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  that Torah means more than just law in a legalistic sense,
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  right? Much more.
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  It more accurately means instruction, guidance, or
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  teaching. Well, it certainly includes
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  things like the 10 commandments. It's broader.
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  The sources point primarily to the moral law, the parts of
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  God's instruction that reflect his own eternal character.
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  His Holiness, His wisdom, His righteousness.
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  Exactly. And because the law flows
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  directly from who God is, it's seen as intrinsically good.
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  It's not an arbitrary list of rules designed to make life
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  difficult. It's God's perfect design for
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  human flourishing. So if you believe the law is
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  intrinsically good, well, that provides the intellectual
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  foundation for cus. You can only truly delight in
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  something you believe is perfectly good for you.
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  That's the connection. And identifying the will as
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  Torah also prevents spiritual license.
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  Genuine love for God has to result in submission to the
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  concrete shape of his revealed will.
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  It anchors faith to specific moral demands.
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  It's the difference between saying I love the idea of
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  architecture and saying I delight to build the specific
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  house using these specific blueprints from the master
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  architect. A perfect analogy, and the final
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  piece that ties it all together is that relational address.
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  Oh my God, that signals a covenant bond.
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  The delight and the submission flow from a relationship of
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  trust and belonging. It just confirms again that
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  grace comes before any of this devotion.
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  OK, so we've established the components.
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  Grace is the cause, the integrated heart as the core, OP
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  as the eager desire, and Torah as the concrete object of that
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  desire. So now let's move to Section 2
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  and see how our sources synthesize these pieces into a
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  unified picture of piety, and how that picture corrects some
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  comments and theological problems.
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  Yeah, this is where it all comes together.
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  Psalm 40.8 really is this compact portrait of true piety,
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  because it welds together that inward desire, and the outward
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  duty just refuses to separate affection from conduct.
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  So what is the dynamic between those things delight doing and
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  the law being inside you? It's a reciprocal relationship,
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  it's self reinforcing. The sources put it this way.
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  The believer delights in order to do, and he does because he
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  delights. So it's a feedback loop.
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  It is the internalization of the law ensures that delight is the
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  starting point for action and then the act of obedience.
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  When you do it from the right heart, it actually reinforces
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  and deepens that initial delight.
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  So the law is moving from being something external, like
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  commands written on stone tablets, to being this
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  internalized principle that governs all your faculties from
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  the inside out. It's the mechanism that
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  generates, you could say, spiritual efficiency.
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  We can use that engine analogy again.
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  The light is the fuel, it's the internal energy, and doing
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  obedience is the movement, the wheels turning according to the
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  law's direction. And the internalization of the
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  law is what makes the engine one perfectly.
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  The internal fire translates directly into forward motion.
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  There's no wasted energy. Think about a flawed engine.
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  Maybe the fuel delivery is bad. That's a lack of delight.
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  Or maybe the transmission is broken, the wheel is
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  compromised. Legalism is like trying to get
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  out and push the car. You get some movement, but
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  there's no internal power. OK, and what about the other
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  side? Well, antinomianism is like
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  lighting a fire in the engine block itself.
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  You've got plenty of passion, but there's no mechanism to
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  actually make the wheels turn. It's just chaotic energy.
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  But true piety, as described in this verse, is the internal fire
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  perfectly grieving the external motion, all according to the
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  designer specifications. That's the goal.
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  And that perfect coordination is what the work of sanctification
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  is all about, bringing our hearts deepest desire in God's
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  external command into closer and closer alignment.
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  And since we already established that deliverance comes first,
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  this has to change the quality of our obedience.
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  The sources make a big deal of the distinction between filial
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  and servile obedience. Yes, this is a classic Reformed
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  distinction, and it's essential here.
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  Filial is the obedience of a son, Servile is the obedience of
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  a servant or a slave. What's the core difference in
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  motivation? Servile obedience is motivated
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  externally. It's driven by fear of
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  punishment or hope of payment. Think of a contractor.
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  He follows the blueprints, the law, perfectly, but he does it
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  because he wants to get paid. Or maybe he's afraid of getting
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  sued. He doesn't have an intrinsic
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  love for the architect or the home itself.
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  But filial obedience, That comes from a different place entirely.
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  It's in the sphere of adoption and security.
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  Exactly. The son already knows his
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  status. He's secure in his father's
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  love, so he obeys out of that favor and adoption not to secure
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  it the father's will. The law becomes the son's
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  delight because he shares his father's vision and loves his
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  father. That has a huge impact on the
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  psychology of obedience. If I'm operating from a servile
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  motivation, every time I fail, it creates this deep anxiety
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  about my standing. But if I'm operating from a
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  filial motivation, failure leads me back to repentance and
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  assurance because my status isn't based on my performance.
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  It's secured by grace. Right.
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  And that allows the Law to guide you back to the right path
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  without threatening your fundamental identity as a child
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  of God. The sources affirm this.
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  Filial Ogeans arises from inward renewal, not outward compulsion.
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  It changes the entire focus from trying to earn righteousness to
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  simply expressing gratitude for a righteousness you've already
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  been given. Which leads us directly to the
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  function of the law for a believer, for someone who has
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  been delivered. The Torah now functions in what
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  Reformed theology calls its third use the third.
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  Use of the law. This is indispensable for
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  understanding Christian piety. So before we get to the third
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  use, maybe we should quickly define the other two.
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  Good idea. The laws first use is as a curb.
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  It restrains wickedness in society mostly through fear of
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  punishment. It keeps society from descending
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  into total chaos. Civil law, basically.
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  In a sense, yes. The second use is as a mirror,
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  or maybe a prosecutor. The law shows us God's perfect
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  standard, and doing so it reveals our own sin.
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  It shows us our total inability to meet that standard, and so it
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  drives us to find a Savior in Christ.
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  OK, so the first 2 uses are about restraint and conviction.
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  They show us our need for a savior.
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  But once we are justified, once we're adopted, how does the laws
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  function change? For the believer, the law is no
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  longer primarily a ladder to try to climb to earn righteousness.
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  That's a legalistic misuse and it's no longer primarily there
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  to condemn you. That's the second use.
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  Instead, it becomes the guide to grateful obedience.
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  It is the appointed pathway for the believers joy and
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  sanctification. Now, that sounds
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  counterintuitive to a lot of modern ideas about freedom.
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  People think being freed by grace means being freed from the
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  law and. That's a misunderstanding of
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  Christian freedom. We are freed from the curse and
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  the condemning power of the law, but not from its guidance.
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  The law still expresses God's perfect holiness.
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  It's the only template we have for a life that really pleases
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  God. So without the law as a guide,
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  our love for God could just become sentimental and
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  directionless. It could.
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  The third use gives our love for God a concrete shape.
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  It tells us how to love our neighbor.
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  It shows us how to express our devotion to God in real,
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  tangible ways. It keeps our faith from just
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  becoming a vague internal spirituality based on feelings.
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  We can use another analogy here. The law as a map, yes.
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  For someone in rebellion against the king, the law is an arrest
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  warrant. It shows their guilt and it
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  condemns them. That's the second use.
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  Right. But for the citizen who has been
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  pardoned, who's been adopted by the king and given a new
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  identity, the law becomes a map. That map no longer threatens
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  them. Instead, it provides joyful and
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  necessary instructions on how to walk safely and happily and
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  fruitfully within the King's domain.
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  It's God's design for human flourishing, and Psalm 40.8 is
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  the declaration of someone who is grateful for that map.
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  Exactly. Now this unified picture
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  delight, duty, the heart. It acts as a powerful corrective
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  against two theological distortions that are always
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  trying to pull believers off course.
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  Legalism and anti no immunism. Let's start with legalism.
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  What is that exactly? Legalism is the failure to
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  incorporate delight. It's when you grab onto the law,
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  but you neglect the heart. You see the law as a mechanical
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  checklist, or a way to establish your own merit, or maybe a tool
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  to compare yourself morally to other people.
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  And the result of that is obedience without joy.
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  Cold external moralism. It might look good on the
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  outside, but it's fueled by pride or fear or self effort.
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  The heart is completely bypassed, and Psalm 40.8
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  corrects this by insisting on delight on dopey.
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  If the heart isn't aligned, the obedience is counterfeit, no
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  matter how good it looks. And on the other extreme, you
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  have antinomianism. Right.
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  Which means against law. This is the failure to
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  incorporate duty. It's when you seize on to grace
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  and delight, but you neglect the law.
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  So you separate grace from moral obligation.
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  You do. You misinterpret Christian
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  liberty as freedom from any and all divine moral commands, and
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  this results in delight without duty.
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  It often looks like a sentimental religiosity or a
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  vague spirituality that feels warm and loving, but it ignores
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  the specific commands that God has given for our
• 19:13
  sanctification. Why is it so appealing to
• 19:15
  people? Well, because the condemning
• 19:17
  power of the law, its second use, is so painful, some people
• 19:21
  try to discard the whole thing. They think that because Christ
• 19:25
  fulfilled the law for them, they no longer needed as a guide.
• 19:28
  They confuse justification with sanctification.
• 19:31
  And the verse corrects this by anchoring our delight firmly in
• 19:34
  doing God's will, which is explicitly called the Torah.
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  So the law must we loved, which is against antinomianism, and
• 19:41
  the heart must be engaged, which is against legalism.
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  We can use one last analogy here.
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  The pianist. OK, the mechanical pianist who
• 19:48
  hits every single note correctly but shows 0 emotion or passion?
• 19:53
  That's legalism. He's a score, but no soul.
• 19:55
  And the passionate, chaotic pianist who just ignores the
• 19:58
  sheet music and plays whatever he feels.
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  That's antinomianism. He has soul, but no structure,
• 20:02
  no form. But the virtuoso is Psalm 40.8.
• 20:05
  That's the virtuoso. He has internalized the score.
• 20:08
  The law is in his heart. He executes every note precisely
• 20:11
  as it's written, doing God's will.
• 20:13
  But he does it with profound joy and passion.
• 20:16
  With Dopo, the external duty and the internal desire are
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  perfectly fused. And that fusion is the goal of
• 20:24
  the Spirit's work in a believer's life.
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  So we've defined this ideal pattern of piety, this perfect
• 20:30
  fusion, but now in Section 3, we have to face the reality that no
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  human being, not even the most mature believer, can live up to
• 20:37
  this ideal perfectly. Not without qualification, no.
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  So that brings us to the ultimate question, who is the
• 20:43
  one person who perfectly fulfills Psalm 40.8?
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  And this is the centerpiece of our entire discussion.
• 20:48
  The perfect fusion of law, heart, and delight is
• 20:51
  fundamentally Christological before it is ethical.
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  The ultimate speaker of these words is not David, not any
• 20:57
  believer, but the Messiah himself.
• 20:59
  And how do we know that we're not just guessing here?
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  Not at all. The New Testament gives us the
• 21:03
  answer explicitly in Hebrews chapter 10.
• 21:05
  This chapter acts as the the hermeneutical key, right?
• 21:08
  It unlocks the whole Psalm. It does.
• 21:11
  The author of Hebrews quote Psalm 40 verses 6 through 8, and
• 21:14
  he explicitly puts those words on the lips of Christ.
• 21:17
  He writes. Consequently, when Christ came
• 21:19
  into the world, he said, and then he quotes the Psalm.
• 21:23
  Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body
• 21:26
  have you prepared for me. Then I said, Behold, I have come
• 21:30
  to do your will, O God. It's a staggering move by the
• 21:34
  author of Hebrews. It completely reframes the
• 21:37
  verse. It's no longer just David's
• 21:40
  personal confession of devotion. It is now the programmatic
• 21:42
  declaration of the Son of God at the moment of the Incarnation.
• 21:46
  It's his mission statement. It's the mission statement of
• 21:48
  the Messiah. Christ speaks these words,
• 21:50
  defining His entire purpose for entering human history.
• 21:53
  His presence is defined by this one intention to do your will.
• 21:57
  David was speaking as a type, prophetically providing the very
• 22:01
  words that the true mediator would one day declare.
• 22:03
  So Psalm 40.8 isn't primarily an exhortation for us to just try
• 22:07
  harder. It's a historical statement
• 22:09
  about the finished work of our Savior.
• 22:10
  That's it, and the contrast with the preceding verses about
• 22:13
  sacrifice is critical. God doesn't desire the animal
• 22:16
  sacrifices anymore. This is a moment of institution.
• 22:20
  The sun arrives not to offer some external ritual, but to
• 22:24
  offer the perfect heartfelt obedience that those rituals
• 22:27
  only ever pointed to. Which means we have to conclude
• 22:29
  that Christ is the only human being who could ever say Psalm
• 22:32
  40.8 without any qualification. The only one.
• 22:36
  Every believer says it partially struggling against sin.
• 22:39
  Christ says it perfectly with 0 friction between his desire and
• 22:43
  his duty. His obedience was total, and our
• 22:46
  theological tradition usually distinguishes between his active
• 22:49
  and his passive obedience. Yes, and both of those aspects
• 22:52
  are of a perfect fulfillment of this verse.
• 22:54
  So let's start with His act of obedience.
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  How did Christ live out the laws within my heart during his life?
• 22:59
  His act of obedience refers to his entire life of comprehensive
• 23:03
  conformity to God's moral law, Every thought, every word, every
• 23:07
  deed. He perfectly fulfilled all the
• 23:09
  righteous requirements of the Law, not just externally but
• 23:12
  internally, driven by a perfect Sabia.
• 23:16
  The Law was the governing principle of his whole Incarnate
• 23:19
  life. He was the true Israelite, the
• 23:21
  second Adam, who succeeded where all others had failed.
• 23:25
  Right. Our source material pointed to
• 23:27
  Matthew 3.15, where Jesus insists on being baptized to
• 23:30
  fulfill all righteousness. That one statement seems to
• 23:33
  capture the scope of his mission.
• 23:35
  It really does. I mean, Christ was already
• 23:37
  righteous. He didn't need a baptism of
• 23:39
  repentance, but He submitted himself to every ordinance and
• 23:42
  requirement of the law to show His total identification with us
• 23:45
  and His perfection of the law's demands.
• 23:47
  He lived the life we should have lived, and He did it out of
• 23:50
  perfect delight in His Father's will.
• 23:51
  But his obedience didn't end with his life.
• 23:53
  It extended to his suffering and death, his passive obedience.
• 23:57
  Indeed, his passive obedience refers to his suffering and
• 24:01
  death on the cross, which satisfy the penalty for the
• 24:04
  broken law. And this too was an act of
• 24:06
  delight to do your will. The ultimate demonstration of
• 24:09
  this was in the Garden of Gethsemane.
• 24:11
  Where he knew the dreadful will of the Father, that cup of
• 24:14
  wrath, and he prayed Not my will, but yours be done.
• 24:19
  How is that an act of delight? To our ears, it can almost
• 24:22
  sound. And that's a very important
• 24:25
  point. His human nature, which was
• 24:27
  sinless, naturally recoiled from the prospect of suffering and
• 24:31
  bearing the curse of sin. That's a perfectly natural human
• 24:34
  response. But his will was still aligned
• 24:36
  with the father. His divine human will was
• 24:38
  perfectly aligned with the Father's purpose for salvation.
• 24:41
  The delight wasn't in the pain itself.
• 24:43
  The delight was in His willing submission to the Father's plan,
• 24:46
  because he knew that this suffering was the necessary path
• 24:49
  to the highest possible good, our salvation.
• 24:52
  His submission to the curse was the ultimate act of his law
• 24:55
  keeping obedience. So Christ's entire life and
• 24:57
  death, His perfect law keeping and His perfect law
• 25:00
  satisfaction, was the fulfillment of Psalm 40.8.
• 25:03
  Yes, He provided both the righteous life we failed to live
• 25:06
  and the sin bearing death we deserved.
• 25:09
  Going back to the musical analogy, Christ is the virtuoso
• 25:13
  for whom the score, the law was written.
• 25:16
  He plays the complex piece of his life with perfect pitch,
• 25:18
  perfect timing and perfect emotion, delight, never missing
• 25:22
  a single note. And that's why his sacrifice
• 25:24
  actually works. It's the offering of a perfectly
• 25:27
  righteous life motivated by a perfectly aligned heart.
• 25:30
  And this fulfillment provides the substance that all the Old
• 25:33
  Testament shadows were pointing toward.
• 25:35
  Right. Psalm 40.6 says the sacrifices
• 25:37
  of bulls and goats were inadequate.
• 25:39
  Why? Because they were always just
• 25:40
  pointers. The very fact that they had to
• 25:42
  be repeated over and over again show that they couldn't fully
• 25:45
  take away sin. They dealt with the problem
• 25:47
  externally, but they couldn't change the heart of the
• 25:49
  worshipper. That's the crisis of the Old
• 25:51
  Covenant. God desired the heart, but the
• 25:54
  rituals couldn't deliver a new heart.
• 25:56
  So Christ steps into that vacuum with a body prepared for him.
• 26:00
  He replaces the shadows with the ultimate reality.
• 26:03
  He offers the substance. His self offering is effective
• 26:07
  because it's the offering of a perfectly obedient life
• 26:10
  performed with perfect delight. So the core of his offering
• 26:13
  isn't just that he died, but the quality of the life that was
• 26:16
  offered up. A life of perfect, joyful
• 26:18
  conformity to the law. Yes.
• 26:20
  God desired the perfect heart 1st and Christ's offering of his
• 26:24
  body, His life, his heart, all in perfect alignment with God's
• 26:27
  will. That is what satisfied divine
• 26:29
  justice and established the New Covenant.
• 26:32
  So this all brings us to the application for us, for the
• 26:34
  believer. If Christ is the primary speaker
• 26:37
  of Psalm 40.8, how can we who still struggle everyday honestly
• 26:41
  say I delight to do your will? We have to remember the
• 26:44
  priority. The synthesis of law, heart and
• 26:46
  delight is Christological first before it becomes an ethical
• 26:49
  principle for us. The believer is the speaker of
• 26:52
  this verse only secondarily, only through the doctrine of
• 26:55
  union with Christ. We are joined by faith to the
• 26:57
  one who delighted perfectly. So when we confess this verse,
• 27:01
  we're really confessing 2 things Christ's perfection which is
• 27:04
  counted as ours, and our own slow progressive growth in Him.
• 27:08
  That's the classic distinction between ground and fruit.
• 27:12
  Christ's perfect obedience is the ground.
• 27:16
  It's imputed to us, credited to our account by faith for our
• 27:19
  justification. It gives us a righteous standing
• 27:22
  before God. When God looks at a believer, He
• 27:25
  sees Christ's perfect fulfillment of this verse.
• 27:28
  OK, that's the ground of our standing.
• 27:30
  What about the fruit in our lives?
• 27:32
  Christ's life is also the source of the fruit.
• 27:34
  The Holy Spirit is imparted to us for our sanctification, and
• 27:38
  He enables the progressive realization of this delight in
• 27:40
  our own hearts and lives. The Spirit takes the perfection
• 27:44
  achieved by the Master and begins to reproduce it slowly
• 27:47
  but surely in The Apprentice. Which connects directly back to
• 27:50
  the New Covenant promises in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36.
• 27:54
  David was looking forward to an age when the law would be
• 27:57
  internalized. And Christ inaugurates that age
• 28:00
  because he perfectly fulfilled the law and bore its curse.
• 28:03
  He secured the covenant where the Holy Spirit would be poured
• 28:06
  out, removing the heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh,
• 28:09
  a heart where the law moves from an external tablet to an
• 28:12
  internal principle of life. So our growing ability to obey
• 28:16
  is the direct result of his finished work.
• 28:18
  It is, and that changes everything.
• 28:20
  Our obedience isn't a merit badge we earn.
• 28:23
  It's the evidence of our union with the one whose obedience was
• 28:27
  perfect. It allows us to speak the words
• 28:29
  of the Psalm with sincerity, even though our delight is
• 28:32
  imperfect. Yes, because we speak it in
• 28:34
  fellowship with the one whose delight was absolute.
• 28:37
  Our imperfect pleasure in God's will is accepted by the Father
• 28:42
  because it is nested within Christ's perfect pleasure in the
• 28:44
  Father's will. I think that master artist and
• 28:47
  apprentice analogy really comes into its own here.
• 28:49
  Christ, the Master Artist, has already painted the masterpiece,
• 28:52
  The perfect life of Obedience. And the believer is The
• 28:55
  Apprentice. We can't paint that masterpiece
• 28:58
  on our own. Our attempts will be flawed.
• 29:01
  But the master through the spirit guides the apprentice's
• 29:04
  hand and our increasing skill, our growing ability to obey and
• 29:08
  delight, is the result of the masters own skill working
• 29:11
  through us. We share in his delight not
• 29:14
  through self effort, but by being united to the perfect
• 29:17
  artist. So this deep dive into just one
• 29:19
  verse, Psalm 40.8, has really revealed a very precise and
• 29:23
  powerful vision of what biblical piety is.
• 29:26
  It's this integrated, grace driven alignment of our mind,
• 29:29
  our will, and our affections, all directed toward God's
• 29:31
  revealed instruction. It really serves as a charter
• 29:35
  for New Covenant living. It forces us to reject that cold
• 29:38
  mechanical legalism that wants duty without any delight.
• 29:41
  And it also forces us to reject that vague, sentimental
• 29:44
  antinomianism that wants delight but discards duty.
• 29:47
  Instead, it offers this beautiful pattern where our
• 29:50
  desire and our duty can actually run in the same direction.
• 29:52
  We find our highest joy in doing the will of God, all while
• 29:55
  knowing that the foundation for our joy was laid by the person,
• 29:58
  delight and obedience of our Savior.
• 29:59
  It's not a call to try harder to earn our place.
• 30:02
  It's a description of a renewed heart responding to a place
• 30:05
  that's already been secured for us.
• 30:07
  It is the language of an adopted son, not a hired servant.
• 30:11
  So since this ideal pattern of piety is joyful heart,
• 30:15
  internalized conformity to God's will, and we know this is
• 30:18
  realized perfectly only in Christ, here's something to
• 30:20
  consider as you go forward. How does consciously grounding
• 30:24
  your daily acts of obedience in Christ's past perfect delight
• 30:27
  change the present joy you experience in doing God's will?
• 30:30
  Does knowing His perfection is the ground of your acceptance
• 30:33
  remove the anxiety that so often poisons our daily efforts to
• 30:37
  obey?