The Divine Choreography of a Righteous Life Text: Psalm 37:23-24
Introduction: A Universe With a Plot
We live in an age that is terrified of a sovereign God. The modern mind, steeped in the rebellion of the Enlightenment, wants to be the master of its own fate, the captain of its own soul. The result is a pervasive, low-grade anxiety that haunts our culture like a ghost. If you are in charge of your own life, then every stumble, every fall, every unexpected turn is ultimately your fault. You are the author of a story you cannot control, and this is a recipe for madness. The secular man believes he is walking on a tightrope of his own making, with no safety net below.
Into this self-inflicted chaos, the Word of God speaks a word of profound stability. It tells us that the universe is not a random collection of atoms bouncing off one another. It is a story, with an Author. History has a plot, and your life, if you are in Christ, has a Director. This is not constricting; it is liberating. It means that your life is not a meaningless accident. It is a divinely choreographed dance, and the choreographer is the God who spoke the galaxies into existence.
Psalm 37 is a psalm for those who are tempted to envy the wicked. David looks around and sees the ungodly prospering, living large, and seemingly getting away with it. The temptation for the righteous is to become discouraged, to think that holiness doesn't pay. But David reminds us to look at the end of the story. The wicked are like grass; they flourish for a moment and then are cut down and wither. But the righteous have an inheritance, a future, and a security that is grounded not in their own strength, but in the character of their God.
Our text today, from the middle of this psalm, gives us two glorious pillars upon which the Christian can build his entire life. It speaks of divine establishment and divine preservation. It tells us that God is not a distant spectator in our lives; He is the architect of our path and the one who holds our hand along the way. This is the bedrock of Christian confidence. We are not our own; we are bought with a price, and we are kept by a power that is not our own.
The Text
The footsteps of a man are established by Yahweh,
And He delights in his way.
When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong,
Because Yahweh is the One who sustains his hand.
(Psalm 37:23-24 LSB)
God's Good Pleasure and Providence (v. 23)
We begin with the glorious declaration of God's sovereignty over the life of a believer.
"The footsteps of a man are established by Yahweh, And He delights in his way." (Psalm 37:23)
The first clause is a direct assault on the modern idol of autonomy. "The footsteps of a man are established by Yahweh." The word for "established" means to be prepared, ordered, or made firm. This is not talking about God giving some general, vague guidance from a distance. This is meticulous. It is step by step. God is not just the one who sets you on the path; He is the one who orders every single footstep on that path. Your career, your marriage, your children, your trials, your triumphs, every last detail is part of His divine blueprint.
This is what we mean by providence. God governs all things, from the course of empires to the fall of a sparrow, and yes, to the placement of your feet. As Jeremiah says, "O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps" (Jeremiah 10:23). The secular man finds this terrifying, because it means he is not in control. The Christian finds this to be the source of all comfort, because it means that the one who is in control loves him with an everlasting love.
But it gets better. The second clause tells us the motivation behind this divine ordering: "And He delights in his way." This is a staggering thought. The transcendent God of the universe, the holy one before whom angels hide their faces, takes personal pleasure in the path of a redeemed sinner. He doesn't just tolerate you. He doesn't put up with you. He delights in your way. Now, this "way" is not our own sinless perfection. We are not delightful in ourselves. Our way is delightful to God because it is the path that He Himself has established for us in Christ. God delights in the way of a righteous man because He sees the righteousness of His own Son reflected in that man's life.
This is covenantal language. A father delights in watching his son learn to walk, even though the son stumbles and falls. God's delight is not in our flawless performance, but in our faithful direction. He delights in the fact that we are walking in the "way" He has established, the way of faith, repentance, and dependence upon Him. This is why we are told elsewhere to "Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). When we delight in Him, our desires begin to align with His, and He delights to give us what He has worked in us to want. It is a beautiful, virtuous cycle of covenantal pleasure.
The Christian Stumble (v. 24)
Verse 24 anticipates the obvious objection. If God establishes our steps, what happens when we fall? The psalmist gives us a promise of radical, divine preservation.
"When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, Because Yahweh is the One who sustains his hand." (Psalm 37:24 LSB)
Notice the realism of the Bible. It does not say "if he falls," but "when he falls." The Christian life is not a life of sinless perfection. We are still in this body of death, and we will stumble. We will have moments of failure, of weakness, of sin. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling a false gospel. The difference between a righteous man and an unrighteous man is not that the righteous man never falls, but what happens after he falls.
The promise is that "he will not be hurled headlong." The image here is of a catastrophic, final, irrecoverable fall. It is the kind of fall that ends in utter ruin. The believer may stumble, but he will not be utterly cast down. He may fall, but he will not be destroyed. Why? Because his security does not depend on his own sure-footedness. It depends on the grip of God.
The reason for this security is given in the final clause: "Because Yahweh is the One who sustains his hand." Think of a father teaching his toddler to walk. The child is wobbly, unsteady. He takes a few steps and then begins to topple over. But the father has hold of his hand. The child falls, but he doesn't smack his face on the pavement. He is caught. His fall is arrested by a strength greater than his own. This is a perfect picture of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.
Our perseverance in the faith is not ultimately our work; it is God's. We persevere because God preserves. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand" (John 10:27-29). We are held in a divine double-grip, the hand of the Son and the hand of the Father. A stumble cannot break that grip.
Conclusion: Held Fast
So what is the practical application of this for us today? It is a call to walk in confident humility. The humility comes from knowing that we are utterly dependent on God for every step we take. We cannot direct our own path. We are prone to wander, prone to fall. There is no room for arrogance or self-reliance in the Christian life. If you are standing, it is only because He holds you.
But the confidence comes from the very same truth. Because God establishes your steps, you can walk without fear. Because He delights in your way, you can walk with joy. And because He sustains your hand, you can get back up when you fall, knowing that your failure is not final. Your stumbles are temporary setbacks in a story that is guaranteed to have a glorious ending, because the Author has already written it.
This is the Christian's great comfort in a world of chaos. We are not walking a tightrope. We are walking on a path paved by God, with a Father who delights in us, holding our hand every step of the way. When you fall, and you will, do not despair. The fall does not define you. The hand that catches you does. He will not let you go. He will lift you up, dust you off, and set your feet back on the path that He has established for you, all for His glory and for your everlasting good.