FIXED AND MAINTAINED
Alistair M Brown
Psalm 112: 1, 7-8 (to “not afraid”)
Ephesians 4: 12 (from “with a view to the edifying of the body”)-15
Hebrews 12: 1-3
We read Psalm 112 in our local meeting recently, and the passage in verses 7 and 8, referring to the righteous man’s heart being fixed as confiding in God, and his heart being maintained, has been in my mind since then. There is an earlier reference, in Psalm 108, to the heart being fixed:
My heart is fixed, O God: I will sing,
yea, I will sing psalms, even with my glory
verse 1.
In the psalm read we have,
For he shall not be moved for ever: the
righteous shall be in everlasting
. remembrance (verse 6).
He shall not be afraid of evil tidings;
his heart is fixed confiding in Jehovah;
His heart is maintained, he is not afraid.
I would seek to encourage myself and all of us to have our hearts fixed and maintained. It is not exactly that we fix our own hearts; the psalmist does not say, ‘I fix my heart’: he says that the heart of the righteous man is fixed confiding in Jehovah. Nor do we exactly maintain our own hearts; he says, “His heart is maintained”. The implication is that there is One who does this; there is One on whom the heart is fixed and by whom the heart is maintained.
It is a great thing to find stability and certainty: being fixed and maintained relates to stability and certainty, and that brings joy as the believer’s heart is fixed on and maintained by Christ. A believer in the assurance of salvation and faith in Christ is joyful in having his or her heart fixed on Christ and maintained by Him. The result of being fixed and maintained in our affections and in our thoughts is confidence, joy and stability. These are tremendously positive things, and stand in great contrast to the world around where nothing is fixed and few things are maintained. Apparent certainties break down; we do not want to be occupied with that, but it is true. In contrast to all that, we have Christ, and He is the One on whom our hearts are to be fixed and by whom our hearts are maintained.
One of the interesting things that came before us in considering these psalms, is that in Psalm 111 you have the works of God described:
Great are the works of Jehovah;
sought out of all that delight in them, v 2.
The works of his hands are truth and judgment;
all his precepts are faithful:
. Maintained for ever and ever,
done in truth and uprightness, v 7, 8.
We can apply everything that is said in Psalm 111 to Christ. His works are great and they are sought out of all that delight in them; His righteousness abideth forever; what He does and what He says is “maintained for ever and ever”; He is unchanging. As Isaiah says, “he is the stability of thy times”, chap 33: 6. So Psalm 111 sets out the faithfulness and immutability of all that the Lord Jesus says and does. What a One He is! He is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and to the ages to come”, Heb 13: 8. Are you glad you have your faith in such a One? I am. What a blessing to have our faith in One whose precepts are maintained for ever and ever. All that He does is done in truth and uprightness; it is unquestionable, unassailable. Nothing that Christ has done can ever be called into question because He has fully satisfied God in the truth and uprightness of everything that He has done. What a blessed Man to have before us!
Following the works of God in Psalm 111, Psalm 112 speaks of “the righteous” - the believer. The believer is looked upon as a man that fears God and that delights greatly in His commandments. What you find is that the things that are said about the believer in Psalm 112 echo remarkably what is said about Christ Himself in Psalm 111. Among these things is this matter of what is fixed and maintained. So that believers, as we are occupied with the Lord Jesus and have our hearts fixed on Him and maintained by Him, come out like Christ. We often say that He is our Object and our Model. He is the One to whom we look: He is our Object. And we become like the One we love and are occupied with: He is our Model. Everything that we see in Christ is entirely according to God’s mind, and thus delights God. He is the Man of God’s choice, God’s pattern Man. We are not like that; we fail, and we come short, but we desire to be occupied with Christ and to follow after Him. We desire in our measure to be like Him, and we have the Holy Spirit’s help in that. Part of being like Christ is, I believe, being fixed in our hearts, our affections steadfastly focused on Him, our affections bound up with Him: it is thus that He maintains our hearts.
We can ask Him to help us to have our affections fixed on Him and maintained by Him. If we feel wavering or doubtful or upset about things we can go to Christ and simply say, ‘Help me to have my mind fixed on You, Lord’. That would be a simple personal prayer that any believer could utter. If we feel down, we can ask Him to maintain our hearts. He is well able to do that; He is able to maintain every heart. We are glad of the believers in this room tonight, but He is able to maintain the heart of every believer that calls upon Him. What a resource to have!
I thought the scriptures in the New Testament would bear out what is suggested in the psalm as to being fixed and maintained. Ephesian 4 was before us on Lord’s day. What is spoken of in the passage read is the building up that takes place as a result of the gifts given by Christ from the glory - the edifying of the body of Christ, and arriving at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. What matters these are! The knowledge of the Son of God relates to One who does not change, because He abides the Same; and the unity of the faith is also founded on what does not change. The faith that was there at the beginning, the teaching of the apostles, is the same now as it was then. In chapter 4 the apostle writes, “If ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as the truth is in Jesus”, v 21. Would God ever need to change the truth as it is in Jesus? Of course He would not; that is something that is fixed. It is very closely associated with the unity of the faith. It is a unity that exists now, and it has existed through time.
We can go back to the faith of the saints at the beginning, and that is what guides us now. The faith, the teaching and the doctrine at the beginning of the church is unchanged. The external conditions have changed; there has been breakdown and sorrow and public disgrace, but the truth and the faith have not changed. It is a great thing to have our hearts fixed on that. As we do, we will be helped in arriving at the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full grown man. As it says, “at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”. How attractive that is; what a basis of unity! What a basis for joy together in love for Christ and in devotion to Him!
And then the apostle adds, “that we may be no longer babes, tossed and carried about”. If your heart is not fixed you might be tossed and carried about. You will not be lost, but you might lose the joy of knowing and experiencing the unity of the faith, and the unity of the Spirit. But the thing is that we are not to be tossed and carried about. “That we may no longer be babes, tossed and carried about by every wind” of whatever erroneous teaching man might have introduced into the church publicly at a particular point of time, because that is what has happened. But the truth - “as the truth is in Jesus” - does not change. It is a great blessing to have our hearts and our minds fixed on the truth as it is in Him, and to hold the truth in love, because the truth as it is in Jesus will be held in love. It is a great antidote to being tossed and carried about.
In Hebrews 12 it is interesting that there we have both “looking stedfastly” and “consider well”. The translator’s note on “looking stedfastly says, ‘looking away from other things and fixing the eye exclusively on one’ (note d); that is quite a challenge. ‘Fixing the eye exclusively on one’: who would that One be? It would be Christ, the One upon whom our hearts and our eyes are to be fixed as our Object. We are to look away from everything else, and look stedfastly at Him, on “Jesus the leader and completer of faith”. There is nothing more to be added to that faith. He began it and He completes it; it is all in Him. The great living body of truth has its origin in Christ, and He has completed it. He has fully revealed the mind of God; there is no more to be added to the revelation in Christ. Everything that can be known by us about God, as Father, Son and Spirit has been made known by the Lord Jesus. The apostle Paul was used to fill out the truth; he was given things to convey to the church from Christ in glory, but all the truth through Paul had its origin in the blessed Lord Himself, “the leader and completer of faith”. And what do we see in Him? He was the One who was the great example to us, the One whose heart was fixed. He endured the cross, He despised the shame in His devotion to the will of God and He is now set down at His right hand. He endured contradiction from sinners against Himself and it did not deflect Him. He set His face stedfastly to go to Jerusalem, knowing that there He was to be crucified, but it was the will of the Father that is should be so, and He was going to take that cup from the hand of the Father. What an example to us of One whose heart was fixed.
May it be for our encouragement to see that our hearts are to be fixed on and maintained by Christ, and to ask for help that this might be my experience. There is joy, fulfilment and peace in having our hearts and minds steadfastly set on that blessed One.
For His Name’s sake.
Word in Ministry Meeting, Grangemouth
7 January 2020