I Lift My Soul - Psalm 25

 Introduction

Last week I heard a story about a woman struggling to find a good church. She was raped as a teenager by her uncle, so she lacked trust in men. She first got pregnant before her twenties, but she didn’t know who the father was. After the man who she thought was the father offered to adopt the child as his own, she decided to get an abortion and murder the child. She was too ashamed to give up her child for adoption. But the shame didn’t go away. She eventually got pregnant again, but the father abandoned her. She delivered this baby and tried to find churches along the way. I found out about her story because she watched a movie called Nefarious. It’s a Christian movie that came out this year dealing with demonic activity and so much from the film resonated with her that she wrote the producer of the film, who is a guy I follow.

What intrigued me about her story was that churches didn’t know what to do with her. Some churches worship people’s feelings so they never do anything with people’s sin. This woman wanted to do something with her guilt and shame, but these nice seeker-sensitive churches welcomed her in and left her in the audience with everyone else wanting entertainment. On the other hand, the pure and doctrinally accurate churches pushed her to the margins because they didn’t want their doctrine to get dirty. Today’s passage shows us that God enters into our messy lives no matter where we are. If we are patient, He promises to bring redemption to any story.

The Passage

To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in You I trust, Do not let me be ashamed; Do not let my enemies exult over me. Indeed, none of those who wait for You will be ashamed; Those who deal treacherously without cause will be ashamed. Make me know Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; For You I wait all the day. Remember, O Lord, Your compassion and Your lovingkindnesses, For they have been from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; According to Your lovingkindness remember me, For Your goodness’ sake, O Lord. Good and upright is the Lord; Therefore He instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in justice, And He teaches the humble His way. All the paths of the Lord are lovingkindness and truth To those who keep His covenant and His testimonies. For Your name’s sake, O Lord, Pardon my iniquity, for it is great. Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose. His soul will abide in prosperity, And his descendants will inherit the land. The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, And He will make them know His covenant. My eyes are continually toward the Lord, For He will pluck my feet out of the net. Turn to me and be gracious to me, For I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged; Bring me out of my distresses. Look upon my affliction and my trouble, And forgive all my sins. Look upon my enemies, for they are many, And they hate me with violent hatred. Guard my soul and deliver me; Do not let me be ashamed, for I take refuge in You. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for You. Redeem Israel, O God, Out of all his troubles. Psalm 25

Explanation

This Psalm is an acrostic. Each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. David also wrote this psalm as a prayer about a whole number of various subjects like rescue, forgiveness, and instruction. David gives us the ABCs of prayer.

As a spear point is the most important part of the spear and is necessarily forged in the middle of the blade, so is the middle of this verse the most important verse. In verse 11, David connects his own need for grace with God’s desire for glory. Like Moses and Jesus, David prays for God’s glory above all else. Moses prayed this way when interceding for sinful Israel (Exodus 32:11-13) and Jesus prayed this way before His crucifixion (Matthew 26:39).

My sermon will address 4 major components of prayer. We pray for God to rescue, we pray for God to teach, we pray for God to forgive, and we pray for God’s glory.

We Pray for God to Rescue

David prays for God to save him from his shame (vv. 2, 3, 20), his enemies (v.2), his affliction (vv. 15-18), and He ends praying for the redemption of Israel (v. 22). We experience certain afflictions like a cancer diagnosis, an unexpected death, property damage with no money to fix it, the loss of a job, poor health, economic turmoil. Some of us have experienced shame from abuse, tragedy, divorce, family disgrace, crime. Some have been victim of wickedness like assault, abuse, rape, theft.

With all these problems we can either offer them up to God or not. Look at verse 1, “I lift my soul to you.” This phrase evokes the ascension offering when the animal, which represents you, was burned up so the smoke would rise to heaven. When we pray we offer our lives as a sacrifice (Romans 12:1). This is also God’s prescription for your affliction: pray, go to God’s word, pray, sing, pray, obey God’s word, pray, worship with the rest of Israel, and pray.

So, we pray, but what happens next? This is the hardest part: You keep praying (1 Thess 5:17) and you keep living by faith. You trust and obey. This takes time. Joshua and Caleb waited 40 years to enter the promised land. We don’t appreciate their faith because we read those pages in a few minutes. Some of you remember Preacher Mike. He prayed for like 50 years for one friend to turn to Christ and he finally did. Many times, we just can no longer wait. We lose patience with God because we want what we want right now. But remember, this is God’s world, not yours. So, keep praying. But why keep praying? Are we trying to convince God to love us by praying? No. Look at verse 6. God’s compassion and love for us have been from old. Paul says in Ephesians 1:4 that God chose us in Christ before He made the world. When you pray to God in Christ, you’re doing something that’s only possible because God loves you.

We Pray for God to Teach

God is our teacher. We are His students. This means humility is paramount even when you’re praying complaints to God. Remember to never complain about God (Phil 2:14-15) but to complain to Him. But after you complain to God, don’t expect Him to remain silent. He has written His word to instruct you and teach you how to live—especially in difficult circumstances.

Christians struggle with God teaching us. Some Christian eggheads would have you think God wants you to learn all the 15 syllable words in a 1,000 page theology book. Some Christian boneheads would have you believe God measures spiritual maturity like Evel Knievel measures a motorcycle jump. The eggheads measure maturity by the number of books read while the boneheads measure Christian maturity by the number of risks made. Both of these tendences miss the mark. A woman can read all the books in the Christian library but only be self-taught, not God taught. A man can take a bunch of risks but that doesn’t mean God approves.

This means you will get a lot of things wrong in life as you walk by faith. You will have your mind changed on a whole number of things because God is changing your mind. The point in modern education is to make a good grade, so you can get into a good college, so you can get a good job, and get a good retirement. But the purpose of real education is formation, for God to form you and reform you. Too many Christians don’t want to change when that’s the entire purpose of God teaching you. God wants to teach you how to raise godly grandkids, paint decks, make banana pudding, and share the gospel with your gay boss at work. You may think there no verse on those subjects in the Bible—that God is silent. You think that because you skipped class. [van till quote]

Pray for God to Forgive

In verse 6 and 7, David’s prayer to forgive comes in the context of his prayer for God to teach. When God teaches you His paths, you realize you need grace and forgiveness. When we pray for God to forgive us, we’re praying for God to remember Himself and forget us. We want Him to remember His love and His promises. We want Him to forget our sin and our failures.

God can forgive us because He has forsaken His son. God places the penalty for our sins on Jesus. When Jesus died, our sin died with Him. In Israel, apparently, there’s like three possible places people think Jesus was buried. One thing this proves is that no one knows for sure. And the reason is God forgot where He buried our sins. After Jesus killed our sin on Himself and buried them with Himself in the grave, God has no need to remember your sins anymore. God forgets your sin because He remembers His love.

God’s covenant is a saving, freeing, and forgiving covenant. He has charted a path of love and truth for those of us who live faithful to His covenant (Ps 25:10). In God’s covenant you learn to fear Him (Ps 25:14) because of your sin (Ps 25:7, 11, 16, 18). But God also teaches you to fear Him so that you will not fear anyone else (c.f., Ps 25:2, 3, 10, 19-22). God’s covenant gives great confidence to great sinners, which is why you are here today. We are New Covenant people. And our worship is how God renews us in this covenant. God wants you to learn how to fear Him so that you don’t fear anyone else. But God also wants you to learn how to love Him, so you don’t worship Him in fear (1 John 4:18). Here’s how this works. We confess our sins to God openly (1 John 1:9) because we fear Him. God then forgives us in Christ because He loves us. You, then, live a bold, confident Christian life in front of an accusing world because of Christ. This story you are in is all about Jesus. And Jesus loves to forgive sinners like you!

 Pray for God’s Glory

The Christian worldview believes that only two entities exist: God and everything God made. This means what’s true for God isn’t true for me even though there is overlap. Even though I love my wife, I know God loves her more. However, God is also everywhere while I am just right here. God can do things I am not capable of doing or not allowed to do.

One of those things is pursue His name’s sake. If I pursue the glory of my name, I am sinning because I am imperfect. If I worship the glory of the North Carolina Tarheels, I am sinning because they are not God. But if I pursue the glory of God I’m pursuing someone truly good. God can love himself and His glory because He is perfect. Who else’s name would He magnify?

The Lord does all He does for His name’s sake. God has said it is good to forgive you, love you, adopt you, and give you eternal life. He does it all for His glory and for your good.

Conclusion

Our lives, our stories aren’t really our stories. They’re all part of God’s story. That means we have little to no say in what trials we face, or struggle come. We also have no say in how or when grace enters our lives. But God loves to redeem the irredeemable. He loves to encourage the ashamed and give embolden the afraid. Don’t lose heart!