Psalm 25
“Seeking the Lord from A to Z”
by Pastor Jason Van Bemmel

 

Of David.

¹ To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
² O my God, in you I trust;
    let me not be put to shame;
    let not my enemies exult over me.
³ Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
    they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

⁴ Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
    teach me your paths.
⁵ Lead me in your truth and teach me,
    for you are the God of my salvation;
    for you I wait all the day long.

⁶ Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
    for they have been from of old.
⁷ Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
    according to your steadfast love remember me,
    for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

⁸ Good and upright is the Lord;
    therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
⁹ He leads the humble in what is right,
    and teaches the humble his way.
¹⁰ All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
    for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

¹¹ For your name's sake, O Lord,
    pardon my guilt, for it is great.
¹² Who is the man who fears the Lord?
    Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
¹³ His soul shall abide in well-being,
    and his offspring shall inherit the land.
¹⁴ The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him,
    and he makes known to them his covenant.
¹⁵ My eyes are ever toward the Lord,
    for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

¹⁶ Turn to me and be gracious to me,
    for I am lonely and afflicted.
¹⁷ The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
    bring me out of my distresses.
¹⁸ Consider my affliction and my trouble,
    and forgive all my sins.

¹⁹ Consider how many are my foes,
    and with what violent hatred they hate me.
²⁰ Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
    Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
²¹ May integrity and uprightness preserve me,
    for I wait for you.

²² Redeem Israel, O God,
    out of all his troubles.

• Psalm 25, ESV

 

How and Why We Pray

In the movie Shadowlands, C.S. Lewis’ wife, Joy, is dying of cancer. Lewis hardly leaves her bedside at the hospital room where they were married as he is praying for her constantly. Eventually, she begins to get better, her cancer going into remission, when Lewis’ friend tells him, “You prayers are working, Jack.” He responds: “That’s not why I pray. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time – waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God- it changes me.”

We pray most fervently when our sense of our need for the LORD is deepest and strongest. I know in my own life my prayers have been most persistent when I have felt utterly helpless in myself and in deep need of the Lord’s help. But really, we always need the LORD completely, and so praying should be as natural and constant for a believer as breathing. “I pray because the need flows out of me all the time – waking and sleeping.” That perspective drives us closer toward the Bible’s call to “pray without ceasing” or to “pray continually.”

But how should we pray?

In American evangelicalism, we tend to place a high value on spontaneous prayer. We think a heartfelt, spontaneous prayer that simply comes from our heart to our lips without much planning is the best kind of prayer. But the Psalms challenge this approach. While the Bible doesn’t condemn spontaneous prayers, the Psalms teach us that sincere, heartfelt, and God-honoring prayer can be very planned and very intentionally composed.

How do I know this? Well, last week, we looked at Psalm 5, which is structured chiastically. It has five sections. The first and fifth correspond to each other, the second and fourth correspond to each other, and then third section in the middle is quite literally the heart of the Psalm. In other words, David as a poet very intentionally composed Psalm 5 in a highly structured format.   

Today, we’re looking at Psalm 25, which is even more intentionally structured in its composition. Psalm 25 is one of several acrostic Psalms, where each line begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Psalms 9-10 form a single acrostic together. Psalms 34, 37, 111, 112, and 145 are all acrostics, and Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm, with each stanza of 8 lines beginning with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Scholars have observed that Psalm 25 is an imperfect acrostic, that two letters are skipped and that the last line ends with a different letter than the end of the Hebrew alphabet. But I listened to a teaching on Psalm 25 from Sinclair Ferguson earlier this week, and he pointed out that the way the acrostic is structured in Psalm 25 makes it so that the first line, the middle line, and the last line begin with letters that together spell the Hebrew verb for teaching or instructing, and Psalm 25 is, in fact, a teaching psalm, teaching us all about prayer. Wow!  

So, we, in fact, have a perfectly structured psalm in Psalm 25 that gives us an A-to-Z instruction on prayer. And the first lesson it teaches us, from the very structure of the Psalm itself, is that intentionally composed, carefully structured prayers can be heartfelt and God-glorifying. The fact is that, in the Psalms, God gave His people a prayer book and a song book of beautifully composed prayers and songs for us to use in private and public worship. But also, your prayer life may be helped by using other written prayers. The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers, and Every Moment Holy, a series of modern books of liturgies for praying through in everyday life, are just two examples of books of written prayers that may help you deepen your prayer life.

 

So, if you’re struggling to pray more deeply and meaningfully, try praying through the Psalms or other written prayers.

 

1. The LORD We Seek – the Character of God

 

One of the ways the Psalms and other well-written prayers can help deepen our prayer life is by calling us to the reality that our prayers are not primarily about us. We are not the main subject and focus of our own prayer lives – or, at least, we shouldn’t be. Jesus taught us in The Lord’s Prayer to focus on God first – His name, His kingdom, His will – before focusing on ourselves and our needs. And likewise, the Psalms focus much of our attention on the character of the LORD we seek in prayer.

 

The character of the LORD we seek in prayer is infinitely more important than the words we use when praying to Him. The Shadowlands quote about prayer – “It doesn’t change God, it changes me.” – is powerful but can sometimes feel a bit frustrating if we don’t understand the character of God. God never changes, and that’s a very, very good thing. Just think of how terrifying it would be if God were to change. Yes, God answers prayer, and God uses our prayers as part of His providence for His people, but just think of how scary it would be if I could genuinely get God to change His mind through my prayers – How? Would I be informing Him of something He doesn’t already know? Would I be using persuasive arguments He hadn’t yet thought of? Obviously not!   

No, God is absolutely perfect in every way, and we need Him to be who He is. Look at what David teaches us about the character of God in Psalm 25. He is . . .

 

The God Who Leads – We are not wandering alone in the wilderness of life

 

The God of Truth – The One who is the truth and who has the truth we need to set us free

 

The God of Salvation – the God who saves us from ourselves and from Satan by His Son

 

The God of Mercy – the God who has mercy on us

 

The God of Steadfast Love – The God of HESED, used three times in Psalm 25

         In verses 6-7, David asks the LORD to remember His mercy and steadfast love, and not to remember David according to the sins of his youth but according to God’s steadfast love. “Remember” is covenantal language, and David is pleading for God’s covenant goodness, His committed love for David as His own dearly loved child.

 

In verse 10, David declares that all of the paths of the LORD – which means, all of the ways God has ordained  - are steadfast love and faithfulness for those who keep covenant with the LORD. Again, the covenant faithfulness is front-and-center – God has engaged us with precious promises as our God, and He calls on us to believe and live accordingly.

 

The God of Faithfulness – God never breaks His promises and never wavers from the truth of His commitments.

The Good and Upright God – God is both good – kind and beneficent – and upright – straight, righteous, just

 

The God Who Guards – He keeps His own

 

The God Who is Our Refuge – We can hide ourselves securely in Him

The God Who Redeems – He ransoms us from slavery to sin and death

 

We need the LORD to be all of these things, and the amazing good news is that He is all of these things perfectly and unchangeably. Our hope for good from God does not rest on our goodness or on our ability impress God or persuade God. It rests on the good character of God Himself.

1. Why We Seek the LORD – our enemies and distresses

 

We go to the LORD who never changes because we need Him, and the more aware we are of our enemies and distresses, the more clearly we will see how much we need Him and the more we will go to Him. David is surrounded by enemies, as we can see in verses 2 & 19. Like Paul in 2 Corinthians 7:5: “For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn—fighting without and fear within.” 

External Enemies, vv. 2 & 19

 

Sin & Guilt – vv. 7 & 11 – David is also overwhelmed by the very real awareness of his own sin and guilt.

Trouble, Affliction & Loneliness – vv. 16-18 – David is also aware of other internal problems he is facing – trouble, affliction, loneliness, confusion.

 

Two things press us to seek the LORD earnestly and persistently – our awareness of our great need and our knowledge and the great character of God, and we see both of these realities very clearly from David here in Psalm 25.

• What We Seek from the LORD – Our Deepest Needs

 

And so, then, when we are deeply aware of our needs, what do we seek from the LORD, out of His great character?

Guidance – Make me to know Your ways, lead me in Your truth – To avoid the traps laid by enemies and to honor God rightly in His life, David needs God to guide him, and we need the LORD to guide us – to make known to us His ways by wise counsel and to lead us in His truth.

Forgiveness – Pardon my guilt, vv. 11 & 18 – But we also need forgiveness. We don’t get forgiveness from God by bargaining with Him or by minimizing or excusing our sin. Notice how David appeals in verse 11: “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.” David needs great pardon from the LORD precisely because his sin is so great. We don’t need the pardon of the LORD and His abundant mercy because we’re small and insignificant sinners who really do good most of the time but because we sin badly and often.

Comfort – Guard my soul, bring me out of my distress – We also need comfort and consolation from the LORD, and so David teaches us to pray for God to guard our souls and bring us out of distress.

 

Deliverance from Affliction – We need God to deliver us out of affliction.

 

Redemption of All of God’s People from All Our Troubles – And we need God to redeem us and indeed ALL of God’s people from all our troubles, which is ultimately a request for Jesus to come again and make a final end of all evil.

 

1. How We Must Seek the LORD

 

The final thing we learn from David in the school of prayer in Psalm 25 is about what the disposition of our own hearts must be as we seek the LORD.

 

Waiting for the LORD, v. 3 – We must wait on the LORD. This requires patience and the faith that His timing and ways are better than ours.

 

In Humility, v. 9

“He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.”

What does it mean to be humble? It means that we willingly place ourselves under and accept the Word of God and the Providence of God. We do not balk at or object to either His written word or His ordained will for the ordering of our lives. We accept both graciously.

 

Openly Confessing Our Great Sin, vv. 11 & 18 – We also come to God as sinners openly confessing our great sin, not holding back or pretending otherwise. 

 

In the Fear of the LORD, vv. 12 & 14 – And we must come in the fear of the LORD. What does it mean to fear the LORD? It means to trust Him tremblingly. We tremble before Him as we trust Him.

 

Persisting, v. 15 “My eyes are ever toward the LORD” – This indicates a persistence in prayer that fits well with how Jesus taught us to pray.

 

Our Confidence in Prayer

 

Ultimately, our confidence in prayer comes from the ultimate answer to David’s prayer, found in Jesus Himself.

 

That Jesus became one of us, entering into our troubles, facing down our enemies, taking all of our sins upon Himself, and delivering us from our guilt and our enemies, and sending us His Holy Spirit to comfort us in our afflictions and guide us in God’s truth – this is our great comfort and assurance in our prayers. The intercession of our Great and Sympathetic Hight Priest at the Father’s right hand and the intercession of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and prayers. This is our confidence:

 

¹³ I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. ¹⁴ And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

– 1 John 5:13-15, ESV

 

since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. ²³ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. – Hebrews 10:21-23, ESV