Download the Bethlehem Baptist Church Mobile App
Available for iOS and Android
May 7/8, 2016
Jason Meyer | Psalms 25:1-22
To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies exult over me.
Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
Make me to 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 long.
Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
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!
Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.
For your name's sake, O LORD,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.
Who is the man who fears the LORD?
Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
His soul shall abide in well-being,
and his offspring shall inherit the land.
The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant.
My eyes are ever 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.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.
Consider how many are my foes,
and with what violent hatred they hate me.
Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
May integrity and uprightness preserve me,
for I wait for you.
Redeem Israel, O God,
out of all his troubles.—Psalm 25
Introduction
I have really missed you! First, I want to thank you for your prayers during my time out of the pulpit for focused writing. There were still many meetings to attend, but the Lord was so kind to me. I felt the empowerment that came through your prayers. It was a productive time of writing (300 single-spaced pages), but even more than being a productive time, it was transformative time. There was a point in the writing leave while writing a chapter on praying in the Holy Spirit that I felt like I was meeting the Holy Spirit. I was so undone and graciously wrecked and then healed and put back together again. It felt like a sacred moment. You will hear more about this emphasis—especially in the Fall as I have a sermon planned on praying in the Holy Spirit.
Second, I want to thank all of those who preached in my absence. Jonathan Woodyard, John Norris, Brian Tabb, JD Hettema, Mark Kernan, and Brian Verrett all preached for Bethlehem College & Seminary weekend. Pastor Kenny Stokes on church planting. Travis Myers on lament and lymphoma. Pastor Billy G. Russell on the message that God is for us! I was here in corporate worship for all of those weekends with my family and was very fed and I am very thankful.
Third, I hope you are ready to jump back into the Psalms with both feet. What we are talking about together today could not be more practical and potentially life-changing. And I believe that God has a word for all of us. And on this Mother’s Day, let me say, ladies, that I haven’t forgotten about you today. I will speak to you directly during the conclusion of the message.
Psalm 25 speaks into a world that looks and feels too much like the movie “San Andreas,” where the ground is shaking beneath everyone’s feet—there is upheaval and panic everywhere. Everyone is looking for a safe place to stand—a safe place of refuge. Psalm 25 is like a megaphone announcement from the helicopter—trust in God alone! He is the only place of refuge, the only solid ground upon which to stand. You make haste to put all of your hope there—you bank everything on it. You may be mocked, you may be ridiculed, but when the dust settles, you will not be sorry. You will be so glad. You will be so vindicated. Everyone—including you—will know that you made the only right move. Therefore, in a world of competing hopes and dreams and places to put your trust, here is the doctrine of Psalm 25—its main point: Those who trust in the Lord will not be put to shame.
Psalm 25 is another acrostic psalm, the third we have seen thus far. Each verse begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet (2 letters are omitted and the second letter, beth, actually occurs not as the first word in the line but the second word in the line). God is our place of trust, our source of truth, our fountain of forgiveness.
Outline
To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies exult over me.
Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
Consider how many are my foes,
and with what violent hatred they hate me.
Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
May integrity and uprightness preserve me,
for I wait for you.
Redeem Israel, O God,
out of all his troubles.
English terms can cause confusion at this point. The Bible sometimes uses the words “shame” and “ashamed” differently than we do. When we speak of shame or ashamed, we mean being embarrassed or feeling foolish. The Merriam Webster Dictionary define shame as “a feeling of guilt, regret, or sadness that you have because you know you have done something wrong.”
The Bible more often uses the word “shame” or “ashamed” in the sense of being let down or disappointed or having trusted in something that in the end proves to be unreliable. It proves to be false so all your hopes are shown to be false.
Now both of those terms can come together, but they do so in a certain order. Let me give you an example. In my small hometown, many people went ice fishing on a lake just outside of town. It was not uncommon for people to want to be the first to drive their truck on the ice. People were putting some serious trust into the fact that the ice was thick enough to hold up a heavy truck. Sometimes their hopes would be dashed when the truck fell through the ice. That person was shown to have false trust, but they also felt embarrassed and foolish for their false trust in thin ice. The thin ice was unworthy of that person’s trust. The Psalmist is confidently declaring that God is trustworthy—he is worthy of all our trust. People may mock us and try to make us feel foolish for putting our hope in him and banking our lives on him, but our hope and trust will be vindicated in the end, when we alone are on solid ground and every other hope proves to be thin ice.
But what does it mean to put our trust and hope in God? It is easy to say those words—they are printed on our money “In God we trust,” but it sure does not mean everyone is actually doing that with their money or their lives.
The next two points flesh out what trusting God looks like in everyday life. We humbly turn to God as our Teacher (our source of truth), and then we run to God as our Fountain of forgiveness.
Before we read these verses and put them in the right order, let us put them all in the right overall order of the Psalms. This is so significant. Remember we said that Psalm 1–2 is the double doors of the psalter (true happiness is found in the word of God which reveals the Son of God—all those who take refuge in him are supremely happy).
Psalm 18–19 is the middle hinge of Book 1 of the Psalms and we have another Messiah and Law combination. Psalm 18 was followed by five Psalms about this King (Psalms 20–24), and Psalm 19 now begins to get further fleshed out in Psalm 25 and following.
Psalm 19 has six specific terms for Torah. Five of those six now appear in the rest of Book I (Psalm 25:10, 34:11, 37:31, 40:8). What exactly does a Law psalm do? Two things: (1) teaches us God’s way, and (2) convicts us of sin.
First, the connection with Psalm 19 and the psalms that follow shows up especially in terms of teaching (Psalm 25:4–5; cf. Psalm 27:11, 32:8, 34:11). Psalm 25 clearly responds to the Torah in Psalm 19 with a ten-fold reference to God’s instruction: “Show me,” “teach me,” “guide me,” “teach me,” “he instructs,” “he guides,” “he teaches,” “he will instruct,” “he confides,” and “he makes known” (Psalm 25:4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 14).
Second, knowing God’s way brings one face to face with all of the ways we fall short and thus we confess our sins. This theme of confession shows up fully four times in Psalm 25 (vv. 7, 8, 11, 18). This theme of confession continues in the rest of Book one (Psalm 32:1, 5; 38:3–4, 18; 39:8, 11; 40:12; 41:4).
So don’t take my word for it. Let’s read it together and see this cycle three times together.
Make me to 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 long.—Psalm 25:4–5
Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
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!—Psalm 25:6–7
Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.—Psalm 25:8–10
For your name's sake, O LORD,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.—Psalm 25:11
Who is the man who fears the LORD?
Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
His soul shall abide in well-being,
and his offspring shall inherit the land.
The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant.
My eyes are ever toward the LORD,
for he will pluck my feet out of the net.—Psalm 25:12–15
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.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.—Psalm 25:16–18
Application: Two Ditches for Professing Christians
Therefore, Psalm 25 makes it plain that trusting God includes looking to him as our Teacher and Redeemer. Where are you today with respect to the clarion call of Psalm 25? Is God your place of trust, your source of truth, your fountain of forgiveness? I know that when I speak to professing Christians, I am always speaking to people that are potentially in two different ditches.
The true function of a preacher is to disturb the comfortable and to comfort the disturbed.—Chad Walsh (Campus Gods on Trial, 1953, p. 95.)
Preaching is ‘to break a hard heart and heal a broken heart.’—John Newton
Here is the way that I would sketch the two ditches:
| Comfortable (hard heart) |
Zealous for good works |
Disturbed |
Ditch #1: The Comfortable
I begin with people who are perhaps in the first ditch. Perhaps there are some who are aware right now that there life has gone slack. There is spiritual laziness and indifference. You are not zealous for good works, and you are rationalizing away your lack of zeal. I would like to speak to you for a few moments. Here is my question, “Can you really read the Bible and conclude that God does not really care what we do?”
Someone may say, “well, sure, you are speaking from Psalm 25. I expect the Old Testament to talk this way and stress obedience, but the New Testament speaks differently.” It was Jesus himself who said, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). The apostle Paul said that Jesus “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14).
Are you afraid to talk about obedience? Does it scare you to talk about good works? I believe it is a great tragedy today that people in the church are not zealous for good works, but nervous about good works. We may fall into the trap of justification by works. Here we must make such careful, wise, biblical, and practical distinctions.
Some people are so afraid of the idea of being saved by works that they go to an extreme position and they stress doing nothing! I was so helped by Martyn Lloyd-Jones saying … the opposite of justification by works is not doing nothing, but doing everything while trusting in none of it. We are saved by grace through faith, not of works, and we were created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:8–10). We are not saved by good works but we are saved for good works. Christ died that we might be the light of the world and the world would see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.
I am talking to you as someone who wants your joy—not to put you on a guilt trip. I totally resonated with something Martyn Lloyd-Jones said in this regard.
If you want to be truly happy and blessed, if you would like to know true joy as a Christian, here is the prescription—Blessed (truly happy) are they who do not go on seeking thrills; seek righteousness. Turn to yourself, turn to your feelings and say: I have no time to worry about feelings, I am interested in something else. I want to be happy but still more I want to be righteous, I want to be holy…Seek for happiness and you will never find it, seek righteousness and you will discover you are happy—it will be there without your knowing it, without your seeking it. (Spiritual Depression, p. 117)
Ditch #2: The Disturbed
But for others I know that the danger you face is that you are disturbed. You don’t lack zeal and concern for obedience, you suffer from the attacks that constantly condemn you for not measuring up or you are tempted to look at past sins and you are stuck there, fixated there, you have a twisted time machine that keeps taking you back to a particular sin or past failure. I have seen this kind of thing destroy people and perpetually rob them of their joy and assurance. Why would anyone fixate upon their past sins this way? Answer: anyone that loves holiness has a holy hatred and shame for a sinful past. Satan’s trap is sprung when we get stuck in the past and relive the sin and feel paralyzed and condemned. Fixation upon the past paralyzes people when they are overwhelmed and overpowered by the crushing weight of guilt. But the cure for this crushing weight of guilt is our passage.
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!—Psalm 25:7
The psalmist does not appeal to his own goodness, but to God’s goodness. He does not appeal to his own love for God, but God’s steadfast love for him.
For your name's sake, O LORD,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.—Psalm 25:11
The psalmist appeals to God’s great name, his glory, his fame as God of mercy and grace and abundant, plentiful redemption. The only thing great about us is our guilt. Everything is great about God — including the greatness of his commitment to glorify his name by paying our great debt.
O, Bethlehem, this could be a life-changing lesson for some today. Looking at the past should result not in depression, but praise for a blood bought believer. When Paul looked at his past, he did not get depressed. He said, “the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:15–16).
What did he say next? “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17).
One precious saint from my first pastorate shared the story of how she was set free by walking in the truth of God’s forgiveness. Her life verse was from Micah 7:18–19:
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.
He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
She came to believe that God buried her sin in the sea of forgetfulness. She would make haste to add, “and in that sea of forgiven sin he posts a sign that says ‘no fishing.’” That phrase was not a shallow, clever cliché for her, because sometimes she said it with a toothy grin, but sometimes she said it through tears. Through laugher or tears, though, I could tell it was her daily bread in the fight of faith. This bread was made from gospel grain and she refused to let it get old and stale and moldy. Each time I spoke to her about it, it had the smell and texture and taste of fresh-baked bread, which had just been pulled out of the oven of faith.
Unbelievers: Those who refuse to come to Christ and follow Him
Others of you wonder why we even have to talk about sin. It is an ugly, offensive topic. Why talk about how God’s commands show us our faults. That is a rotten thing for God to do. But the law brings a knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20) in order that you will know the true misery of sin and then experience the full joy found in the redemption of Jesus (Romans 3:21) the law testifies to that righteousness.
If I came to you today and said, “Guess what, you don’t have cancer,” it would not land on you much if at all. But if you had been diagnosed with cancer and told you had only weeks to live, and then I came to you and said “I just saw the new scan and you are cancer free”—you would have boundless joy. You don’t rejoice in the cure until you come to grips with the diagnosis of the disease.
Have you ever seen yourself as a sinner? Don’t take what some people call the external gutter test, which simplistically equating sins with certain notorious acts like drunkenness or alcoholism or a sexually loose lifestyle, look at sin in its terrible essence. Do you love God? Do you think about him always as your highest and greatest thought? Does he always get your truest devotion and your highest affections? Is he always the center of your life, the source of your joy, the crowning pinnacle of perfection in your eyes at all times?
If you cannot answer all of those questions with a robust and complete yes all the time, that is sin—rebellion against God—being fixated and preoccupied with lesser things, with cold and wandering hearts towards God. The essence of sin is that we do not live entirely, completely to the glory of God. You have the disease.
Let’s make the gospel very practical at this point. Christ's death is enough to save you. It is totally sufficient to wipe away every sin, no matter how deep or dark or dirty. By faith you receive that Christ. You don’t have to be good enough. All you have to do is see that your guilt is great, but God’s mercy in Christ is greater. You may think that you are being humble by hesitating and saying, “I just don’t know if I am good enough to be a Christian.” That is the lie of the devil. It is not humble; it is unbelief to look God in the face and call him a liar. Don’t hesitate. Turn to Christ. Receive the fountain of forgiveness and grace that are found in him. It does not matter if you have a foot in the grave, if you are almost ready to enter into the depths of hell itself, while there is still time—the gospel says, “Today is the day of salvation. If you hear his voice calling you today to come, don’t harden your hearts.” How many of you will be ashamed on the last day because you almost made the move to Christ, but let the devilish thought that you are not good enough keep you from seeing that his salvation is big enough to save everyone?
Conclusion: God will set us free from all our troubles
There is a day coming when every tear will be wiped away. There will be no more family strife, wayward children, parents who have failed us or forsaken us. All sadness, like childlessness, will be swallowed up in face to face fellowship with our Father. If you have tears today—good news—there is an expiration date for all tears and all trials and all pain. The sufferings of this present life (whatever they are) are not even worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed. They feel heavy now—I know that. They feel heavy when we compare them to what other people have or when we compare them with what we want. If you were to add up all the pains of this present life and weigh them on a bathroom scale, you may be overwhelmed with what the scale says. 135 pounds of pain! What the Psalmist says and what Paul says in Romans 8 is that a day is coming that has a weight of glory that no earthly scale can even begin to measure—heavenly glory breaks every earthly scale—like trying to put a blue whale on a bathroom scale. There is glory coming. He has redeemed us and he will set us free from every trouble when Christ comes and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. And I guarantee—if you are in Christ, you will not be disappointed of who you are in him on that day.
Sermon Discussion Questions
Outline
A life of trusting in God looks to God as the ...
Main Point: In a world of competing hopes, dreams, and places to put your trust, Psalm 25 proclaims the doctrine that those who trust in the Lord will not be put to shame.
Discussion Questions
Application Questions
Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to make God your place of trust, your source of truth, and your fountain of forgiveness.