Psalm 25

St Cuthbert’s
11.07.2010
Introduction

How does one get better at swimming? A question that for me has
had a theoretical feel for some months, but has now a rather sharp
practical edge. It’s not that I’m worried about not completing the one
mile swim, though ask me after my Monday evening dip in Salford
Quays. It is more that people could well be finishing the triathlon,
having completed the cycle ride and run, whilst I’m still in the water
 In truth, looking at last year’s times, as long as I don’t take longer
than 50 minutes, I shouldn’t be entirely on my own.

So what is it about swimming? As I have said to a number of you,

unlike any of the other sports I’ve been involved with, effort alone
counts for very little, whilst good technique is everything. After all,
water provides something like 100 times the resistance of air and so if
you get it wrong you are literally banging your head against a brick
wall.

And so I have worked on my technique. So rapid was my perceived

progress that I was keen to demonstrate my new found prowess to
Teresa – something is of a sceptic when it comes to the triathlon and
also a decent swimmer. The result? She is still easily about 25%
faster in the water.

Only last Wednesday, when I was up at Cheadle baths early doors –

along it seemed with half the retired population of the village - did I
suffer the embarrassment of being overtaken by people who looked
quite a few years older and quite a few pounds heavier than me (and
that’s putting it politely). D’oh.
.

What has all this got to do with prayer? Well prayer is, or more
accurately, should be, the most natural thing in the world, doubly so
for the Christian. Not only are we were made for communion with
God, but also, as Christians, we have entered into a new relationship
with Him through Christ and, in addition, have the Holy Spirit
dwelling within to assist us in our prayers. So wherein lies the
problem?

Answer. Some of us don’t try. Some of us try too hard. All of us

have acquired habits, behaviours, approaches, lifestyles, which
militate against the development of a proper prayer life. And I’m not
just taking about in church.

c.f. Peterson p.155

What we need is help, help, as the disciples once requested of Jesus,

by which we may be taught to pray. Where might such help be
found? Through an engagement with the bible and the stories of the
master prayers that it relates. People such as Abraham, Moses, Paul,
Jesus and, above all, David. I say above all David, for in the Book of
Psalms we have a collection of prayers both written by and inspired by
David, prayers which, humanly speaking, shaped and formed even
Jesus’ own prayer life.

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o What are the Psalms?

The Psalms are a series of prayers / songs / meditations on God and

the life of faith. Although they reveal much about God, they are
equally revealing of those who pray to Him.

In the majority of scripture God talks to us. In the Psalms we talk to God.

More than that, the Psalms are a community resource which have been
worked over through the generations and so represent a manual of
spiritual experience. Observing this communal dimension, we might
best compare the Psalms to a good hymn book which contains items
emanating from every era of church history.

A consequence, the Psalms provide a commentary on the life of faith

and it comes as no surprise that they are divided into five books, just
like the Law – Genesis – Deuteronomy – which they complement. As
such, the Psalm have something to say to every area of human life.

Quote Hooker in Kirkpatrick

o Who wrote the Psalms?

A good number, approximately half, were written by David if you

take seriously the superscriptions, that is, the headings at the top.
Now, if we take the bible seriously, we will want to give maximum
value to David’s involvement with the Psalter, for elsewhere in the OT
he is viewed as the mind behind the worship life of the Temple and an
accomplished musician. Having said that, however, the
superscriptions are, by general consensus, thought to be later additions
– hence the smaller print – and so not part of the original text. To my
mind, then, there status is a bit like the titles of the Gospels. There is
also some ambiguity about their meaning, thus ‘of David’ could mean
that David wrote the Psalm, or that David inspired the Psalm, or that
the Psalm is dedicated to David. To my mind, it is important to take

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on board this point, otherwise we can end up not appreciating a
particular Psalm in all its fulness.

Psalm 25 is an acrostic – that is every verse begins with a different

letter of the Hebrew alphabet – though there is a ‘twist’ which I shall
mention later. There are a number of such Psalms in the Psalter e.g.
34, 119. As such, it is hard to determine any particular ordering or
pattern to the Psalm and so I have simply picked out what I consider
to be its three major themes.

Toggles between prayer and meditation

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 I. Looking to the Lord
A recurrent theme in this, as in all the Psalms.
1
In you, LORD my God,
I put my trust.
2
I trust in you;
do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.
5
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Saviour,
and my hope is in you all day long.
15
My eyes are ever on the LORD,
for only he will release my feet from the snare.
20
Guard my life and rescue me;
do not let me be put to shame,
for I take refuge in you.
21
May integrity and uprightness protect me,
because my hope, LORD, is in you.

Such expressions as these take us to the very heart of Christian prayer.

Lets reflect for a moment on v.1 which is put more literally and, I
think, more powerfully in the KJV

Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul c.f. 86.4; 143.8

Christian prayer is not a looking within, or a looking around, but,

metaphorically at least, a looking up, a looking up to the Lord

Quote Mays p.124

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Christian prayer is about an entrusting of ourselves to the One we
know is faithful, hence the repeated use of the name of God, Lord,
God my Saviour etc.

This is the One who has entered into a committed relationship with us,
a relationship that is based on grace and not goodness. The One who
hates sin, but loves the sinner.

c.f. the three ‘remembers’ of vv.6,7

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Remember, LORD, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old.
7
Do not remember the sins of my youth
and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me,
for you, LORD, are good.

Practically, then, Psalm 25 reminds us of the need to live our lives in

the presence of God, seeing in Him our inspiration, motivation and
guide. It is the same stuff as Psalm 23, though seen from a slightly
different angle, with Psalm 23 being more of a creed and Psalm 25
being more of a prayer.

Quote CHS I.391

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 II. Learning from the Lord

Guidance for tonight’s match. If not a psychic octopus, then maybe a

Psalm

Psalm LX story from CT

o What is guidance as the bible understands it?

From one angle, it is an outworking of a friendship, a friendship we

have with the Lord…

c.f. Psalm 23.1,2

From another angle, it is obedience to a plan and a purpose, the plan

and the purpose of God.
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Show me your ways, LORD,
teach me your paths.
5
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Saviour,
and my hope is in you all day long.

What shape does this plan take? Primarily, it is not about us living a
happy and successful life, though happiness and success of a certain
sort are promised (c.f. v.13) Rather, it is about living a life according
to God’s wishes and reflecting his values, of being like Him.

c.f. the use of the general and the plural

c.f. also Psalm 23.3

Biblical guidance is therefore more about a ‘quest for holiness than for
messages’ (John Piper)

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o Who is the person that God guides?

a) He guides the persistent

vv.5, 15

Seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened…

b) He guides the penitent

Those who know that they need His forgiveness

David confesses his sin four times in this Psalm (vv.7, 8, 11, 18)

c) He guides the humble

v.9

That is to say, those who are willing to subordinate their agenda to His

d) He guides the reverent

vv.12,14

Those who ‘fear’ Him, that is, take Him seriously.

He that fears the Lord has nothing else to fear CHS

e) He guides the faithful

Those who keep covenant (vv.10, 11-12, 21). Those who walk with
him. Not those who are perfect, but those who seek to conform their
lives to His.

The question for us today, therefore, is not only are we seeking to live
our lives in the presence of God, but are we also listening to and
seeking to respond to His direction in every area. I fear that at this

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point all of us have a lot of re-learning to do for, in reality, most of us,
most of the time, are ‘guided’ by things like

o Common sense
o Financial security
o Happiness
o The expectations of others

Each of these factors can have a legitimate part to play, but none of
them should represent our ‘main effort’. That should be to know and
then do the will of God.

c.f. army marching

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 III. Leaning on the Lord

Life is not always easy even for the Christian. Perhaps especially for
the Christian  That point came over very strongly last week in Al’s
sermon.

The Psalms are very useful in countering a false view of faith and the
blessings or otherwise that it brings. In spite of the fact that the
Psalms are full of wonderful, apparently open ended promises to
which we must give full value e.g. v.13 both the Psalms and we know
that life lived in the present moment simply isn’t life that. Indeed, the
Book of Psalms is ultra realistic about the tests that faith has to endure
with ‘Psalms of lament’ representing the largest single category of
psalm types, a fact that I always emphasise to those who are passing
though difficult times

c.f. funeral reference to Ps 22 / Ps 23

Which makes the Psalms an extremely powerful pastoral resource

c.f. the time we got people to write our their own lament – very
moving

Psalm 25 is not a Psalm of lament. However, it does contain an

unresolved tension which runs throughout its verses
1
In you, LORD my God,
I put my trust.
2
I trust in you;
do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.

16
Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
17
Relieve the troubles of my heart
and free me from my anguish.

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 18
Look on my affliction and my distress
and take away all my sins.
19
See how numerous are my enemies
and how fiercely they hate me!
20
Guard my life and rescue me;
do not let me be put to shame,
for I take refuge in you.
21
May integrity and uprightness protect me,
because my hope, LORD, is in you.
22
Redeem Israel, O God,
from all their troubles!

The psalmist faces not only guilt within, the remedy to which, as we
have seen is a reliance on God’s character and mercy, but also
enemies without, who seek to undermine both him and his faith

The unresolved tension faced by the believer be reflected in the way

that the Psalm has been written, which is as an acrostic, though not
one that has been perfectly formed for the Psalm is strictly a broken
acrostic. Two letters are missing; one is established only by altering
the punctuation of the Hebrew text as we have received it (v 22,
referring to Israel, lies outside the scheme altogether).

This brokenness reflects the way troubles break the pattern of life itself. Yet a
pattern remains. Motyer

The Elizabeth Cross & Florence Breeze

She knew that she knew and that made all the difference.

We know that He knows and that makes all the difference to us.

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