Psalm 25 - Asking for Good Memories (A short Bible Study)

How do you like people to remember you?  I think most of us want people to think about our better moments rather than our low points. Think about the time I helped you come to a better understanding of your own faith NOT the time I got baited into a useless debate.  You know, that kind of thing. We’re in Psalm 25, it’s the one where, amongst other things, David asks God to remember him in a very good and interesting way.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

How do you like people to remember you? I think most of us really want people to remember us in our good moments and not by our low points. Things like, remember when I helped you come to a better understanding of your faith? And maybe if you could forget that moment when I got baited into a useless argument and didn't hold my temper very well. That kind of thing. Welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am so glad that you've joined us today. We're in Psalm 25. It's a psalm where David, amongst other things, asks God to remember him in a pretty interesting kind of a way. Go ahead and open up your copy of God's Word to Psalm 25 and we'll read that together. I'm going to ask you to take a moment and remove the things that might distract you from really hearing and soaking in the Word. Let's pray and then we'll get into this together. Jesus, thank you so much for this good day and every day that you have ordained to be. God, we're here to learn more, to draw close to you, to have this moment affect the rest of the day that we have going on. So God, would you please meet with us? We're here to meet with you. Amen. All right, let's read this together. Psalm twenty five of David. In you, Lord my God, I put my trust. I trust in you. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame, but shame will come on those who are treacherous without cause. Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways. According to your love, remember me, for you, Lord, are good. Good and upright is the Lord, therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful toward those who keep the demands of his covenant. For the sake of your name, Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great. Who then are those who fear the Lord? He will instruct them in the ways they should choose. They will spend their days in prosperity, and their descendants will inherit the land. The Lord confides in those who fear him. He makes his covenant known to them. My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release my feet from the snare. Return to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish. Look on my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins. See how numerous are my enemies and how fiercely they hate me. Guard my life and rescue me, do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope, Lord, is in you. Deliver Israel, O God, from all their troubles. Let's take a moment to pause and listen to God. Once again, if it helps you to pause this podcast, go ahead and do so, and we'll continue on together. All right, let's make a few observations about this psalm, and I'm gonna handle this as a whole, uh, as much as I can rather than dividing it into different segments. Sometimes that's helpful and maybe that would be helpful this time too, but I wanted to kind of see all of it together and kind of work it through that way. So I started off by asking myself this question, what was David's concern? Like, there's definitely some requests that come out, particularly towards the end, but what's on his mind? What prompted him to write this? And the first thing that came to my attention was the issue of shame. It actually starts off pretty strongly there in verses two and three. I trust in you, do not do not let me be put to shame, right? Or let my enemies triumph over me. And then he says in verse three, No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame, but shame will come on those who are treacherous without cause. And then in verse 20, which is right near the end, it's like a closing thought, he again says, Guard my life and rescue me. Do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. And I was just kind of thinking, what's that all about? And and we always want to be careful about like maybe overemphasizing something that isn't intended to be there. But it does open and close with that basic idea, the I the idea of shame and and just how uh how brutal that can be. And he's definitely not wanting to experience that in the context of his of his own life. And and I think we can all relate to that. Shame seems to be a pretty big deal, and it can certainly be something that shapes our lives in a negative way if we allow it to do so. So, what were the potential sources of that? And by the way, this isn't me saying that he doesn't have other things that are on his mind, but I just that was the first one that really, you know, again, captured my attention. And and it seems like there are two primary uh sources of it, at least potentially, for him. The one would be to experience defeat at the hands of his enemies. It's definitely something he's thinking about. Uh, he doesn't want in verse two, don't let my enemies triumph over me. And then I believe here in verse uh in verse 20, no, in verse 19, see how numerous are my enemies and how fiercely they hate me. So enemies, but people beating him, I guess, in in, or just, or, or taking from him what isn't theirs to take. That's that's on his mind. That would be a source of shame uh for him. But quite a bit more than that, he seems to be thinking about his own sin and his own rebellion. So let's take a look at this. We're gonna start with verses seven and eleven, and then there's a there's a little bit more. So back to that opening thought. How do you like people to remember you? Well, David has a very specific request of the Lord in verse six and seven. He says, Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. All right, David's not even in the picture yet, but he's the one making the request. And then he says, Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways. Isn't that interesting? Like, Lord, when you think about me, and remember, that's funny that I said that. When we read remember in this context, we're not we're not thinking that God has forgotten or would forget, like a slip of you know, memory that way. But it's like, as you think about me, as you remember me, it's that context. So don't remember me that way, don't think about me that way, don't think about me like from the sins of my youth or my rebellious ways. Don't remember that me that way. But but then he doesn't say, Lord, remember my good points. He actually says, according to your love, remember me, for you, Lord, are good. Isn't that fascinating? That David comes to the Lord and he says, I I'm feeling maybe a little bit anxious here. I I I don't want to experience this shame. And then he and then he makes, Lord, don't remember me by the bad stuff that I've done, basically, right? And then he comes back to it and says, But God, according to your love, has nothing to do with David. According to your love, God, from that place, would you remember me that way? Because I know, Lord, that you are good. I think that's amazing. And, you know, it helps me to think about my my own relationship with God in a in a different kind of a way. And then there are a few more bits here that come out. I'll just highlight them in verses 18 and 20. Again, he's thinking about his sin and their connection to shame. Um he says in verse 18, look on my affliction and my distress, and then he says, and take away all my sins, right? And then verse 20, guard my life and rescue me. Do not let me be put to shame, right? For I take refuge in you. So rescue me, guard me, and don't let me be put to shame. So those those things are on his mind. He doesn't want to lose to his enemies, and and then he's thinking a lot about his own sin and rebellion. So he brings all of that to the Lord, and it seems to be on his mind, so to speak. But then he looks to the Lord for a couple of things. The first one, I guess, is sort of a combo, they're both combos, is instruction and guidance. And he asks for it quite a bit. Five different verses that I pulled out here. Uh verses four and five, he says, Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths, right? Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God, my savior, and my hope is in you all day long, right? Guide me, show me, teach me, right? There's that whole sense of instruction that's taking place. Uh, and then we have in verse eight and nine, he kind of comes back to that idea. Uh, good and upright is the Lord, therefore he instructs sinners in his ways, right? So not just specific to David, but anybody who has fallen short. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them in his way. All of that is there. All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful. So he he invites that to take place. And then I wanted to, oh yeah, verse 12, here it is. Uh, who then are those who fear the Lord? And then it goes on, he will instruct them in the ways that they should choose. Or you could translate that last little phrase as uh in the ways that he has chosen for them. So in either case, it's a sense of God directing uh people in the way that they should go. So he looks to the Lord for those things, instruction and guidance. And then the second bit is uh rescue and protection. Verse 15, he uses that phrase, guard my life and rescue me. Uh, that's a really uh important aspect. Um excuse me, I said verse 15, that's verse 20, but in verse 15 he he writes this uh my eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release me from or release my feet from the snare. And it's a picture of being trapped, right? It's a if you've uh I've not I'm not a super outdoorsy guy. I I like being outside, but you know, some people are into whole like fishing and trapping and hunting and all of those kinds of things, and they'd be like, oh yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. They look to uh to snare uh potential animals for for food or that kind of thing. And he he recognized that and he uses that imagery to think about being ensnared, I would imagine, by sin. So release me from that, uh, rescue me from that. So he's coming to the Lord. I I still think that shame is on his mind. Again, it's maybe not just that, but that's certainly a part of what's taking place, and he's looking to the Lord for uh the sense of rescue. Uh he asks again the Lord to remember him according to his mercy and love, not according to his sin. And then there's this bit that I wanted to get to here, which is it talks about those who fear the Lord, and we and we will look at these uh sections here towards the end, verses 12 through 15. Those who fear the Lord is kind of a good way of thinking about that. Uh who are these people? Well, the Lord will instruct them in the way that they should choose. They will spend their days in prosperity, their descendants will inherit the land. The Lord confides in those who fear him. It's a really uh compelling way that that phrase is there. And it's not that the Lord is confiding in these people to get their advice, but he he tells them about himself. He confides in that sense, he reveals more of who he is to those who fear him. And I was just kind of thinking, you know, if I want to know the Lord better, then then that starts with me respecting him, revering him, fearing him in that good way, in the best possible way we can think about that idea. But when we really do look at God as being God, as the rightful authority, judge, uh, creator, savior, all of those things, all of those things that we think about with the Lord, when we remember him in that kind of a way, then it says here, He He confides in us. He He doesn't withhold Himself from us. So if you want to know the Lord better, uh start there. That's that's where we want to be. And then finally, this passionate petition or set of petitions that he has there beginning in verse 16. Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Right? Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish, and anguish. Uh, look on my affliction and my distress, take away my sins, see how numerous my enemies are. You can see all of that there. He's like, Yeah, Lord, I really do need you to step into my life and to bring about deliverance, not just for me, but for the people of Israel. I hope that's been a helpful way to kind of look at this passage. By the way, I think that there are so many other things that we could pull out of this, but I wanted to just prompt us and share with you some of the things that stood out to me during my time. As we move into reflection, I wanted to just share with you sort of like the three prayers that came to my heart as I went through Psalm 25. They're very short, very simple. They are Jesus guide me, Jesus forgive me, Jesus, rescue me. Just three simple ways of inviting the Lord to move into our hearts, move into our lives. Jesus, guide me, Jesus forgive me, Jesus rescue me. Hey, thanks for joining me through this time together. We're gonna go ahead and pray and surrender the rest of our day to the Lord. Jesus, again, thank you for all that you have done and all that you are doing in the context of our lives. God, you care. You care deeply about us. God, where we have some anxious thoughts, where we feel nervous about what's happening in our lives. We want to give all of that to you. Thank you, God, that we can petition you with everything that's happening. Thanks for listening. Amen.