“1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul 2 in You I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. 3 No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.
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“Big A, little a. What begins with A? Aunt Annie’s alligator—a, a, a. Big B, little b. What beings with B? Barber, baby, bubbles, and a bumble bee. Big C, little c—c, c, c. Camel on the ceiling—c, c, c.” That’s Dr. Seuss’ ABC. “Big D, little d. David Donald Doo dreamed a dozen donuts and a duckdog too. ABCDE, e, e, ear, egg, elephant, e, e, e.” What comes next?
Right—F. “Big F, little f. F, f, F. Four fluffy feathers on a fiffer-feffer-feff.” That book is so much easier to memorize than Fox in Socks or Green Eggs and Ham. “ABCDEFG—goat, girl, googoo goggles—G, g, G.” I’d have a very hard time just rattling of the next page in any of Dr. Seuss’ other books even though I’ve read them hundreds of times too. Why is it so much easier to memorize the ABC book?
Right, it’s easier to remember what comes next because the pages are in alphabetical order. That’s how Psalm 25 works too. This is what is known as an acrostic psalm, meaning that each successive verse begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This was a memorization device. ““Big H, little h. Hungry horse. Hay. Hen in a hat. Hurray! Hurray! Big I, little i—i, i, i. Ichobod is itchy. So am I.”
Psalm 25 was meant to be memorized. It was to be memorized so it could be used in prayer. It was something like the ABCs of prayer and the A to Z’s of prayer. It was designed to help people know how to pray by helping them remember what to pray; “Big J, little j. What begins with J? Jerry Jordan’s jelly jar and jam begin that way.”
This morning we will just focus on the first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet in this Psalm. With these first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet David teaches us to pray in dependence on God for vindication. That’s the claim of this sermon: we are to pray in dependance on God for vindication.
We will study this in three points. First: Aleph, the first letter—lifting up the soul. Second: Bet—David’s request. Third: Gimel—David’s hope. We see David lifting up his soul to the Lord in verse 1, making a request in verses 2, and the object of his hope in verse 3.
First: lifting up the soul. The psalm begins with a preposition. Prepositions matter. It matters whether you are praying to someone or for someone. It matters if you walked into this sanctuary this morning with your wife or against your wife. David began this Psalm by saying that it was to the Lord that he lifted up his soul; verse 1, “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.”
By saying he lifted up his soul to God, David was acknowledging his dependance on God. Jesus taught us to do the same when he began our prayer with, “our Father who art in heaven.” You begin prayer from a posture of dependance—“call him your Father and acknowledge that He is in charge of everything.” You begin prayer from that posture and remain in that posture.
In many ways, prayer is a conscious dependance on God. You see that in Jesus’ prayers, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that Your Son may glorify You.” You see that in Paul’s prayers, “We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives…” You begin by acknowledging your dependence on God. The goal of being driven to your knees in prayer is to be driven to your knees because you know that you are needy.
People who don’t recognize how very needy they are do not pray all that much. When I don’t recognize how very needy I am, I don’t pray all that much. However, even when we do recognize our neediness, we don’t always pray. We often fret or frantically strategize or manipulate or blame; David tells us not to; “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” David was not driven to distraction by whatever situation faced him when he wrote this Psalm. He was driven to God.
You need to learn to go to God. I need to learn to go to God. Calvin was right, “Nothing is more inconsistent with true and sincere prayer to God than to waver and gaze about as the heathen do, for some help from the world…” It doesn’t make sense to pray to God and then fret or manipulate. We do it, but it doesn’t make sense. If you cast your cares upon God, cast your cares upon God. “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.”
For you to find comfort in God, God cannot be one comfort among many. He must be your only comfort. We’ve got that language memorized. “What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own but belong—there’s dependance language—body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.”
We Christians depend on Jesus, and we depend like Jesus. We depend on him like the ear of corn depends on the stalk. He is essential to our continued life. We depend like Jesus. He depended on the Father. We depend upon the Father.
You will have plenty of opportunities to put this into practice this next week. You’ve got situations you can’t fix; “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” You’ve got commands that you need help to even want to keep; “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” You’ve got regrets about the past and worries about the future; “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” Depend on God.
We now see a bit more about the situation in which David told himself to lift his soul up to God. That’s our second point: David’s request. We know more about David than we do about almost anyone else in Scripture. We know about his appearance. We know about his youth. We know about his faults. We know about his career. We know about his children. We know about his death. Thanks to the seventy-odd psalms he wrote, we know many of his inmost thoughts. We know that his life, while in some ways charmed, was also exceedingly difficult. He suffered betrayals, indignities, and sorrows beyond what many of us have experienced, and he also imposed betrayals, indignities, and sorrows upon others to a degree greater than what many of us have inflicted. If you can know anyone through hearing stories about them and reading their personal writings, you can know David.
David didn’t check himself at the door when he prayed. In other words, he didn’t pray generically. Generic prayers are the sorts of prayers that anyone could pray but no one would bother to pray unless they did so out of mere obligation. David didn’t pray that way. David prayed David’s concerns. David’s prayers were all of him engaging with all of God. That’s one of the reasons he was a man after God’s own heart.
We don’t know exactly what David was going through when he wrote this psalm. We do, however, know some of his presenting symptoms, to borrow a term from psychology. A client’s presenting symptoms are the reasons she gives for seeking treatment. These symptoms are what she says caused her to reach out for help. As we read this Psalm, we can tell that David was worried about being put to shame as verse 2 puts it, “I trust in You; do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.”
That’s the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet in the word “in”; “I trust in You; do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.” It is hard to tell how many of David’s difficulties recorded throughout this Psalm were due to sin. He does seem quite concerned with forgiveness of his sins in this Psalm. David acknowledged his sin and he knew that those who were longing to shame him were sinning against him and to be prayed against.
Perhaps David wrote this on the run from Absalom. He recognized that his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah had something to do with this because God told him that it did, but he also knew that Absalom and the officials who were trying to kill him were still in the wrong. “I trust in You; do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.”
Perhaps David wrote this near the end of his life when some of his officials were plotting against his son Solomon. David hadn’t treated these officials perfectly, but that didn’t give them the right to treat him like a bag of bones and disregard his plan of succession. “I trust in You; do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.”
We don’t know the situation behind this Psalm, but we do know that David prayed it—as Calvin put it—“that he might not be exposed to the derision of his enemies, whose pride is no less hurtful to the feelings of the godly than it is displeasing to God.” David had any number of circumstances that could have kept him up every night, but instead prayed, “in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.”
Jesus had ample cause to say, “in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.” There was a real plan to put Jesus to shame. The teachers of the law asked loaded questions in hopes that he might shame himself. His words were regularly twisted to shame him. After his arrest, the Romans made it their business to shame him by heaping scorn on him with mock royal robes and a crown of thorns and then executing him naked. Put yourself in Jesus’ place in the gospels and you can see that any number of occasions could have led him to pray, “in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.”
You’ve had plenty of opportunities to pray that prayer. You’ve had plenty of opportunities to pray that prayer even, like David, as you’ve prayed for forgiveness of sins. You’ve been concerned about being put to shame. Mercifully, this prayer of David’s is answered with a promise. That’s our final point: David’s hope.
The first verse has to do with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet—aleph—which starts the word translated as “to”; “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” The second verse has to do with the second letter—bet—which starts the word translated as “in” and the word translated as “trust”; “in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.” This third verse begins with the third letter of the alphabet; the word it begins is often translated as “indeed”; “indeed, no one whose hope is in You will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.” This is a way of saying “take it to the bank, no one who hopes in God will ever be put to shame.”
This seems like a strange statement because we who hope in the Lord often experience shame. David experienced shame; he lived in caves for years and once had to pretend to be psychologically disturbed to escape with his life. Jesus experienced shame; he was found guilty by a court and executed naked. Moses experienced shame repeatedly in his dealings with the Israelites. Clearly “no one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame,” can’t mean that those who hope in the Lord will never experience anything shameful.
Scripture is actually quite clear that those who hope in the Lord often experience what is shameful. That’s, “blessed are the poor in spirit (those who are beat down)” and, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (because they aren’t experiencing it in their situation),” and, “blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”
The Bible is clear that those who hope in the Lord will experience what is shameful, but it is also empathic that, as verse 3 puts it, “no one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame.” How can you experience what is shameful and yet never be put to shame?
You live by the vindication of God. In the midst of what is shameful, you remember that God will make it right. That’s the second half of each of Jesus’ beatitudes; “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” They are blessed not because they are shamed. They are blessed because ultimately, they aren’t put to shame; they are vindicated. The Christian lives by the coming vindication of God.
We sometimes get to see this vindication in this life. We sometimes get to see verse 3 in this life; “No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.” Treacherous king Saul was put to shame, and David was vindicated and made king. Daniel was saved from the lion’s den and his accusers were thrown into that same pit and immediately killed. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus escaped Herod’s murderous plot and the next statement we read is that Herod has died. “No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.” God puts the treacherous to shame and vindicates those who hope in him. The story never ends well for the proud in Scripture. The story never ends poorly for those who hope in the Lord.
Now you might be thinking about the righteous for whom the story seemed to end badly—those who weren’t vindicated in this life. Abel’s story ended poorly. Stephen’s story ended poorly. Right? No, they didn’t. They were vindicated. The righteous are always vindicated. You see that in Jesus. His life didn’t end poorly. It didn’t end with a shameful guilty verdict and execution. It ended with resurrection. That was Jesus’ final vindication. “No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame.” We are still celebrating that final vindication; that’s why we are here on a Sunday.
Your final vindication as a follower of Christ comes at your resurrection. Abel’s will. Stephen’s will. We will be raised to judgment and that judgment will be one of vindication. The final judgment is not to be feared by the faith filled. It is to be embraced. It is to be longed for as the moment of vindication. That’s what Peter told the elders who experienced shame in their work for Christ, “when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.” Judgment day is vindication day for the people of God.
Make that part of your prayer. Pray as if you will never be put to shame. Pray as if you will be vindicated not because you are always in the right, but because God has promised to vindicate those who rely on His justification. In other words, God promises to vindicate those who rely on Jesus.
That’s the A and the B and the C of prayer. That’s also question and answer 1. “What’s your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own but belong, body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.” It so often comes at the beginning—A, B, C, Question and Answer number 1. They so often come at the beginning because they are so necessary to remember. Amen.