Refreshment

 

Text: Psalms 25:1-10

Focus: Restoration

Function: To help us see restoration as God’s plan for us.

¹To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
²O my God, in you I trust;
    do not let me be put to shame;
    do not let my enemies exult over me.
³Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
    let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

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

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

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

Good morning.

The first two verses of this Psalm have been an active part of my prayer life since I first heard it in a song in the 70’s.

Those first two verses “unto Thee O, Lord… to ...let not my enemies exalt over me…” from the King James are a refuge to me in times of distress.

But it is sort of funny how I apply the next verse because David asks God to get even with his enemies.

David, in this prayer Psalm is asking God for protection from people who are mistreating him. After all, he is the King, and anybody in leadership knows that part of the job is facing criticism. So, he will face personal confrontation from time to time. And for people in political power, it can be deadly force that he has to counter. So he asks God to protect him from enemies.

But I don’t pray verse 3, because of the New Testament. Jesus said, treat people the way you want to be treated and love everyone, even your enemies. So, because God loves them, it is hard for me to pray that God gets even with them on my account.

After all, I could be the one in the wrong. Or, we could both be right from our own perspectives and experiences.

And beyond that, who am I that I think I am so special that God would get even with someone on my behalf?

In the Old Testament, we have a paradigm of retribution for sins and wickedness. In the New Testament, we have a God who sends the Holy Spirit into people to give them a conscience and keep them from evil.

People who walk with God and live by faith are the ones who trust in God’s vengeance and not their own.

I see David, in this prayer, seemingly praying to the God of retribution all the while praising the same God for God’s mercy.

It really is quite a contrast from one set of verses to the next.

Jesus told us when talking about forgiveness that if we can’t forgive, we will not be forgiven.

And I think that David alludes to the reason why in this Psalm.

After his prayer for divine protection, he prays a prayer that I call, a prayer of intimacy.

And in that prayer, we catch a glimpse of what he believes the Spirit of God is showing him about what the Spirit of God does inside of a person when they try to walk with God.

Here, the prayer of intimacy starts out with humility.

I believe that when he says “Make be to know your ways, O Lord…” he is admitting that he does not understand all that he needs to know and that he is submitting himself to the leading of the Spirit in his life so that he can walk with God in a way that pleases God.

So, first he says help me with a problem and then he says something like, “help me to know better what you want from me.”

I find a clue in prayer here. He is coming to God to listen and not to tell God what to do anymore. I say “anymore: because he just got done asking the God who he worships as the Mighty smiter to smite someone down.

But, in order to do that, he first must come to God and request mercy.

I wonder if he has a change of heart here.

He speaks to God about how God has been more merciful to him that he believes he deserves.

And as I mentioned it is a prayer of intimacy, he begins to recount the mercy that God has given him and he is reminded, or reminding God that God is faithful in helping people figure out the path of righteousness that cares for the least of them as well as it does for themselves.

And as he reminds God of mercy, he is reminded himself of his own failures and he asks God, because of God’s steadfast love, to ignore or forgive his mistakes.

I wonder how well, or if at all, David understands the difference between retribution and restoration.

For himself, David is asking for restoration and for his enemies, he is asking for retribution.

Jesus completely changes that paradigm. Jesus says that if we want restoration for ourselves, then we must want and apply it equally to others as well.

As we have been forgiven, we forgive.

And in the humility that David expresses in this Psalm, in his ability to confess his own failures, I believe we get the path away from retribution to restoration.

And again, it is the intimacy part of this that I believe leads us to this path. David needs help. He asks God and then gets on his knees and waits and listens. During this prayer time, he begins to express the love he has for God because God is reminding him of how he has been forgiven even though he didn’t deserve it.

He rests in God’s mercy.

And Jesus says this is good, and the next step, is to eliminate verse 3, the asking for retribution and go back to asking God to restore him.

I believe that I have experienced this process in my own prayer. Being a leader, I have had some opposition, some of it was justified, most of it seemed petty and it has also brought me to my knees asking God for help.

But when it comes to asking God for revenge, just as it happened to David in this Psalm, God, by the Spirit, reminds me that I too am not perfect and that God has brought me this far in spite of me. Coming into the presence of God has always brought me to a place of confession and humility.

And then, it doesn’t leave us there.

I find that in prayer, as I surrender my anger, resentment, fear and bitterness and ask God to do for the person opposing me what God has done for me, love me, I find peace and release.

Sometimes the Spirit moves in the heart of the other person, sometimes, the heart is too hard.

But that is between them and God.

For me, the important thing is not to worry about the mote in my brother’s eye, but the log in my own.

And prayer, as this Psalm is, is often a process of surrender. And that surrender refreshes me as God heals and restores my own Spirit through the forgiveness expressed.

So, I believe that we pray, we forgive and we are refreshed.