Psalm 25 is to long for me to print here. The link is here.
Intro: In Psalm 25 David is actively asking for the Lord’s deliverance, and at the same time showing his trust in the character of he Lord.
Main Point: The David clearly has enemies that are seeking to defeat him. David sets out his petition to ask the Lord to remember him, and along the way reminds himself of the Lord’s character. David pleads with the Lord to address his situation, to “consider” him, to “remember” him. All the while David’s eyes are “ever” turned to the Lord waiting for his deliverance. The point for us is that we too should call out to the Lord in our day of trouble, and we should remind ourselves of the how the Lord delivers and befriends those who put their trust in him.
Interesting Points: Being the good Calvinist that I am, the first thing I notice in David’s pleas for salvation is that all things start with God. It is, from first to last, in the Lord’s hands, and at his initiative. It is the Lord who must make his ways known. He must teach and instruct us in his ways. It is the Lord who is our savior, and the only part that we can play is in crying out for him to rescue us. There is nothing that we can say or do that obligates him to act.
The other very interesting point that I notice is in verse 14 “The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him,and he makes known to them his covenant.” It is interesting to me because I am reading a work by John Frame right now called The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, and to quote Frame rather loosely, “Saving knowledge of God is covenant friendship.”
He makes some very broad ethical implications from this. In his view we desire obedience more when this is true because we seek to make our friends happy, and to nurture our relationship. So we don’t typically go out doing things they detest. Obedience to the Lord can fall under the same category when we think our relationship to him as one of friendship. We will naturally seek to know what the Lord likes, and find ways to do those things which are pleasing to him.
I write all of that because I couldn’t have picked a better proof text for his point unless I would have fired up my biblical language software.
Emotional reaction: Thinking of God as my friend is quite freeing to me. I am enjoying thinking about how much my relationship would change if I thought of him as my friend. (Still a Servant, Lord friendship though. Main point I am getting at here is friendship but not equality.)
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