Psalm 26
Vindicate me, O Lord,
for I have walked in my integrity,
and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.
Prove me, O Lord, and try me;
test my heart and my mind.
For your steadfast love is before my eyes,
and I walk in your faithfulness.
I do not sit with men of falsehood,
nor do I consort with hypocrites.
I hate the assembly of evildoers,
and I will not sit with the wicked.
I wash my hands in innocence
and go around your altar, O Lord,
proclaiming thanksgiving aloud,
and telling all your wondrous deeds.
O Lord, I love the habitation of your house
and the place where your glory dwells.
Do not sweep my soul away with sinners,
nor my life with bloodthirsty men,
in whose hands are evil devices,
and whose right hands are full of bribes.
But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity;
redeem me, and be gracious to me.
My foot stands on level ground;
in the great assembly I will bless the Lord.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The psalm for September 3 is Psalm 26. vindicate me, oh, Lord, for I have walked in my integrity and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Prove me, oh Lord, and try me test my heart and my mind for your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness. I do not sit with men of falsehood, nor do I consult with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers and I will not sit with the wicked. I wish wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, oh, Lord, proclaiming Thanksgiving aloud and telling all your wondrous deeds. Oh, Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells. Do not sweep my soul away with sinners, Nor my life with bloodthirsty men, in whose hands are evil devices and whose right hand are full of bribes. But as for me, I shall walk in and take my integrity, redeem me and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground in the great assembly, I will bless the Lord. Now, if you listened to the reading from the Old Testament, in Jeremiah, you might see something very similar in this psalm reading. It's a Psalm of David where he cries out to vindicate him. That first phrase vindicate me, oh, Lord, gives you a clue as to the situation that might be going on behind the song. You see, throughout the Psalm, David is saying, look at all of my qualities and how faithful I am I, I don't consort with evildoers. I'm not with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of the wicked. I trust in You, I follow your word. I love the habitation of the house, and the place where your glory dwells. This phrase vindicate me suggests that there is a problem that David is facing. And he feels like he needs to be vindicated from God, that God should come down and save him from whatever's going on. And that is, is added to when you look at the end, in verses 11 and 12, where it says, But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity, redeem me and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground in the great assembly, I will bless the Lord. So we've got this idea of redeem, save me, pull me out. And similarly, in verses in verse nine, it goes, Do not sweep my soul away with sinners, Nor my life with bloodthirsty men. There's something going on in the background of this. This is almost like a complaint. David is looking at God and what's going on around him and saying, This doesn't make sense to me, God, I, I serve you. I'm faithful to you. I do all of these things. I don't, I'm not a blatant sinner, I don't go out and do all the bad things. And yet, I need to be vindicated. What I think this does is a couple of things. First, it shows us that it is okay to complain to God when things aren't going the way that we think we should be. When bad stuff happens to us, we can say wait a second God. This is not the thing that you promised for me like you didn't I serve you and stuff is terrible. Fix this. But it also shows us that the pattern of life for God's chosen people often includes being in a situation where we need to call on God to vindicate us. It's especially true for Jesus who is David's son, and I guess the ultimate and perfect king of Israel, who was perfect. He didn't sit with men of falsehood or consult with hypocrites. He hated the assembly of the evildoers and did not sit with the wicked. He loved the habitation of God's house and the place where his glory dwells, and yet, the evildoers all around him seemed to succeed. And so he needed to wait for the Lord his God in ours to vindicate him. And that is the same thing for us. Now that Jesus is risen from the dead. We wait for God to vindicate us, even as we suffer in this world and we face terrible things. We can complain to God and say, Hey, God, this is terrible. This is awful. send Jesus to save us, raise us from the dead so that we can be like him. That's it for today for the psalm fourth Sunday, September 3, we'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai