May 29th, 2025
by Dr. Spencer Plumlee
by Dr. Spencer Plumlee
It’s become our habit as a church to preach through the Psalms every summer. In part this is because of the advantage that, with a few exceptions, the Psalms mostly are “stand alone” units. As people miss more Sundays throughout the summer with travel and vacations, the Psalms provide an ideal “series” because they don’t build on one another sequentially like Acts. I don’t know that we will always do the Psalms every summer, but for now, this seems to be a good rhythm for our church family.
Today I’d like to talk a little more deeply about why I believe the Psalms are such an important book of the Bible to regularly read and hear preached. I’ll also end with a quick preview of Psalm 18, our text for Sunday.
Why the Psalms?
The Psalms is the Songbook of the Old Testament. When you read the Psalms, you are looking through a window into the world of worship and praise of the Old Testament. In the Psalms, you are seeing how people for thousands of years have prayed, praised, lamented and more.
The value of this is simple: you see that while we are separated by thousands of years, our problems are very similar. No, David didn’t have an iPhone or an instagram page, but he was a sinner who needed God’s grace. He experienced loss, betrayal, discouragement, victories, and deliverance, just like we have.
There’s a tendency to think that what we are going through is so unique, so different than no one has ever dealt with it before. Not true. The psalms remind us that the universal problem of sin and solution of grace transcend time and space.
The Psalms provide a Vocabulary for Prayer. The Psalms are a compendium of every human experience imaginable. Lament, praise, thanksgiving, wisdom and imprecatory are just a few of the different types of psalms. In each of these different types, we not only see different experiences, but also how to talk to God in those moments.
I often find it hard to pray. Because of the pressures and concerns of life, I regularly find myself at a loss for words before God. The psalms give me words to speak, especially when I have none. One of the phrases I’ve adopted from reading the psalms is, “Who Am I?” We get this notion in Psalm 8:3-4:
3 When I observe your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you set in place,
4 what is a human being that you remember him,
a son of man that you look after him?
I find myself coming back to that phrase often. “Who Am I God, that you would love and care for me?” It’s become a favorite of mine and the psalms have cultivated a reflex in my heart.
This means that the psalms are meant to be not just read, but internalized. They are meant to be poured over so that their words become your words. I pray that as we walk through the Psalms this summer, you’ll find a phrase or two you can internalize, making it a normal part of your prayer life.
The Psalms help us work unused Spiritual Muscles. I asked ChatGPT to categorize the different kinds of Psalms. Here’s what it gave me:
Notice that the number one category is lament. These are psalms that express grief, discouragement and struggle to God. They are often raw and unfiltered. Consider the words of Psalm 13:1-2:
1“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2How long will I store up anxious concerns within me,
agony in my mind every day?”
The Psalmist expresses deep concern that God has abandoned him. Intellectually, he knows that’s not true. God’s always with his children. But the Psalm expresses what he’s feeling in that moment.
Lament is not a “spiritual muscle” we use that often. We either suppress our discouragement, trying to bottle it up and just ignore it or we deal with it in very unhealthy ways like overeating, drugs or porn. The psalms point us to something different: take your discouragement to God. Learn how to talk to God about how you are feeling, especially when you are down. Lament helps us learn how to not only share our discouragement to God but also to experience comfort from God.
Feelings are meant to be stifled or just vented, they are meant to be sifted before God in his word. Bringing your feelings, especially in moments of discouragement, to God is a critical part of the Christian life and it’s one the Psalms help us with.
Preview for Sunday: Psalm 18
This Sunday I will continue our series in the Psalms with Psalm 18. Two things I’d like to point out in preparation for our time together.
First, The Psalm references God’s rescue of David from the Hands of Saul. The Psalms superscript states the following:
For the choir director. Of the servant of the Lord, David, who spoke the words of this song to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from the grasp of all his enemies and from the power of Saul.
These words are just as inspired as the Psalm itself. They not only give the setting for the psalms but also reinforce the historical way it was used for a choir and worship. But here’s the question: which rescue is David referring to? Is it one particular rescue or a more summative rescue? This Psalm might be a summative, cumulative praise of God’s deliverance as it does show up almost verbatim in 2 Samuel 22. But, it does speak of “the day the Lord rescued him” implying a specific moment, so i’ts probably safe to conclude that this was a specific moment of rescue. Here’s a list of the different times David was attacked by Saul and his agents:
We aren’t told specifically which one, but given the way David describes God’s dynamic rescue, I lean to 1 Samuel 23 when Saul’s closing in but is called away to deal with the Philistines. This will not be something I’ll cover in detail in the sermon, so it’d be a great topic to unpack in your Life Groups after the message.
Second, do works save Old Testament saints? At one critical turning point in the Psalm, David explains why God rescued him. Consider these words from Psalm 18:20-24:
20 The Lord rewarded me
according to my righteousness;
he repaid me
according to the cleanness of my hands.
21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord
and have not turned from my God to wickedness.
22 Indeed, I let all his ordinances guide me
and have not disregarded his statutes.
23 I was blameless toward him
and kept myself from my iniquity.
24 So the Lord repaid me
according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
Some Bible teachers believe that people in the Old Testament were saved by their obedience to the law. They see verses like this as reinforcing the fact that the Old Testament believers were saved by keeping the law and New Testament saints are saved by faith in Jesus.
I don’t believe that’s true and I’ll provide scriptural support from the Old and New Testament to prove it. Consider first Genesis 15:4-6:
4 Now the word of the Lord came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.” 6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Old Testament saints were saved by faith in the coming promise of Christ. The promise Abram is trusting is the promise not just about his family, but about a descendent who will come, giving a blessing to all the nations. This is none other than Jesus. No, Abram did not know the name of this Redeemer, but he did trust that God was bringing this savior.
Next, consider Psalm 51:16-17:
16 You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it;
you are not pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit.
You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God
This is the Psalm David prayed after he killed Uriah and slept with Bathsheba. In this moment of deep sin and egregious evil, David doesn’t turn to the law or his own standing. He also doesn’t just talk about ritual in the tabernacle. He speaks of humility and brokenness before God. He throws himself on God’s mercy because it’s the only thing that can save him.
Finally, consider Paul’s words in Galatians 3:21-26:
21 Is the law therefore contrary to God’s promises? Absolutely not! For if the law had been granted with the ability to give life, then righteousness would certainly be on the basis of the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin’s power,, so that the promise might be given on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe. 23 Before this faith came, we were confined under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed. 24 The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith. 25 But since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.
The law doesn’t save because it doesn’t have “the ability to give life.” Why did God give the law? It points out our inability to save ourselves and thus drives us to Christ. It exposes us for who we are and reveals that our only hope is the one who kept the law for us, died in our place, and rose from the dead: Jesus Christ.
So in light of all that, what is David saying? First, understand that the language of the Old Testament is not always a one to one connection to the language of the New Testament. When David speaks of “righteousness,” I don’t believe he’s talking about his perfect standing before God, but rather his attempt to live with faith-filled obedience.
Second, David’s also emphasizing how unjustly he’s being treated. David had served Saul faithfully as a soldier and leader in his army. He’d killed Goliath, attacked the Philistine army and even played the harp to soothe Saul. Yet, for all this kindness, Saul repaid David by relentlessly attacking him.
Finally, I believe the Psalm takes on a messianic tone as it culminates with thanks for the kingship of David. When read in light of the New Testament, it’s impossible not to read this Psalm 18 as pointing to King Jesus. We see a deliberate connection to Jesus in v. 50 when David says, “He gives great victories to his king; he shows loyalty to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever.” Who are these “descendants” and how in the world can God be loyal to them “forever?” David was promised in 2 Samuel 7 that God would indeed establish his throne forever and Psalm 18 is a calling back to this. The forever king who comes from David is indeed King Jesus.
The Psalm, and especially this section, is not teaching that if you follow God He will always deliver you from trouble. It is teaching that God has delivered his King from the grasp of his enemies and that because that’s true, we have hope. Just as God delivered David he delivers his son Jesus. This is the way I will teach this psalm on Sunday and I hope this short explanation helps you prepare your heart and mind to engage. Because of how long it is, we will not read the entire psalms before the message. Please take time to read it before worship on Sunday, coming ready to hear God’s word.
Today I’d like to talk a little more deeply about why I believe the Psalms are such an important book of the Bible to regularly read and hear preached. I’ll also end with a quick preview of Psalm 18, our text for Sunday.
Why the Psalms?
The Psalms is the Songbook of the Old Testament. When you read the Psalms, you are looking through a window into the world of worship and praise of the Old Testament. In the Psalms, you are seeing how people for thousands of years have prayed, praised, lamented and more.
The value of this is simple: you see that while we are separated by thousands of years, our problems are very similar. No, David didn’t have an iPhone or an instagram page, but he was a sinner who needed God’s grace. He experienced loss, betrayal, discouragement, victories, and deliverance, just like we have.
There’s a tendency to think that what we are going through is so unique, so different than no one has ever dealt with it before. Not true. The psalms remind us that the universal problem of sin and solution of grace transcend time and space.
The Psalms provide a Vocabulary for Prayer. The Psalms are a compendium of every human experience imaginable. Lament, praise, thanksgiving, wisdom and imprecatory are just a few of the different types of psalms. In each of these different types, we not only see different experiences, but also how to talk to God in those moments.
I often find it hard to pray. Because of the pressures and concerns of life, I regularly find myself at a loss for words before God. The psalms give me words to speak, especially when I have none. One of the phrases I’ve adopted from reading the psalms is, “Who Am I?” We get this notion in Psalm 8:3-4:
3 When I observe your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you set in place,
4 what is a human being that you remember him,
a son of man that you look after him?
I find myself coming back to that phrase often. “Who Am I God, that you would love and care for me?” It’s become a favorite of mine and the psalms have cultivated a reflex in my heart.
This means that the psalms are meant to be not just read, but internalized. They are meant to be poured over so that their words become your words. I pray that as we walk through the Psalms this summer, you’ll find a phrase or two you can internalize, making it a normal part of your prayer life.
The Psalms help us work unused Spiritual Muscles. I asked ChatGPT to categorize the different kinds of Psalms. Here’s what it gave me:
Type of Psalm | Description | Approx. Count |
1. Lament Psalms | Express grief, sorrow, or complaints to God — either individual or communal. | ~60 |
2. Praise Psalms | Exalt God's greatness, power, and creation. | ~30 |
3. Thanksgiving Psalms | Thank God for specific acts of deliverance or blessings. | ~15–20 |
4. Royal Psalms | Focus on the king of Israel — his reign, battles, or coronation; some are Messianic. | ~10 |
5. Wisdom Psalms | Provide instruction or reflections on the righteous vs. the wicked. | ~10–12 |
6. Enthronement Psalms | Celebrate God as King over creation and history. | ~5–7 |
7. Imprecatory Psalms | Call for God’s judgment or curses upon enemies. | ~10–14 |
8. Pilgrimage Psalms | Sung during journeys to Jerusalem (e.g., Songs of Ascents, Psalms 120–134). | 15 |
9. Messianic Psalms | Foretell or point symbolically to the Messiah (often overlapping with royal). | ~7–10 |
10. Historical Psalms | Recount Israel's history and God's saving acts. | ~6–8 |
Notice that the number one category is lament. These are psalms that express grief, discouragement and struggle to God. They are often raw and unfiltered. Consider the words of Psalm 13:1-2:
1“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2How long will I store up anxious concerns within me,
agony in my mind every day?”
The Psalmist expresses deep concern that God has abandoned him. Intellectually, he knows that’s not true. God’s always with his children. But the Psalm expresses what he’s feeling in that moment.
Lament is not a “spiritual muscle” we use that often. We either suppress our discouragement, trying to bottle it up and just ignore it or we deal with it in very unhealthy ways like overeating, drugs or porn. The psalms point us to something different: take your discouragement to God. Learn how to talk to God about how you are feeling, especially when you are down. Lament helps us learn how to not only share our discouragement to God but also to experience comfort from God.
Feelings are meant to be stifled or just vented, they are meant to be sifted before God in his word. Bringing your feelings, especially in moments of discouragement, to God is a critical part of the Christian life and it’s one the Psalms help us with.
Preview for Sunday: Psalm 18
This Sunday I will continue our series in the Psalms with Psalm 18. Two things I’d like to point out in preparation for our time together.
First, The Psalm references God’s rescue of David from the Hands of Saul. The Psalms superscript states the following:
For the choir director. Of the servant of the Lord, David, who spoke the words of this song to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from the grasp of all his enemies and from the power of Saul.
These words are just as inspired as the Psalm itself. They not only give the setting for the psalms but also reinforce the historical way it was used for a choir and worship. But here’s the question: which rescue is David referring to? Is it one particular rescue or a more summative rescue? This Psalm might be a summative, cumulative praise of God’s deliverance as it does show up almost verbatim in 2 Samuel 22. But, it does speak of “the day the Lord rescued him” implying a specific moment, so i’ts probably safe to conclude that this was a specific moment of rescue. Here’s a list of the different times David was attacked by Saul and his agents:
- 1 Samuel 18-19- Saul tries to spear David to the wall
- 1 Samuel 19- Escapes the assassins with Michal's help
- 1 Samuel 19- Protected by Samuel- assassins are all enveloped with the Spirit
- 1 Samuel 21- escapes and eats holy bread/get's Goliath's Sword
- 1 Samuel 21- Feigns Madness before Philistines
- 1 Samuel 23- Saul stops pursuit because of Philistine attack
- 1 Samuel 24- David spares saul in the cave
- 1 Samuel 26- David Spares Saul again while he sleeps
We aren’t told specifically which one, but given the way David describes God’s dynamic rescue, I lean to 1 Samuel 23 when Saul’s closing in but is called away to deal with the Philistines. This will not be something I’ll cover in detail in the sermon, so it’d be a great topic to unpack in your Life Groups after the message.
Second, do works save Old Testament saints? At one critical turning point in the Psalm, David explains why God rescued him. Consider these words from Psalm 18:20-24:
20 The Lord rewarded me
according to my righteousness;
he repaid me
according to the cleanness of my hands.
21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord
and have not turned from my God to wickedness.
22 Indeed, I let all his ordinances guide me
and have not disregarded his statutes.
23 I was blameless toward him
and kept myself from my iniquity.
24 So the Lord repaid me
according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
Some Bible teachers believe that people in the Old Testament were saved by their obedience to the law. They see verses like this as reinforcing the fact that the Old Testament believers were saved by keeping the law and New Testament saints are saved by faith in Jesus.
I don’t believe that’s true and I’ll provide scriptural support from the Old and New Testament to prove it. Consider first Genesis 15:4-6:
4 Now the word of the Lord came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.” 6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Old Testament saints were saved by faith in the coming promise of Christ. The promise Abram is trusting is the promise not just about his family, but about a descendent who will come, giving a blessing to all the nations. This is none other than Jesus. No, Abram did not know the name of this Redeemer, but he did trust that God was bringing this savior.
Next, consider Psalm 51:16-17:
16 You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it;
you are not pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit.
You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God
This is the Psalm David prayed after he killed Uriah and slept with Bathsheba. In this moment of deep sin and egregious evil, David doesn’t turn to the law or his own standing. He also doesn’t just talk about ritual in the tabernacle. He speaks of humility and brokenness before God. He throws himself on God’s mercy because it’s the only thing that can save him.
Finally, consider Paul’s words in Galatians 3:21-26:
21 Is the law therefore contrary to God’s promises? Absolutely not! For if the law had been granted with the ability to give life, then righteousness would certainly be on the basis of the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin’s power,, so that the promise might be given on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe. 23 Before this faith came, we were confined under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed. 24 The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith. 25 But since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.
The law doesn’t save because it doesn’t have “the ability to give life.” Why did God give the law? It points out our inability to save ourselves and thus drives us to Christ. It exposes us for who we are and reveals that our only hope is the one who kept the law for us, died in our place, and rose from the dead: Jesus Christ.
So in light of all that, what is David saying? First, understand that the language of the Old Testament is not always a one to one connection to the language of the New Testament. When David speaks of “righteousness,” I don’t believe he’s talking about his perfect standing before God, but rather his attempt to live with faith-filled obedience.
Second, David’s also emphasizing how unjustly he’s being treated. David had served Saul faithfully as a soldier and leader in his army. He’d killed Goliath, attacked the Philistine army and even played the harp to soothe Saul. Yet, for all this kindness, Saul repaid David by relentlessly attacking him.
Finally, I believe the Psalm takes on a messianic tone as it culminates with thanks for the kingship of David. When read in light of the New Testament, it’s impossible not to read this Psalm 18 as pointing to King Jesus. We see a deliberate connection to Jesus in v. 50 when David says, “He gives great victories to his king; he shows loyalty to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever.” Who are these “descendants” and how in the world can God be loyal to them “forever?” David was promised in 2 Samuel 7 that God would indeed establish his throne forever and Psalm 18 is a calling back to this. The forever king who comes from David is indeed King Jesus.
The Psalm, and especially this section, is not teaching that if you follow God He will always deliver you from trouble. It is teaching that God has delivered his King from the grasp of his enemies and that because that’s true, we have hope. Just as God delivered David he delivers his son Jesus. This is the way I will teach this psalm on Sunday and I hope this short explanation helps you prepare your heart and mind to engage. Because of how long it is, we will not read the entire psalms before the message. Please take time to read it before worship on Sunday, coming ready to hear God’s word.
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