God’s Word for You
Psalm 142:7 He did so much for me
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, August 15, 2025
7 Set me free from my prison, so that I may praise your name.
Then the righteous will gather around me
because you did so much for me.
The prison here is a prison with a lock, not just a pit or a guarded room. It is a place with no hope of escape. David will praise God’s name and give thanks to him no matter what, but he will certainly do it all the more when God frees him from the trap that he is in.
Being set free from the prison of sin must come from the outside, from God himself. It cannot be accomplished by any of us: not by an angel, not by the son or daughter of any man; not by any of us. It could only come from God himself, through Christ. This, truly, is freedom.
This freedom in the gospel must be preached only after the law has been preached and applied to the heart of the sinner. For what man would want his arm in a cast who does not suffer from a broken bone? What child needs a band aid who has not skinned or scraped his knee? Without the law showing us our sins, we wouldn’t think we needed the gospel, and we would scorn the gospel and make fun of it. This is exactly what the unbelieving world does. It mocks what it does not understand, and it stands approving and joining in, just behind the soldiers and the priests as they mocked Jesus during those illegal trials the night after he was betrayed.
As soon as sin entered into the world, God brought the gospel to Adam and Eve. Before that, they lived in a state of perfect obedience. Their life under the law that they kept would have been completely sufficient for salvation. But ever since the Fall, God has proclaimed the gospel either in person or through his servants. The preaching of law and gospel have always been connected in the church. The gospel is preached after the hammer of God’s word (the law) breaks the sinner’s heart and smashes all the sinner’s excuses (Jeremiah 23:29). The gospel, unlike the law, makes no conditions, has no requirements, gives no commands. The gospel only informs and heals with the message of Christ, that he gave himself for our sins, so that he can remove us from this present evil time, and all according to God the Father’s will (Galatians 1:4). Through this same saving message, we have access to the Father, who is otherwise only a terror to sinners and their judge. But in Christ, he is our gentle and loving Father, and we are members of his household (Ephesians 2:18-19).
The ups and downs of this Psalm are like a roller coaster. David knows who his Savior is, yet he wonders if anyone cares about him. He thinks he is in a prison, but then he realizes that “the righteous will gather around me.” Everything that David has, and everything we have, comes because of God’s goodness. God has blessed us with everything we need in life: companionship, shelter, food, a government, literacy, health, a place to worship—even the weather—and his blessings come because of his grace. We each can pray: “You did so much for me!”
That same grace of God is what caused him to send his Son Jesus to be the sacrifice that atoned for our sins. We put our faith and our trust in Jesus, because without him, we may as well be stuck in a cave, hunted by everyone we know. But because he did so much for us, we live with confidence, and we have the confident promise of eternal life in heaven.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.