6-17-07
Enjoying God’s Guidance
Favorite Psalms Part 10
Psalm 25 (pt.4)

Summary: David focuses most on God’s guidance. God guides by teaching us a way, not just by selecting choices. It is connected with righteousness because ways are chosen because of loves and preferences. But God is eager to guide – it is part of His nature connected to His holiness. God guides us directly and individually. We should avoid both superstitious mysticism and impersonal generalism. The middle path is that God speaks to individuals through enlightenment (showing what is there – making wisdom, the correct interpretation of a passage, or a correct application clear and plain). Enjoy being guided by God and listen to Him!

Of David. To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; 2 in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.  3 No one who waits for you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.  
4 Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; 5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and I wait for you all day long.  
6 Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. 7 Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O LORD. 
8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.  9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.  10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.  11 For the sake of your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, because it is great.  
12 Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him.  13 He will spend his days in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land.  14 The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.  
15 My eyes are ever on the LORD, for only he will release my feet from the snare.  16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.  17 The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish.  18 Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins.  19 See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me!  20 Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.  20 May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you.  22 Redeem Israel, O God, from all their troubles! 

Introduction
How do you discern God’s will when you are making a decision? In verse nine David says that God guides the humble. How does He guide us? Impressions?  Words of knowledge? Gut feelings? Prophecies? Hidden messages? Fleeces? Promptings? When we pray for guidance, what form should we expect the answer to take? Should we be listening for a still, small voice telling us which way to go? Should we ask for a miraculous re-arraignment of circumstances so that there is no question which way is best? Should we be on the lookout for coincidences? Like the women who decided it was God’s will to fly rather than drive on her vacation because when she woke up her digital clock said 7:47. My question is how does she know it is not a message from God saying, “Steer clear of jetliners”? 
Arguably the most dominant theme in this psalm is God’s guidance for David. He brings it up eight times. And it is no surprise that David would focus on that. When you get into a mess because of your own sin very often it is not easy to figure out how to get out of it. When David’s life exploded with trouble, which it often did, his response was to fix his attention on what God is like. And this time when he did that he saw more than a dozen different attributes, but the one that captured his attention most was the fact that God is the type who guides His people. And when your life is chaos and you are in a world of pain it is no surprise that God’s guidance is going to be one of the main attributes that captures your attention when you focus on God. This psalm is a great example for us of how to seek guidance from God.
These principles apply whether you are in some fix because of your own sin or if you are just faced with a hard decision. We make hundreds of decisions every day – some of them very important and very difficult. Chances are most of you are facing a somewhat difficult decision right now. So what should you do?

The Attribute: God’s guidance 
God guides in ways, not just choices
Let’s begin by doing what David did and fixing our gaze on this attribute. As I describe it, think about how you can enjoy the experience of God’s guidance more in your life so you will love Him more. 
There are two parts to this process of God’s guidance: 1) The action God does. That is described with four different words: Show (YADA, cause me to know) used once; teach  (LAMAD, teach) used three times; guide (DARAK, lead, or guide) used twice; instruct (YARAH, teach) used twice. And 2) The other part is what it is God is showing/teaching.  That is also described with four different words: his ways (DEREK) used four times; (his) paths  (ORACH, path or way) used once; (his) truth  (EMET, truth) used once; what is right (MISHPAT, judgment or justice) used once  

4 Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; 5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and I wait for you all day long.  

8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.  9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.  10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant (lit. who keep His covenant and testimony).  

12 Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him (or in the way he should choose).

God is a teaching God. His way of guiding is not by saying “Choose option B here, choose option A there…” Instead He leads us by teaching us which things are more important than other things.  Friendship is more important than money; godliness is more important than friendship. Family is more important than comfort; righteousness is more important than family. Obedience is more important than sacrifice. Love is more important than ritual. Reality is more important than symbol. Eternal things are more important than temporal things. Affections are more important than actions, etc. 
So God guides us by teaching. And the goal of all the instruction is that we walk in God’s ways. The word “way” refers to the path that your manner of living cuts through the terrain of life. People who live for physical pleasure cut one path. People who live to please people cut a certain path. People whose main interest is money cut another path. People who love power cut a particular path. There are countless different paths you can take as you navigate through life. And there is one path that God loves. And the fact that He loves it makes it the ideal path. It is the path that is in your best interests. It is the path that glorifies God the most. It is the path that will ultimately be the most loving and beneficial for others. Everything about that path is best. It is the path of least regret. It is the path of greatest reward. It is narrow. It is hard. Only a very few ever find it. Most are unwilling to take it when they do find it. But it is without question the best path. There is a God who knows everything, who sees and controls the future, who has infinite power, who is nothing but pure goodness, and who has unrestrained love for His children, and when He says a path is the best path, it is the best path.
One of the most common mistakes we tend to make is in thinking that the most important thing when you are making a decision is which option you end up choosing. When you are seeking God’s will, you need to understand that the most important thing is not which of several options that you choose. When we are struggling with the decision about a job or a large purchase or what to do in some relationship, and we cry out to God and say, “Show me Your will!,” what we want is for God to let us know whether we should choose A or B. But whether you choose A or B is not the most important thing. The most important thing is whether you follow God’s way or another way. There could be two people faced with the same decision and both of them choose B, and yet they took completely different paths. If B is the higher paying job, one guy could choose that because he is greedy and materialistic and a lover of money. Another guy could choose that job because he has the gift of giving and has a deep desire in his heart to support more missionaries and give more to the church and to the poor. The most important thing is not the options you select but the way you take. So when you are seeking God’s will you are seeking a path, not just a choice.
Each time you make a decision you are preferring some things over other things. One person might take one path because he prefers leisure over money. And someone else might take the opposite path because he prefers money over leisure. And so the way God guides us through life is by showing us which things to prefer over other things.
Guidance and holiness: Decisions are a matter of what you love & prefer
And that is why God’s guidance in Scripture is so often connected with righteousness and holiness. If you think guidance is only a matter of which option to select, you’re not going to understand the connection with righteousness. If you are seeking God’s guidance just to find out “Am I going to be happier with this car or that car?” or “Will we be better off in this house or that house?” or “Will I get a better education in this school or that school?” then righteousness does not seem to be a big factor. But when you understand that the real issue is which things your heart is preferring when you choose the Honda over the Chevy (are you preferring the things that are most dear to God’s heart?) then it becomes very clear why it is a matter of holiness and righteousness. Because the very essence of evil is when your heart loves bad things. And the very essence of righteousness is when you heart is delighted by the things of God. The definition of sin is the preferring of anything over God. And the definition of righteousness is the preferring of God over any other treasure. So God’s guidance is a matter of holiness and righteousness even when it is over seemingly neutral things like which car or house to buy.
One preacher said, “Guidance is usually a result not so much of ecstatic heights but of spiritual depths.” That is a great statement.  The way to be led by God is not by getting into an ecstatic state where you hear voices from heaven. It is by knowing God so profoundly, and walking with Him so closely, and being so much conformed to His image that your heart loves the same things and hates the same things His heart loves and hates.
Don’t let that discourage you – it is not out of reach
Now, I hope that does not hit you as a discouragement. Some of you might hear all that and think, “Great – I have not walked with the Lord like I should have. So does that mean I cannot know His will in this decision I am faced with today? Am I going to have to spend years getting where I should be spiritually before I can enjoy God’s guidance?” No. The thing you need to understand about God’s guidance is it is one of His attributes. The fact that he guides His children is an aspect of His nature. It is characteristic of what He is like. It is so close to the core of God’s essential nature that verse eight connects it with God’s goodness and righteousness.

8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. 

It is the very fact that He is good and upright that fuels the pleasure He has in guiding sinners in the right way. He is so good, it is His nature to bring about more good – which requires starting with something not good and making it good. The problem of my sin is the very thing that makes it more certain that He will do this. 
Last week we talked about the fact that God does not just forgive us when we sin – He restores us. He repairs the damage and leads us back onto the right path. So His guidance is an integral part of His restoration when we sin. That is why this psalm (25) that speaks so much about forgiveness and restoration from sin also says even more about guidance from God. One of the sweetest, most precious promises in all the Bible about restoration of a repentant sinner is in Isaiah 57. 

Isaiah 57:15-19 For this is what the high and lofty One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.  16 I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me-- the breath of man that I have created.  17 I was enraged by his sinful greed; I punished him, and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in his willful ways.  18 I have seen his ways, but (now note the three things God is going to do to bring about restoration) I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him, 19 creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel.

Any time there is a promise of restoration from sin you usually do not have to look far for a reference to guidance. In Isaiah 58 the people were going through the religious ritual of fasting while being cruel and unloving to the poor.  So God calls them to repentance. 

Isa.58:6-11  "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.  11 The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Guidance is a key part of restoration from sin because God’s guidance is always guidance into His righteous paths.

Ps.73:22-24 I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.  23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.  24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. 

Why is that? What is God’s reason for always throwing guidance into the package when He restores us from our sin? The answer to that is in the 23rd psalm. 

Psalm 23:3 He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness…(Why?) for his name's sake. 

It glorifies His name when He takes sinners from the path of sin and restores them to the path of righteousness. And that is why He is zealous to do it. God will literally cross land and sea to be a guide for you.

Ps.139:9-10 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me

If Scotty suddenly beamed you out to the farthest reaches of the universe God would be there to guide you.
God’s will is not a guessing game. Following His guidance and discovering His will for your life and for a particular decision is not a cosmic Easter egg hunt with God giving hints and saying, “You’re getting warmer.” Think of your own children. If one of your kids just really, really wanted to do your will – wanted to walk in the path that was most delightful to your heart, would you tell that child what you want in Chinese or some code that the kid could not figure out?  God is the best, most effective communicator in the universe. And He guides us like a father guides his little children. You don’t give your two year old child a topo map and a compass and drop him off in the forest and say, “Meet you back at camp.”  A father understands the limitations of his child, and that is the model for how God deals with us. (Psalm 103:13 – F is for “Father has compassion”)
A teaching process, but not remote - direct
Now, when you think of God’s guidance as a teaching process, do not let that create a picture in your mind in which God sends you a textbook from heaven and tells you to study up. Scripture does not describe God’s guidance in remote, detached terms. It is not a distance learning program. Jeremiah 31:32 describes God’s guidance in terms of taking His people by the hand and leading them.

Ps.63:8 My soul follows hard after you, and your right hand upholds me.

God’s guidance is very personal and individual.

Avoiding errors on both sides
Christians have tended to fall into one of two errors on either side of the truth with it comes to following God’s guidance. Some of our Charismatic friends focus so much on the immediate, direct, personal aspect that they tend to fall into the error of superstitious mysticism. They are always looking for voices from God or messages hidden in circumstances or coincidences, or they turn the Bible into a book of magic. They figure out God’s will by playing Bible roulette – randomly opening to a verse and then ripping a phrase of that verse out of context to apply to their situation.
The problem with that approach is it is superstitious. There is no rational basis for believing that some feeling or some coincidence carries a particular message. Even in the case of supernatural knowledge – like knowing some information about a person that you had no way of knowing; demons can convey information like that just as well as God.
It is possible to become so enamored with the miraculous that you are not really all that interested in hearing God’s voice unless it comes in miraculous form. People like that get real excited if they hear a voice that tells them the name of some person they have never met – or some fact about that person’s life. “Last Tuesday you thought about calling your mother, and you dialed but then quickly hung up.” And if it turns out to be true they get all excited – “I heard the voice of God!”
If I got up here and preached a whole sermon on the woman who started to dial her mother and then hung up, and the next week I preached on the item someone had in her purse that was revealed to some modern day prophet - a whole sermon on a yellow handkerchief, it would not be long before every seat in the place would be empty. In fact, I doubt even the supposed prophets who got those revelations would be interested; which goes to show that it is not really God’s Word they love, but rather they are just in love with miracles.
Others see that error and overreact to the other side and end up erring by making God’s guidance nothing but impersonal, indirect, general information recorded in the Bible that is the same for everyone; God does not speak directly to anyone, He just gave us the Bible – so God’s speaking is exactly the same for every human being on the planet.  The problem with that is that Scripture speaks of God speaking to us and guiding us as individuals. 

Isa.30:21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left you will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

And right here in Psalm 25 David says,

14 The LORD confides in those who fear him

The word “confide” in this context most likely refers to the secret communications within an inner circle. “God opens his mouth to speak to them without any reserve.”  
And if God’s only communication to us is in the print on the page of the Bible, then what are we to make of all the promises that God will guide us on the condition that we repent of our sin. The Bible can be read by anyone – even unbelievers. When David cries out to God in this psalm for guidance, he is not asking God to drop a copy of Scripture out of heaven into his hands. David had the Scriptures, yet he still prayed for guidance.
So what is the truth that lies between the errors of superstitious mysticism on the one hand and no direct, individual speaking on the other hand? The one side points to miraculous speaking – like the way God spoke to the prophets. But not all people are prophets. In fact, after the completion of the Bible, I do not believe God is giving any more direct, prophetic revelation in addition to Scripture. The other side points to the Bible as the only way that God ever communicates now. But is there anything else? Is there any way Scripture speaks of God communicating to us besides the miraculous way He spoke to the prophets and the general way He speaks in the Bible? Is there ever a sense in which God communicates something to you, as an individual, that is specific and personalized to you, and yet is not a miraculous prophecy? Yes. There is another way God speaks to us. It is called enlightenment.

Enlightenment
It is when God opens your eyes to see some specific truth.

Eph.1:18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, 

These people are already saved, but Paul is praying that God will open their eyes in a greater way to some specific truths. There is a huge amount of truth that is just sitting there in front of our faces that we are blind to. And God speaks to us by turning on the light in a specific area and showing you something that is there that you could not see or accept before.

Isa.42:16 I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them

Ps.43:3 Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.

The people who get into the superstitious error have the problem of never knowing for sure if what they are hearing is God’s voice. People sometimes ask me – “When God speaks to you, how do you know it is His voice?” But if you understand that God speaks to us not through promptings or impressions or coincidences, but through enlightenment, then you do not have to ask the question, “How do you know if it is God?” If there is light, of course it is God. That is like asking, “How do you know when someone has turned the lights on in a room?” You know by whether or not you can see clearly. God does not give you special, superstitious insight into where the chair is – He just turns on the lights so you can see plainly where it is.
Now, I want you to understand what I mean by this, so I will show you how it works in three areas: Wisdom, Interpretation of Scripture, and Application of Scripture. 

WISDOM
Imagine you are trying to make a basic wisdom decision that there is no direct statement about in Scripture. For example, should I buy a house right now or just rent? My first step is to go to God in prayer and as Him to guide me. First and foremost, that is a matter of me loving the right things and having the right priorities. But once that is in place there is still the question of how to best achieve the spiritual goals that I now have. My motivation is I want to be a good steward of the money God has entrusted to me. So now I need wisdom to know what is the best way to avoid squandering that money? So how is God going to answer my prayer for guidance and wisdom? Should I watch for some strange coincidence that has to do with buying or renting and try to interpret it? No. God does not use darkness and obscurity to communicate. He uses light. The most common way is for Him to answer a prayer for guidance in a case like this would be to simply open my eyes to wisdom by means of providence.
So you go to a wise a realtor and say, “I have heard it is bad stewardship to rent, because your money goes down the drain every month, so I think I should probably buy.” And God provides a realtor who is willing to explain to you that in the market you are in it will probably be a net loss if you buy and resell within five years. The appreciation on the house probably will not be enough to cover the realtor fees. And you are a junior in college and are planning on moving away within a year or two. So now the lights are on. You can see clearly what the wise course is. That is the voice of God. God is in charge of which realtor you talked to, and whether that realtor knew what he was doing, whether he would be a clear communicator, whether you would understand or misunderstand, etc. And God providentially moved all those factors to bring you to a point of being able to see the wise course.
How do you know it was God’s voice? Because the light is on. It is just as plain as day to any unbiased person who considers the facts, that it is the wise course.  If you go to your friends and say, “God told me to rent and not buy” and they ask how you know it was God, and you say, “I can just feel it in my bones” – all they can do is say, “Well, if you say so.” But when God really does speak, He turns on the lights, and everyone around can plainly see what is there. Now, if you explain your reasoning to all your godly, unbiased friends and none of them can see what you see, it may be that you are imagining something.
INTERPRETING SCRIPTURE
It works the same way with interpreting Scripture. Paul wrote to Timothy and explained some principles in the beginning of 2 Timothy two, but he did not expect Timothy to fully understand them until God gave Timothy enlightenment.

2 Tim.2:7 Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.

We need God to open our eyes so we can understand the meaning and significance of what He said in His Word. And another thing we need is for Him to give our hearts the ability to accept and delight in what He said in His Word. If you are not willing to accept a truth, you probably will not be able to understand it.

1 Cor.2:14-15 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things

So the Holy Spirit enlightens us by making our hearts willing to accept a truth so we can then understand it when the lights go on. If you are unwilling to accept something is true you will not see it even when the lights are on. So the Spirit works in our hearts and transforms our affections and desires and biases so we are willing to accept the truth.
If you are looking for insight, do not expect God to give it by means of misuses of His Word. For example, Bible roulette. That is when you just flop your Bible open and randomly point to a statement and then apply it in a way other than it was originally intended. Or another example – allegorizing. Any time you draw any interpretation from the Bible that differs from what was originally intended by the author, you are misusing God’s Word. And God does not want us to seek His guidance through the misuse of His Word.
The way God speaks to you through Scripture is by opening your eyes to what is there. And once He has done that it is obvious it was His voice because the correct interpretation is plain to see. You can point it out to anyone who knows the proper way to interpret the Bible and they will say, “Of course – I can see now that that is what that passage means.”
For example, suppose you are studying Psalm 25 and you are trying to figure out what the very first line means – unto you I lift up my soul. God does not speak to you by just having you sit around and daydream about different possibilities until you think of one that you really like and that will get lots of “oooh’s and aaaah’s at a Bible study discussion group. Instead He will lead you to the right commentary or teacher or He will move in your heart to make you think to search on that phrase in your Bible software, and once you do that it becomes very obvious what it means to lift up your soul to something. It means to make that the object of your desire. God turns on the lights and lets you see what is clearly there. And when he does that you can show what you discovered to pretty much any unbiased person and they can see it plain as day.
APPLYING SCRIPTURE
So it works with wisdom, it works with interpreting the meaning of Scripture, and it also works with the application of Scripture. When you are discerning what a Bible writer meant by what he said in a specific text that is interpretation. When you use that principle to make decisions in life that is application. For example, Paul urged Timothy to use a little wine for his stomach’s sake in 1 Timothy 5:23. That passage has one meaning and one meaning only. There is only one correct interpretation of that passage. The correct interpretation is that Timothy was to use wine for his stomach in a medicinal way. There are no other meanings and there never will be, because a passage can never mean what it never meant. So that is the meaning. 
From there, you discern the principles that are implied. One principle is that Christians should use medicine when they are sick. That is a necessary implication of what Paul said. Another necessary implication is that it is okay to seek relief from suffering. Another necessary implication is that we ought to be concerned about one another’s suffering. Another is that the solution to sickness is not always repentance from some specific sin in the sick person’s life. 
So if you are facing a decision in life – like whether you should take your sick grandmother to the hospital or just trust God to heal her, God will speak to you and guide you to the right decision. But He does not speak to you by sending a cloud formation in the shape of a hospital that makes you think, “Aha! A message from God!”  Nor does He try to guide you through ambiguous feelings in your stomach that you interpret as “a sense of peace” about this or that decision. I do not know how feeling a sense of peace ever came into use as a means of supposedly hearing God’s voice. Jonah felt so much peace in his disobedience that he was sleeping like a baby in the middle of a raging storm. And Jesus felt so little peace over His decision to obey the Father and go to the cross that He was up all night sweating blood. No, God does not have to resort to ambiguous, unclear means of communication like that. He guides you in the right way by turning on the lights and letting your mind notice 1 Timothy 5:23, and then enabling your heart to understand and apply its intending meaning.

Enjoy being guided
God is an ideal Guide
It is important, in your quest to love God, to learn how to enjoy being guided through life by Him. He is such a perfect Guide. He knows you. He knows your needs, your limitations, where you are now, where you need to go; He will not be manipulated, but He will show great compassion. He knows your blind spots, He knows the dangers and the places where you are likely to be lured off the path. He has all the power you need, all the wisdom it takes, all the kindness there is, He is able to guide you; He is willing to guide you, and He has promised over and over and over that He will guide you.
All that is left is for us to become glad followers; to be like David in Psalm 63:8, where he said his soul clung to God and followed hard after Him; to listen to His Spirit through His Word. It is such a thrilling reality to know that God has taken you by the hand to guide you. He speaks to you through His Word.

Jer.15:16 When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight

Any time the lights are on, and you can see a situation or a decision or a text of Scripture clearly - realize that that is not just your own intellect. It is a direct, personal experience of God Himself! You are experiencing what it is like to be guided by Him! When a truth clicks while you are studying your Bible or listening to a sermon, and a principle becomes clear - don’t miss the fact that you are experiencing the very presence of God and are receiving grace directly from Him. If you have a sense that something is wrong and you should not do it – that is not just your memory banks. It is the actual voice of God - a direct experience of Him! Without that direct action of God the wrongness of the act would not come to mind. Or it would not seem wrong. Learn to take the direct, immediate voice of God’s Spirit seriously. When the lights go on that means He is in the room! Talking to you! 

Listen! 
Be very discerning whenever someone tells you to listen for the voice of God. Usually when people urge you to do that what they have in mind is superstitious mysticism. They want you to stop praying, and empty your mind and wait for some thought to come floating in along with a warm fuzzy feeling, and then assume that is God talking to you. Please do not ever do that. Satan will masquerade as an angel of light and tell you all kinds of wonderful sounding things that are 99% true with 1% of the arsenic of some deadly error mixed in. So do not do that.
However, having said that, I do want to urge you to listen for God’s voice. Seek His guidance. Listen to hear God’s voice with an expectant heart. When you open your Bible each day, do you expect God to speak to you? Or are you just getting your Bible reading done?
What about when you come to church? Do you come here expecting to hear from God – to have the Spirit of God communicate something directly from the mind of God into your heart? Something that is just what you need right now in your life? If you are like me you critique most every sermon you hear. It was a good sermon, bad sermon, too long, not enough illustrations, too loud, too soft, whatever. Maybe a better way to critique a sermon would this based only on how much of God’s voice was in the sermon. If there is a lot of God’s voice heard clearly and accurately in a sermon, it could hardly be too long. And if there is very little of God’s voice in a sermon it could hardly be too short. 
And if we thought that way – so that our main question was, “How much of God’s voice was in that sermon” before long I think we would probably start critiquing the sermon less and critiquing our listening more. So you walk out of church thinking, “How well did I listen to You, God? And how much delight did I take in what You said to me?” Next week we will look at the threefold response and then learn four very specific things this psalm teaches us to do when seeking guidance from God.

Benediction: Ro.15:13  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Daily Devotionals

The God who guides those who fear Him 

Psalm 25 (God’s guidance), Day 1

Psalm 25:10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.  

Good morning Father,
Thank You for giving Your servant breath this morning to rise for another day.  Now I stand at the threshold of a new week – another full 7 days of being led by You, being
by You, being encouraged by You, being sheltered and refreshed by You, being disciplined by You, being forgiven by You, being kept and preserved by You, being sanctified by You, being used by You, ruled by You, being listened to by You, being treasured by You, being exalted and glorified by You, being restored by You, being vindicated by You, being healed by You, being watched by You, being provided for by You, being spoken to by You, being delighted by You, being rewarded by You, being understood by You, being interceded for by You, being thought about by You, being enabled and empowered by You, being quieted and stilled by You, being delivered from evil by You, being repaid by You, being visited by Your presence, and being satisfied by You!  I can hardly wait to experience this week!

Lord, let me be aware of as much of that as possible today. Please enable Your servant to commune with You. What a wasted day it will be today if You do all that and I fail to even realize it or enjoy it all day long. What folly it would be if I were more interested to think about temporal things than about those things. Please help me Father. 

When I move through Your creation today, let me see it for what it is. Let me see much of You in the physical emblems You have created – let me see Your power and wisdom and goodness wherever I look. But Father at the same time let me also realize, whenever I see any wonderful thing You have created, how utterly incapable those things are (even at their best) to satisfy my soul.  Let me see much of You reflected in them, but let me see nothing but emptiness in them alone. Father if I’m struck with how beautiful some woman is, or how tasty some food is, or how good some air conditioning feels, or how comfortable some chair is, or how fun some vacation would be, or how exciting some ministry would be – let my first, knee-jerk thought always be, “Oh Lord, how utterly incapable that thing is to satisfy me; and how fully capable Your love is to satisfy me – teach me to prefer You.” Lord, let that become a habit, so I say that a hundred times a day. Help me to train my soul to see much of You reflected, but nothing inherently satisfying, in the creation.  

Psalm 25:12-13 Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way he should choose. 13 He will spend his days in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land. 

These verses promise that if we fear God we won’t have to fear the possibility of not being led. If we take Him seriously – and our hearts are truly gripped and made serious at the possibility of facing His indignation or chastisement; if we tremble at the realization that some of the things we do really do displease Him, and in His anger we may be subject to pain that can seem unbearable; if we love Him so deeply and prize His glory so highly that the thought of grieving and dishonoring Him is a great anxiety to us – then we have His promises to guide and prosper us. They are as certain as His own glory. 

The reward for fearing God is the removal of every other fear. That’s not to say God will remove the things that were the object of those fears. For example, if we sin and face consequences, if we fear God then we don’t have to fear those consequences.  The consequences still remain, and are still painful; but we have no reason to fear them if we fear God, because we have certainty that they are all loving, corrective chastisement giving us exactly what we most need and perfectly tailored so that any part that isn’t absolutely necessary for our good is trimmed off.  

Attribute to behold, desire, experience & enjoy: The God who guides those who fear Him 
Promise to trust: If I fear Him He will guide me
What will result if I experience this attribute today: Greater love and desire for God (and all those He loves), Safety and protection, Peace and calmness, Guidance and clarity with regard to direction, Confidence, courage, A sense of being attended to and cared for, Hope and rest, Motivation, Enlightenment, A greater abiding presence of Christ in the heart, Experiential knowledge of the love that surpasses knowledge, Fear of God, awe and reverence
 
The God who confides in those who fear Him

Psalm 25 (God’s guidance), Day 2

Good morning Father,
Let me see Your glory this morning. Show me the wonder of this particular grace, and dear Lord – please, do what I can’t do: lodge it in my heart and make the connections with other understandings of You that the memory of this attribute would not dissipate after a few days but would linger in my heart and become a part of my conception of You throughout the rest of my life. I don’t know how to bring that about. I just know it sometimes happens but often doesn’t. Please, Lord, let it happen this time. I pray that my time with You this morning – and every morning – would not be like eating breakfast, but like waking up. Eating breakfast is an event that takes place for a few minutes and then it’s over – albeit with a lingering effect. I don’t want my morning devotions to be like that – a shot in the arm in the morning. I want it to be more analogous to waking up. I get so distracted with the cares of this world that so often my fellowship with You and my awareness of Your presence is so meager that it’s almost as though I were dead to You – or asleep to You. Let my morning devotions be that which wakes me up to Your presence – putting me in a condition (wakefulness) in which I remain throughout the day. Let my time with You now not be something I start now and complete in an hour, but rather something that takes an hour to start but that lasts all day. 

Psalm 25:14 The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. 

The word “confide” can refer either to the secret communications within an inner circle, or it can refer to counsel. Here it’s probably the former. K&D explain it this way: “God opens his mouth to speak to them without any reserve.”  

The knowledge of the covenant here refers to experiential knowledge.

God has been describing several benefits that come to those who fear Him, now one more – God confides in them and makes His covenant known to them. If you fear God He will open His mouth to speak to you without reserve, as one of His inner circle. That can’t just refer to the Bible. The Bible is given to the whole world.  It must mean something more – special, unique communications to you specifically.  That is not in any way to endorse superstitious mysticism that misuses the holy Scriptures by turning God’s Word into a book of magic. It simply means that for Christians God gives insight into the correct, intended meaning of His Word, and providential guiding of our thoughts to see applications that fit just what God wants us to understand for our circumstances. God teaches us His Word! He shows us specific applications just for us! In that way He talks to us! 

Oh Lord, open my ears to hear. Let me be a careful listener to Your voice. Let me miss nothing that You are saying. Don’t let my own loud, obnoxious thoughts drown out Your voice in Your Word.

Father, teach me to see and treasure this attribute.  Teach me to love the fact that You are like this – gathering an inner circle, including such as me in it, and confiding holy thoughts. Awaken me to the experience of receiving those thoughts, Lord. When they come, don’t let me miss the fact that they are coming from You. Don’t let me just enjoy the thought as a mere interesting or helpful insight for living my life. Lord, let me enjoy the experience of being taught and confided in by You. Teach me, every time an insight comes, to remember that that isn’t just a chance occurrence of my brain figuring something out; it’s a direct experience of You! It’s a direct encounter with Your presence in which You have spoken to me and imparted a wonderful grace to me. Let those times become intensely personal acts of fellowship, not just lessons learned. 

And Lord, teach me to have that same kind of enjoyment of You when You make me know Your covenant with an experiential knowledge. Everyone can know it intellectually – even the wicked to some degree. They can know all about Your covenant. Many of them know more about it than I do. They know information about Your covenant, but they don’t know covenant life with You. I do. If I fear You, I will know covenant life with You.  I’ll know what it’s like to have experienced it. Dear Lord, increase my experiential knowledge of Your covenant today.

•	Father, the next time I resist a temptation of something I really want, and I have that sense of having missed out on something, remind me that I’m resisting because I fear You – take Your chastisement seriously. And therefore I will receive all these promises, including special insight and experiential knowledge from You. And let that rejoice my heart and snap the cord that tries to tug my heart toward that sin. 

Attribute to behold, desire, experience & enjoy: The God who confides in those who fear Him 
Promise to trust: If I fear Him He will confide in me
What will result if I experience this attribute today: Guidance and clarity with regard to direction, Confidence, courage, A sense of being attended to and cared for, Enlightenment, A greater abiding presence of Christ in the heart, Experiential knowledge of the love that surpasses knowledge, Fear of God, awe and reverence, Desire to obey

Guidance 

Psalm 25 (God’s guidance), Day 3

Psalm 25:14 The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. 

God makes known His secrets to you.  No ear has heard nor has any mind conceived of His secret council, but He has revealed it by His Spirit. His Spirit searches the deep things of God and knows everything about Him – things that could never be discovered any other way. And He has given you His Spirit that you might understand what He has freely given. 

You know someone when you walk with him all day.  The little remarks and reactions that take place in a thousand different contexts – you can never learn those things about a person without lots of time spent walking with him.  There is so much about a man that his wife of 20 years knows that no one else could ever know, just because she has been with him in so many contexts. 

Dear Lord, let me know You that way. You are with me in every different context throughout the day, but that does me no good if I’m not aware of Your presence. All the time I spend ignoring You is time that I’m not learning of You in those contexts. Lord please, awaken my heart to Your presence, that I might drink in all of Your confiding.  
Let me especially enjoy the uniqueness of what You say to me and reveal to me – different from what You say to anyone else. Let me enjoy that kind of friendship and intimacy.  

There is a fear among some that a person who focuses too much on intimacy and friendship with God will forget His awesome majesty and will fail to properly fear Him. But this promise is that God will grant that close intimacy and friendship only to those who do fear Him. The solution is built right in to the promise at the very beginning in a way that prevents the problem from even occurring. Someone might imagine he has intimacy and friendship with God while failing to fear Him, but it will never actually happen until he fears God.  

Father, teach me to fear You that I might know You intimately. At the end of the psalm, instead of asking for relief, he asks for forgiveness. He lays the ax at the root of the cause of all the problem. Lord, teach me to be like that. Make me one who would sooner be forgiven than relieved – who prefers cleansing to mere comfort. If You would just look upon me with pity, dear Lord, the cleansing and grace that would come to me are all I want.  
 
Psalm 25:4-5 Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths;  5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and I wait for you all day long.  

Holy God, show me and teach me and guide me in Your ways, paths and truth. This is the desire of my heart, but so often it is a weak, tepid desire that is easily overridden by desires for far lesser things. I desire to be shown Your ways, but so often You show them to me and I prefer my own ways instead. Lord, please show me not only Your ways but the gloriousness of Your ways. Open my eyes not only to the right way to go but to what it is about that way that is so wonderful, that I may eagerly prefer that way and choose that way as a knee-jerk reaction to the presentation of an option. Create in Your servant’s heart a love for Your blessed way. 

God is our salvation; our Savior. Why would we want to take any other path than that of our only Savior? Why walk down the path of destruction? There are times when the tempter convinces us that God’s path has nothing really to do with His salvation.  “Spend a few seconds enjoying this thought. Yes, technically it’s forbidden, but it’s no big deal. What harm is it going to do?” 

Lord, I’m so prone to listen to that reasoning and to be persuaded by it at the moment of temptation, because I so fail to love Your ways. Let me see clearly enough the goodness of Your path that I don’t have to understand what harm is done by stepping on to a particular other path. All I need to know is that being on Your path is so wonderful that I want nothing of anything else. 

Lord, today begin to teach Your servant to hunger and thirst and long to experience You as my Guide in a greater way. Lord, somehow break through the crusted-over, dried up doctrine that sits in my brain and informs me that You are my Guide but that fails to excite my soul with passionate joy and exuberant gratitude. I would almost rather not know a truth about You than to know it and not love it with all my being, including my emotions. Let today’s hunger pangs remind me that Your saving guidance into Your paths is the food my soul needs; otherwise it will lapse into a low blood sugar crash that will keep it from being able to commune with You. Give me a feeling of desperate need to experience You as my Guiding Savior. 

Let me see Your truth in the areas where I’m deceiving myself.  Lord show me the sins I’m not even aware of. Wake me up to the wrong paths along which I have persisted. And let me love Your truth in the areas in which I know I’m sinning. Father, let me see the clear fork in the road between Your blessed way and the path of ruin and destruction, and let me not desire to take any steps down the path of death – even if they are measured in increments less than a second. Let me always prefer You. The less I prefer You the less I experience the blessedness of Your saving grace. Let me crave that grace so deeply that I strive for it every moment, like a baby chick with its mouth so wide open, wanting nothing but real food, and distracted by nothing. 

Let me wait all day long. Let my existence today and every day be 86,400 consecutive seconds of waiting – eager expectation of that which flows from such a good Savior.  Let my eager anticipation of the next deep drink from Your river of delights keep me so glued to Your path that my thirst stands like a steel guard rail keeping me from wandering even one step from the path that leads to that glorious river. Give my heart that pre-Christmas anticipation of a child who feels he just can’t wait until the 25th.  Make me that way for Your path – such eagerness to see the wonders that are around that next corner that I can’t stand to so much as slow down my pace for a moment. 

Attribute to behold, desire, experience & enjoy: Guidance 
Promise to trust: If I fear Him He will confide in me
What will result if I experience this attribute today: Guidance and clarity with regard to direction, Confidence, courage, A sense of being attended to and cared for, Enlightenment, A greater abiding presence of Christ in the heart, Experiential knowledge of the love that surpasses knowledge, Fear of God, awe and reverence, Desire to obey

Guidance and Light

Psalm 25 (God’s guidance), Day 4

Good morning Lord,
I come before You this morning worried that I won’t be able to commune closely with You. My mind seems to be wandering all over the place.  Unite my heart this morning, dear Lord, that I might seek hard after You – to pray earnestly, seeking You with all of my heart. Let me seek after You and follow hard after You and cleave to You that I might find fellowship and sweet communion with You. Open my eyes to the gloriousness of Your glory, dear Lord. Let me see the wonders of Your guiding salvation. Let this sinner look now to his Savior with great delight and joy. 

Psalm 25:4-5 Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; 5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and I wait for you all day long.  

In Psalm 1 it sounds so simple – just take the right path instead of the wrong one. But here we see that it’s not that simple. The right path isn’t always easy to find because our flesh so often doesn’t want to find it. And once it’s found it’s not easy to follow, because sin in us prefers its own path. Walking in God’s way is so much more than just decision and resolve. It’s something that requires that He show us, and teach us, and guide us, and teach us again, and save us. He has to train our hearts to be willing and then to desire and then to prefer His way. He has to train our hearts to see it. Like the trained eye of the hunter can spot game where others see only leaves and branches, so God must train our eyes to spot a narrow path where others see only dead ends. 

God is gracious and good and kind and generous and eager to supply all that teaching and guiding and showing and saving. But even though He is eager and willing and able; He doesn’t immediately answer the prayer. He delays, and we wait. For His wonderful purposes and countless good reasons He is pleased to provide guidance and teaching only after we have asked and waited. 

Whatever Your reasons for that, dear Lord, I am happy to seek and wait. Lord, let my seeking be love in motion and my waiting be love at rest.  Let my cry for guidance be fueled by passionate desire, and my waiting strengthened by settled delight in both present and future grace. 

And Lord, let ALL my seeking be seeking for You. Let me not seek out a way I call Your way but that is really the way that gets me my plans or that takes me around suffering.  Let my seeking of Your way really, truly, genuinely, actually be a seeking after You, and You alone. Let me want that path for no other reason than it leads into Your blessed presence. Lord, only Your Spirit can use the joint and marrow-dividing Word to sift out the idolatrous motives from the true. I’m so prone to self-deceit, dear Lord, my sinful heart can easily fool me into thinking I’m seeking You when I’m really seeking me. Lord put me on the path that leads to You, no matter what else comes with being on that path, and no matter what it leads me away from.  

•	Father, each time I assess my progress in anything, let that remind me of the very real possibility that I could be wasting my time completely.  If I am pursuing any path other than that which leads to You, I’m losing time. Let me measure success only by whether I’m being brought closer to You by walking in step with the guidance of the Spirit and following hard after You. 

Psalm 27:1-3 Of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation — whom shall I fear? 

Jesus Christ is the Light of the world, who brings light to every man.  Humanity, apart from Him, is in utter darkness. He is the only way we can know any truth or have any knowledge of God – the only knowledge and relationship that matters. 

Dear Lord, You are not just the light of the world; You are my light, and my salvation.  The man with a blindfold may know a lot about the sun, but it is not a light to him. You have opened my eyes so that Your great light is actually a light to me, in my life. It shines on my path, so I know where to walk as You guide me in paths of righteousness for Your name’s sake.  Your light illumines my mind, so I can understand truth about You. It illumines my heart, so I can accept and believe and embrace as wonderful the truth about You. Your light shines inside my heart and conscience, exposing my sin so I can see to repent.  Your light warms and softens my heart so that I am willing to repent. 

Is not Your light my very life and joy? “Light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright in heart.” (Ps 97:11) Your light literally “brightens” my day. Dear Lord God, please, open my eyes wider. They are open, but are still so dim. Most days I drift back to spiritual sleep countless times during the day and become oblivious to the blazing sun right in front of my face. Oh, for the day when this flesh is redeemed and I will be eternally awake and alert to You! Lord, hasten that day. Let it begin today in some measure. Let me see and be warmed and brightened with joy today by Your light. 

•	Lord, whenever I drive my car at night let the headlights remind me that You are the light unto my path, showing me where to go in life and leading me in paths of righteousness for Your name’s sake. 

•	As I listen to sermons, remind me that You are the light that illumines my mind, so I can understand truth about You, my heart, so I can accept and believe and embrace as wonderful the truth about You, my conscience, exposing my sin so I can see to repent, and my heart so that I am willing to repent. 

•	Each time something favorable happens, remind me that You are the light of joy that brightens life. 

Attribute to behold, desire, experience & enjoy: God who is my guiding Savior and Light 
Promise to trust: He will guide me
What will result if I experience this attribute today: Guidance and clarity with regard to direction, Confidence, courage, A sense of being attended to and cared for, Enlightenment, A greater abiding presence of Christ in the heart, Experiential knowledge of the love that surpasses knowledge, Fear of God, awe and reverence, Desire to obey
Guidance 
Psalm 25 (God’s guidance), Day 5
Psalm 25:10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.  
Psalm 25:8-9 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways 9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.  10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.  
In vv.8 and 9 He is the good and upright Guide who teaches sinners/humble in His way.  At first that may seem surprising and amazing that God, being so good, would stoop to instruct sinners.  But according to this passage it is His very goodness that brings Him to do so. It says therefore he instructs sinners. He is so good, it is His nature to bring about more good – which requires starting with something not good and making it good.  Bringing sinners down the path of goodness is conduct consistent with the goodness of His character.  And so the fact of sin only makes it more certain that He will do this. It is our sin that makes us so needy of His guidance into goodness, and it is our sin that can produce the humility that will make our hearts receptive to that guidance. 
 “Sinners” is parallel with “the humble.” The humble and the sinners are the same group. There are at least two important implications of that. First, sin should humble us. 
Dear Lord, when I fail, so often I just want to punish myself and pile on the resolve and imagine that through sheer resolve I won’t do it again – all pride. When I sin and then I think I can handle my sin problem, Lord, that’s sheer pride. That’s the opposite effect sin should have. So why doesn’t my sin humble me, as it should? What’s going wrong? Why have I sinned so much and yet still have so little humility? Why are tears so scarce? Oh, Father, please, humble me with my sin. Show me what is missing. Show me why I remain so proud and so confident in my imagined strength and my phantom righteousness even after so many millions of sins, such constant sin, such frequent sin, such egregious sin.  Lord, make me constantly afraid of my next fall. Make me cling to you like a scared child in the woods gripping her dad. At the first sign of a tempting thought, Lord, let it frighten me. Let it remind me, as it did Job, that one sinful thought is a step toward ruin and disaster. One step will lead to the next, and before I know what happened I can find myself completely enslaved. Those chains are never more than inches from my wrists. A moment of non-vigilance and the enemy can clamp them down on me. 
Thank You for being here with me this morning Lord. Because of my sin I deserve to have been abandoned by You. I have provoked You to remove Your presence from me and to turn Your face away. Yet You are here with me. You have moved my heart in repentance and have enabled me to walk in the light of Your presence this morning. Father, let that continue. 
The other implication is the grace of the parallel. God makes the sinner humble that He might grace him with His blessed guidance and leading. 
Lord, let me not follow Your leading each day or each hour. Let me follow it each moment. It is such a grace and a condescension that You would be willing to come down and patiently teach this mule to walk in Your way. Lord, let me not take that grace for granted. Let me instead exult in and enjoy the goodness and uprightness of my Leader.
Attribute to behold, desire, experience & enjoy: Guidance 
Promise to trust: He will guide me
What will result if I experience this attribute today: Guidance and clarity with regard to direction, Confidence, courage, A sense of being attended to and cared for, Enlightenment, A greater abiding presence of Christ in the heart, Experiential knowledge of the love that surpasses knowledge, Fear of God, awe and reverence, Desire to obey

Discussion Questions:
1.	Describe the attribute of God’s guidance and what is so wonderful about it.
2.	What is the difference between seeking to know which option will work out best and seeking God’s way?
3.	Why is the way you choose more important than whether you select option A or B?
4.	Describe how God gives you individual guidance in wisdom decisions, or in interpreting or applying Scripture.
5.	What’s wrong with superstitious mysticism or impersonal generalism? 
6.	What is enlightenment? Have you experienced an enlightenment in some specific area where you were seeking God’s guidance recently?