This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) Welcome back for day five, our last day this week of looking
through the book of Psalms. We're going to be looking at Psalm 25 today. And if you
and I read Hebrew, we would recognize immediately looking at this Psalm that
it's an alphabet psalm.

The first verse begins with the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet, aleph. The
second verse begins with the second letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and all down
through the psalm. So there is a poetry to this psalm.

There's a beauty in the expression of these truths that sometimes we don't
immediately pick up on because we're reading in English or some other language.
But besides the beauty that's in that, writing a psalm in this way as an
alphabet also made it easier to remember, made it easier to memorize, made it
easier to bring into life. And that's important because this is a psalm that
needs to be brought into our life every day of our life.

Psalm 25 is a psalm that's all about God's way, about God's direction, about
God's journey in your life. The word way is used four times. The word path is
used once.

Verses four and five express what this psalm is all about. Show me your ways, O
Lord. Teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth and teach me. For you are God my savior, and my hope is
in you all day long. Teach me your paths.

Show me your ways. Guide me in your truth. How does God do this?

This is one of the big questions of all of our lives. How does God show us his
ways? This psalm reveals to us something we already know in the back of our
minds.

Understanding God's ways, understanding God's will for your life, it's not a
formula, it's a relationship. And this psalm tells us some things that have to
be a part of that relationship with God if we're going to understand his ways. If
I'm going to understand God's ways, walk in his paths, there's four specific ways I
have to walk in this psalm.

Number one, I gotta walk in the love of God. Verse six, remember, O Lord, your
great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Remember your great mercy and
love.

To walk in God's ways, you need a deep understanding of the love that God has
for you. People say all the time, I want to know God's will. Well, then you need
to get to know God's love.

If you want to know God's will, you need to get to know God's love. Because when
you know God's love for you, then you will know God's will for you. God is not
like Google Maps, where you consult them only when you needed to know the right
way to get to your next destination.

To understand God's will for your life, you need to understand he is your loving
father. And so you decide, you figure out, you understand, you discover that
will of God for your life in communication with him, constant communication with
him. Get to know the love of God, you'll know the will of God.

Now to understand the love of God, you have to accept the forgiveness of God,
that he has forgiven you, that he does love you. Verse seven, remember not the
sins of my youth and my rebellious ways. According to your love, remember me,
for you are good.

According to your love, remember me. The cross of Jesus Christ tells us that God
does just that. He remembers you according to his love for you, not according to
your sins.

And when you accept that truth, then you understand God's love for you in a way
that helps you to begin to understand God's direction, God's guidance in your
life. If you don't understand that truth, every time you look to God for
guidance, Satan is going to come and say, why would God give you guidance?
Remember, you did this in the past and you did that.

Why would God show you his way? Now you remember the cross, you remember God's
love. Sometimes it seems to us that God is not loving.

Sometimes it seems to us that he might be taking something from us, not allowing
us the freedom or happiness that we're looking for. Verse 10 gives us the honest
truth about this journey of God's path in our lives. Verse 10 says, all the ways
of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his
covenant.

You see, we've all experienced this. We can easily become like a teenager who
hates their parents because they won't let them stay out past their curfew. The
problem with the teenager is in the teenager, in their parents, the parents are
trying to protect them.

But they think that there's something wrong with their parents. And the problem
isn't with God, it's with us. When we think that God's trying to keep something
from us, no, he's trying to protect us, he loves us.

We're hoping that God's way will help us to get our way sometimes. Let's just be
honest. God, I know I have in the back of my mind what I want.

Would you tell me what I'm thinking? Because that would really confirm what I'm
thinking. And admitting that to ourselves, that can be a moment of freedom.

I don't want my way. I think I do, but when I get it, it's not the way that I
want. I want the way of God's love in my life.

And that leads us to the second truth from this psalm. If I'm going to discover
God's will as a part of this relationship, I gotta walk in the love of God.
Number two, I've gotta walk in the goodness of God.

You are good, we read at the end of verse seven a moment ago. Verse eight, good
and upright is the Lord. Therefore, he instructs sinners in his ways.

Out of God's goodness, he instructs us. So you trust that God does everything
for you in goodness and in love. God does not do anything unloving.

God does not do anything evil. Everything God does for you is always for your
own good and always because he loves you. Psalm 25, 10, all the ways of the Lord
are loving.

Psalm 25, eight, good and upright is the Lord. There are no unloving ways of
God. God cannot act in an unloving way.

God is love. There are no evil ways of God. God cannot act in an evil way.

God is good. Now, sometimes God will say no to a direction that you want to take.
That ever happen to you?

It's happened to me plenty of times. Recognize that that no comes from God's
goodness. It comes from God's love.

That will transform your way of thinking about the direction of God's will in
your life. So you walk in God's love. You walk in God's goodness.

Number three, you walk in humility. Verse nine, he guides the humble in what is
right and he teaches them his way. God does not guide the proud in his way.

Why? Because we're trying to do it our way. So obviously that's not going to work.

He's not going to allow those who are lifting themselves up to discover the way of
the Lord. We're not even open to it. No, it's when I'm humble that my mind
becomes open and then I understand what's right and then I understand God's way.

When I'm proudful, I want my way. When I'm humble, I'm looking for God's way. So
you humbly ask the Holy Spirit to guide you.

You have not because you ask not. So you've got to ask, but you have to ask with
a humble spirit. It's your attitude, your heart that the Holy Spirit is looking
for.

And the more humble you are, the more you're going to hear from the Holy Spirit.
God guides the humble. Not the proud, not the arrogant, but the humble.

Not those who think they have it all figured out, but the humble. This simple
prayer, God, I'm humbly asking you. Or God, help me to humbly hear from you.

You walk in humility. And then finally, and this one takes a little bit of
explaining. You walk in the fear of the Lord.

You walk in what we're told again and again in the New Testament and Old
Testament is one of the key qualities of our relationship with God. You walk in
the fear of the Lord. Verses 12 to 14.

Who then is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way that's
chosen for him. He will spend his days in prosperity and his descendants will
inherit the land.

The Lord confides in those who fear him. He makes his covenant known to them.
That last verse, verse 14 in the living says, friendship with God is reserved
for those who reverence him.

With them alone, he shares the secrets of his promises. The Lord confides in
certain people. There's a friendship with God that certain people feel.

Who are those people? Those are the people who have discovered what it means to
fear the Lord. Who know and understand that following God's path is a
relationship, not a map.

And that a deep part of that relationship is the fear of the Lord. Now, the fear
of the Lord is not being afraid of God. There's no fear in love, so it's not
being afraid of God.

It's being aware of who God really is. As much as you in your humanness can be
aware of the greatness, of the awesomeness, of the power of God. It's a depth of
reverence for the eternal, invisible, almighty God.

Now, God is so great. We'll never be fully aware of all that he is. But the more
aware I am, the closer I get to him.

The more aware you are of who anybody truly is, the closer you get to them. You
can't get close to somebody by having this false image of who they are. And the
truth about God is he is a great, almighty God, an awesome God.

You'd think that being aware of God's greatness would cause you to maybe shy
away from him. He's so great. I might not want to get close, but actually the
opposite is true.

It draws you into his presence. The Lord confides in those who fear him. This
deep reverence for God, it builds this place where you have this sense that God
is sharing with me the truth of his promises and how those can be lived out in
my life.

This sense of friendship with God. Friendship with God is reserved for those who
reverence him. So let's talk to God right now, as friends.

Our Father, it seems funny to us to say that we could have a friendship with
you. To think that you would confide in us, but it's not just us. There's no
proud heart in that for us, because we know that you're willing to have a
friendship with anyone.

You're willing to confide in everyone if we would just humbly fear you,
reverence you, if we would just walk in that place of knowing what a good God
you are, what a loving God you are. So right now we bring to you whatever
decision we've got on the path, whether it's a momentary day-to-day decision or
it's a life-changing decision, we bring it to you. And we commit our hearts to
make that decision in relationship with you.

We're not looking to you for an answer. We're looking to you as our Lord. We're
looking to you as the one who will guide and direct us as we live this in
relationship with you.

We know that sometimes the answer will be no. We know that sometimes the answer
will be, well, you could choose this or that. I'd be okay with either.

And we know that sometimes the answer will be, no, it must be this. Whatever it
is, God, we're willing to hear. We want the answer today so many times.

We want the answer in this moment, 'cause we're curious. We want to know where our
life is leading. But God, we're willing to wait, because in a relationship, you
have to wait sometimes.

You have to listen sometimes. So we're willing to wait on you for the answer. We
express this hope in you in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, thanks for joining us. This finishes part one of our six-part study of the
Book of Psalms. So next week, we're going to start a new book.

If you're in on our regular study of drive time devotions, or you can choose
whatever book you want to study next by going to drivetimedivocions. com or
looking at the app on your phone and just studying any of the books. The truth
of the matter is, whatever book we're looking at, we're looking together at the
Lord who loves us.

We're looking together at the goodness of God for us. And my prayer for you this
week is that you'll experience that in deep and new ways.