Psalm 25 - God Has Selective Amnesia?

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello. We have reached the end of another week here on Tabernacle Talk, and it has been just a really good day. I got to, at the time of this recording, got to have our first seniors Bible study here at the church at Tabernacle.

And we are going over the book of 2 Timothy, and just had a really good time, looked at some of the context of the book, and then dove into the first two verses, and just looked at all of the riches that we could glean from that.

Some things that kind of stuck out to people were that we live our lives because of the will of God, that God is the reason why we ought to be doing everything that we're doing. Nothing's by accident.

Nothing's just, oh, yeah, this is just something I do, I guess, or this is, I guess, just who I am or my lot in life. God has placed us wherever we are. For Paul, it was he was in a prison cell.

And so we looked at that, and then the fact that God offers his promise of life in Christ Jesus to everyone, and he's given us grace and mercy and peace, just a really, really good study.

So if you are in the Essex, Middle River, Dundalk, if you're from this area and you maybe are retired or you just happen to have some time on Thursdays at 1 p.m. we'd strongly encourage you come join us.

And we're going to be in Second Timothy for an indeterminate amount of time, but normally take about an hour, an hour and 15 minutes and just dive into God's Word. And it's a great time to gather.

But that's neither here nor there for Tabernacle Talk as we are continuing in Book 1 of Psalms. And we are going to be in here for, let me see, that's one week, two weeks, so about three more weeks that we have in Book 1 of Psalms.

And so that puts us right about the end of April for when this will conclude. And I'd love to hear what God has spoken to you about and how God's worked in your life. If you would, drop a comment, send an email to pastor at tbcsx.com.

Love to hear what God's speaking to you about. And heard some good things the other day that people saw in Psalm 23 and how that was an encouragement to them. This one is a great psalm.

As I was reading through it, I thought to myself, okay, I know some of these lines, like, you know, Psalm 23, I know. Psalm 16, Psalm 31, Psalm 84, Psalm 46, I've preached those ones. And so I know those psalms really well.

I was like, I don't know 25. And then as I was reading through this one song from childhood, actually from Maranatha Music and the song Unto Thee, O Lord, I've already linked it in the description, takes lines directly from this song.

And it's a great way to learn the Bible is to sing it. And that song that I've attached will help you to learn Psalm 25. It says this.

This is a Psalm of David. Yahweh, Lord, I appeal to you. I lift my soul up to you.

It says, My God, I trust in you. Do not let me be disgraced. Do not let my enemies gloat over me.

No one who waits for you will be disgraced. Those who act treacherously without cause will be disgraced. Make your ways known to me, Yahweh.

Teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me. For you are the God of my salvation.

I wait for you all day long. Remember Yahweh, your compassion and your faithful love, for they have existed from antiquity, from everlasting, from ancient times. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my acts of rebellion.

In keeping with your faithful love, remember me because of your goodness, Yahweh. Yahweh is good and upright. Therefore, He shows sinners the way.

He leads the humble in what is right and teaches them His way. All Yahweh's ways show faithful love and truth to those who keep His covenant and decrees. Yahweh, for the sake of your name, forgive my iniquity, for it is immense.

Who is this person who fears Yahweh? He will show him the way he should choose. He will live a good life and his descendants will inherit the land.

The secret council of Yahweh is for those who fear Him and He reveals His covenant to them. My eyes are always on Yahweh, for He will pull my feet out of the net. Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am alone and afflicted.

The distresses of my heart increase, bring me out of my sufferings. Consider my affliction and trouble and forgive all my sins. Consider my enemies, they are numerous and they hate me violently.

Guard me and rescue me. Do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. May integrity and what is right watch over me, for I wait in you.

God, redeem Israel from all its distresses. What a great Psalm and here, David is kind of looking at two main thoughts.

He's saying, God, I really need your salvation from my enemies, from those that are surrounding me, from those that want to do violence. And then he says, God, I need you to save me from me. God, I know that I am not walking with you.

I know that I have done sins. I have done many sins. I think of verse 11, forgive my iniquity for it is immense.

God, I am a sinner and I am in desperate need of forgiveness. I need God to, verse 15, pull my feet out of the net. God, in verse number 18, forgive all my sins.

Here, sometimes we feel the enemies, the pressures from the outside. It could be that co-worker that just always has it out for us or maybe that supervisor that always has it out for us. And we're going, God, what do I do here?

Like I can't make this person like me. All I can do is try to be like you. And God, I really need your help.

Maybe I don't know your particular life circumstance. It might be a person that genuinely is your enemy. You know, maybe a former business associate.

Maybe a sibling. Maybe someone in your life that just really despises you. And you with David would go to God and say, Lord, I really need your help.

Let's look at these verses together. And then we'll be done for the day. He says, Yahweh, I appeal to you.

I lift up my soul to you. I'm coming into the courts of God. And he says, why is he going into the courts of God?

Verse number two, because he trusts in God. He says, don't let me be disgraced. Don't let my enemies gloat over me.

This is no one who waits for you will be disgraced. Those who act treacherously without cause, they will be disgraced. So he's saying, God, I am relying on you.

I am praying, and I know that you will work. And I'm just letting you know, God, like I'm here. I am in your presence, and I'm saying the ball is in your court.

I prayed with a friend today that their family is just going through a ton of hardships right now.

And I was so encouraged even as we prayed together for things at Tabernacle, and as we prayed for their family, that I knew, okay, God, we're just recognizing that you are the one that's in control.

If anything's going to happen, it's going to have to be you. We are your children. And just like with my kids, that if they need something that's too tall for them, they're saying, Dad, this is in your court.

And us saying, God, we are your children, and the ball is in your court.

If anything's going to happen, if these health situations are going to be rectified, if this job situation is going to be helped, if this circumstance is going to change, it's going to have to be from our sovereign God.

And man, that is what God wants. He wants us to call out to Him. He wants us to realize that we are not sufficient, but that He is.

And that when we come to Him, when we bring Him our requests, when we bring Him these difficulties, and we say, I can't do anything about this. All I can do is bring it to you. God goes, great.

That's exactly what the point is. And He says, no one who waits for you will be disgraced. And what a comfort that is, that if you're waiting on the Lord, if you are waiting on His life, His peace, His working, it says you will not be disgraced.

You're never going to tell yourself, man, if only I hadn't prayed, if only I hadn't relied on God's wisdom, if only I hadn't relied on God's word, that'll never happen. He is the one that gives us good and true advice.

Now, I do want to throw in this caveat, just because I don't know who all is listening to this particular podcast.

Maybe you'd say, okay, well, this one spiritual leader, this one spiritual person told me to do things in this way, and then this outcome would happen, and it didn't happen.

So it feels like God did leave me to disgrace, that the person showed me a Bible verse and said, okay, if you do this, then you're going to have riches. If you do this, then you'll have perfect health.

I would say people often fail us, but what God actually says in His word, in context, it never fails. And if someone has misrepresented God to you, if someone has promised you empty promises through the Bible, I am so sorry.

God does make us promises, but they're often not the promises that result in health and wealth and getting everything that we want. That's more genie Christianity than a Bible Christianity.

And so I want to assure you, if you have gone through times where maybe you feel like God has let me down, I want to promise you, He will never let you down. People do, and it does hurt, and there are real repercussions as a result.

That's why it's so important who we allow to speak spiritually into our lives.

That if someone's genuinely preaching the Bible, if they're teaching from God's Word, and they're actually doing it in context, they are telling you, hey, like you can see this for yourself, like read it, it's right there for you.

If you can see that, that's a great thing. If someone says, okay, we're going to look at like two words here, and then from one of those words, then I'm going to talk for a while on my thoughts. Okay, well, that's kind of a red flag.

We want to always believe what is actually in God's Word. I think of the one verse that says, let God be true and every man a liar. We don't rely on men.

I pray and hope that you would never rely just on my words, but that you would look at the verses that I'm reading, that you would study.

I have plenty of places that I go that I look at when I'm studying for messages or studying for a class or something that I go to because I don't want to rely on me and I would encourage anyone else.

Don't just rely on one person in order to have a spiritual walk instead, like dive all in. So all of that came from whoever waits on God won't be disgraced, and I hope that that wasn't a errant detour or rabbit trail as a result of that.

Hope you can see what I was trying to communicate there. Verse number four, Make your ways known to me, Yahweh. Teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation. I wait for you all day long. God's ways and paths and truth are knowable.

God has not hidden himself from you. He has made himself known through his word, through his spirit, and primarily through his son. And because of that, we can know when we have a Bible, we know what God thinks.

We know what God's character is. We know what he's done in the past. And so we can believe him because we have seen who he is and how he works.

Verse number six, Remember Yahweh, your compassion and your faithful love, for they have existed from antiquity, everlasting, the ancient times.

There that word faithful love again, that's that chasad, that God has made a covenant, he has made a promise, and he's not going back on his word.

And so we can believe on him because he has, there in the beginning of verse six, he has compassion on us, that he sees you, he sees your difficulties, sees your heartache, and he cares.

It moves him to action, that it's both compassion, he feels a certain way towards you and about you, and it's not anger and wrath, it's compassion.

Here to sinful David, who has an immense amount of iniquity from verse 11, he says, God sees him with compassion and with faithful covenant love, that he says, this relationship, I'm not going back on.

You might fail me, but I'm not going to fail you. And what an incredible promise that God actually cares about us, and that moves him to action.

Verse number seven, do not remember the sins of my youth or my acts of rebellion in keeping with your faithful love. Remember me because of your goodness, Lord. Here, don't remember the sins of my youth.

Here, David is saying, not like, hey, God, I want you to have amnesia about this.

Here, it's remember in order to take to task that God elsewhere in the Psalms, it's mentioned that he has cast our sins as far as the east is from the west, and he remembers them no more.

And this remembering is that he's not going to take you to account for the sins that Jesus already paid for. Jesus paid in full, you don't have to pay anything extra.

So he says, God, don't count against me, my sinfulness, my rebellion, but God, remember me, like take me into account in keeping with, and again, he says, your faithful love, that chesed, that covenant love, because of your goodness.

God, because you are good, because you are lavish in what you do and how you do it, and because of your covenant love, remember me. Don't remember my sins, remember me. What an incredible promise that God does not remember your sins anymore.

If you have turned to Christ. I was just listening to a song earlier today, Run and Run by Matt Boswell and Matt Papa.

And one of the verses says something along the lines of like, the accuser reminds me of the sins that I've done, those I know and thousands more. Behold my God, he knows not one.

And I didn't have all the rhyme in there, but that's that main thought that God does not remember our sins, but he remembers us, that he lives in us. And the person of the Holy Spirit. And so what an incredible thought.

He doesn't remember your sins. He does remember you. Lord is good and upright, therefore he shows sinner the way.

He leads the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. All the Lord's ways show faithful love and truth to those who keep his covenant and decrees. Here he says, God, you're good, you lead, you show, you teach.

And so, God, I'm asking because of all those things that you do for sinners, for the humble, for those who keep your covenant and decrees. And then he says, God, for the sake of your name, forgive my iniquity.

He says, God, I see what you do for all these other people, how you rescue them. You show them your path. You create righteous people out of sinners and wicked ones and those that are lowly.

And so he says, God, I need you to do that in me. I need you to change who I am. I am immensely sinful.

And that's a great prayer for us to pray. God, I've seen how you've changed this person and that person. And God, I need you to change me.

Verses 12 through 15, kind of a similar thought. He's saying all the benefits of those that turn to God, the one that fears the Lord, that's a reverential awe that we realize, okay, God is holy. If he were to give me what I deserve, man, I'd be dead.

I'd be gone from his presence forever. I would be in judgment. But because God is gracious and loving, he shows us the way that we should go.

He gives us a good life, an abundant life, as John 10 would say. He reveals his covenant to us that he says, hey, I've made this promise. I've given this opportunity to you in Christ.

And verse 15, my eyes are always on the Lord, for he will pull my feet out of the net. David knows I'm going to mess up. I'm going to sin at some points.

And so when that happens, when I step into the net, into the trap of either sin or other people and all sorts of turmoil, he says, I know God's going to pull me out and rescue me.

Then all of the last verses 16 through 22, where he's praying for relief from his sufferings, from his sins, from his enemies. He says in verse 20, guard me and rescue me. Do not let me be put to shame for I take refuge in you.

Sometimes we need to pray that to God. God, I need you to guard me and rescue me. I don't know what you're dealing with today.

Maybe it might be a health situation. Maybe it might be a relationship or a job situation. Maybe it might be a sin situation, which you would call out to God with David and say, God, I need you to save me.

I need you to rescue me. I need you to pull my feet out of the net. I need you to forgive my sin.

I don't need you to remember all the wrongs that I've done. I need you to remember me. And Lord, train me, put me on a new path, because the path that I have been walking on is not good.

So I hope that would be an encouragement to you today. I know it was an encouragement to me as I was reading through. Like God sees me and he wants to do wonderful things in my life.

I just need to realize, okay, I don't have it all together. I'm not all righteous. I've got sin.

And so I need to bring it to God and say, God, please make me new. Put me on a new course. Forgive my sin.

And God, I need you to act because when you act, you do incredible things in people's life. And so pray that you would come to God today.

And whether it might be situations or sins or any number of things that you would call on him, he wants to hear from you. He is your heavenly father and he wants to act on your behalf. Let's fear him.

Let's see him for the incredible holy God that he is, but also the fact that he loves us because of his covenant love that he has shown to us in Jesus Christ. Have a great weekend if you're listening to this when it comes out.

And we will see you in Psalm 26 on Monday next episode.