Waiting on the Lord

Psalm 25

-Who here likes waiting? I am terrible at it! I hate waiting so much I don’t even like surprises! Cara has tried planning surprises for me multiple times, and as soon as I get a wind that something it going on I’m on a mission to bug her until she caves and tells me. Delayed gratification vs. instant gratification (marshmallow study)

-Our culture is terrible with this! Why wait for anything when everything is immediately available? I’ve even had times where I’ve gone on Amazon to order something and because it didn’t have 2 day shipping I just skipped it. Where this is dangerous is that’s not the way God works in our lives, and in many cases waiting is a spiritual development that we need to pursue.

-Slowness from The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

-No one that I know likes waiting, but what if waiting is exactly where God wants us? How many of you by rushing ahead have come to regret your decisions? I’m not saying there’s not a time and a place for quick decisions, but what if God’s ways are to work in us to transform us through waiting, and part of the reason we’re not as far along as we thought (or hoped) we’d be by now is because we’re so bad at waiting.

-In today’s Psalm, David will show us what it looks like to actively wait on the Lord. Doesn’t mean we disengage, doesn’t mean we run away, it means we push into Him and trust Him to work while we wait for Him.

READ/PRAY (pg. 261)

-This Psalm is an acrostic (using each letter of the alphabet) Hebrew poetry is VERY different from the way we write poetry today! Not rhyming, but does have a defined pattern (which you can see as you look through the book of Psalms vs. the rest of the Bible)

-Think of how much time it would have taken for David to write this? The intentionality and effort to have each phrase begin with the next letter of the alphabet (not a bad prayer template! Use the alphabet to pray to God). One of the things this reveals to us is that art and beauty come from God. Think of the beauty we see around us. I sat outside with some guys on Friday night watching the lightning storm come in. That is IMPRESSIVE! Or watching a sunset off in the distance. God didn’t need to make things beautiful, but He did, and because humans are created in His image, we derivatively create beauty (music, painting, buildings) they’re all opportunities to bring honor and glory to God, just as David does with this Psalm.

-Chiasm 

-Regular feature of Hebrew poetry, brings everything to specific focus at the center of the poem, here’s what this Psalm looks like as a chiasm: The center point is the character and forgiveness of God.

1. Waiting for God’s Protection (1-5)

-Who else would David lift his soul to? We’re tempted to lift our souls all sorts of other places! Think of what God says in the First Commandment: no other gods before me. Aren’t we all tempted to look for our ultimate satisfaction and worth in other places? Job, parenting, house, money, recognition. 

-How often do you take stock of the idols of your heart? David’s first prayer is asking God to reveal any idols in his heart that are taking the place of God. This connects back to last week: as we approach God, we need to acknowledge and understand that He is completely holy. His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts, so we need to bring acceptable worship before Him, which we have only because of the sacrifice of Jesus.

-Shame in the Bible isn’t a feeling. Honor/shame culture means if you have shame you lose all social standing and has repercussions throughout their whole life (friends abandon, business won’t let you shop there).

-Cancel culture today is a picture of this!

-If you wait for God’s guidance this won’t happen to you, instead David’s enemies are the ones who will be put to shame, but it’s only for those who are waiting and following after the Lord.

-But waiting doesn’t mean you sit back (“let go and let God”). There’s an active waiting and a passive waiting. Back when Black Friday was in person, friends and I waited overnight for flash drives. Many people brought chairs, heaters, tents. We had sleeping bags and spent the night coming up with games we could play! Others sat by themselves trying to stay warm. Similarly, waiting on God means we continue moving and living our lives.

-Pastor once told me God can’t move a parked car! So get moving!

-How do we know we’re waiting correctly? Vs. 4-5

-We ask God! David asks to know God’s ways and paths. That’s another way of saying how God’s children should carry out their lives. How do we know what that is? By planting ourselves in God’s truth, His Word. 

-I’ve often heard the Bible described as a life map. If so, it’s a terrible map, because it only leads to 1 person: Jesus! However, if we take that idea to it’s logical conclusion, then it’s a great map, because we’re supposed to become more like Him every day.

-Don’t treat the Bible like an atlas (today’s problem is gluttony so I’m going to look up those verses), treat it like a life-long workout plan (slowly becoming more of who God created you to be)

-Not enough to just set it on the side and move on, active waiting continues as we:

• Waiting for God’s Teaching (6-11)

-Remember is more than thinking something, it’s a call to action! 2 aspects to this remembering: God needs to remember (and act) according to His character, because David’s character can’t match up to God’s! Thankfully, God is always true to who He says He will be, and acts according to who He is.

-God’s mercy and steadfast love (covenant faithfulness, which means God ALWAYS keeps His Word & promises)

-“Been from of old” there is historical precedent for David to call on God to do these things. As He prays to God, David remembers how God had moved in Israel’s history, and so should we. God isn’t disconnected from what happens here in the daily grind.

-Contrasted with God’s character is David’s character, because David needs God to forget his sinful ways. 

-As David looks back over his life, he realizes that he was a terrible sinner (similar ideas in vss. 11, 18) and asks God to not remember his previous sins or acts of rebellion.

-It’s amazing how quickly we can look back over our lives and realize how dumb we were. Bob Dettmer one time told me no one is their best self at 16 (sorry if you’re 16!) But I don’t think it stops at 16 (at least it shouldn’t!) I look back at 26 and think “if only I knew…” 

-But at the same time, the things I know I’ll never regret as I get older is the times and moments where I was obedient to God. I don’t regret the times spent reading my Bible, the times spent encouraging other Christians, the times spent with His people, the time spent reading more about who God is and how I relate to Him. The regrets come from not waiting on Him! 

-This is why we need God’s steadfast love and mercy! Think of a verse many of you have probably heard before, Lam. 3:22-23 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Do you ever contemplate that reality? God’s steadfast love (covenant keeping faithfulness) NEVER stops! Energizer bunny: keeps going, going, going. Or there’s no limit to his mercy: you can’t out-sin it. And all this is done because God is good, David isn’t!

-Continuing on with what God is like: good and upright. God is good, everything He does is good, and because of that He can help sinners (us) following in the correct ways of living.

-But notice what’s required of those sinners: humility. “Pride stands in the way of instruction; humility makes a person open to listening to God.” (Longman) Pride puts yourself in the place of God, and fights against vs. 1.

-You don’t know what you don’t know. I can’t tell you how many arguments I get into with my kids over stuff they’re convinced is right, but they have no clue what they’re talking about! If that’s true with our 30 year age gap, how much more true is that for us and God’s eternal age gap? That’s why we need to submit ourselves (humble ourselves) to God’s guidance in our lives so that we don’t pursue the wrong paths!

-To wrap up this idea, David summarizes: ALL the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness. If we follow God’s way, we will be like Him. But there’s again a stipulation or expectation on His people: keeping God’s covenant and testimonies (the demands of His covenant)

-This is David, once again, looking back to the historical ways God has revealed Himself. Think of how God describes Himself in Ex. 34:6-7 ““The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, ⁷ keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” Do you see all those same ideas in these verses? 

-This is the center of the chiasm, the main point David wants to get across is who God is and what He’s like, exactly as God has revealed Himself. Now notice that David basically uses Ex. as a template for his prayer. All the same themes and ideas are incorporated into these verses. David uses God’s word as the inspiration for his prayer life, which is a wonderful practice!

–Praying the Bible – if you want a copy, I have about 10!

• Waiting for God’s Provision (12-22)

-Building back out from the focus on God to David’s current state, he moves to fearing the Lord. Isn’t living in a constant state of being afraid, instead it’s giving him the honor and recognition that He alone is worthy of.

-Think of Prov. 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The beginning! Those are the people God will continue to train in how they should live (the way connects it back to vss. 9-10)

-This man will abide (live) in well-being, or prosperity, and his children (who are also following God) will inherit the land. Yet another look back to history Gen. 15:18 Abraham and his descendants would inherit the promised land. 

-Not only would David get these blessings from God, but he’d also receive friendship with God. Doesn’t that feel too close/intimate with the holy Creator of the universe? It would be if it wasn’t true! Paradox of the gospel message is the holy creator God can now live with His people.

-Only way this can happen is by continually focusing the gaze and focus of your life toward God, letting other things fade away in comparison to him. Feet out of the net is another way of referring to traps from enemies.

-David then contemplates his situation apart from God. If God won’t turn to him and be gracious, then he’ll be: lonely, afflicted, have big troubles, distresses, and his sins won’t be forgiven.

-Friends, don’t miss this: these verses are only true if our eyes only ever toward the Lord. If we look at the mess around us or spend too much time fixating on our sin we’ll miss the goodness of God in extending His mercy and lovingkindness to us. This is why we need to daily preach to ourselves because if we don’t we’re prone to forget, neglect, marginalize the good news of what Jesus’ coming means for all our lives.

-The final section brings attention back to David’s enemies who remain opposed to Him. While David has continued waiting for the Lord, so have his enemies. And the enemies are using this active waiting to mock and belittle David. He needs God’s provision in His life, because otherwise the enemies will win! They’ll put David to shame and leave him to rot.

-Notice what David asks to preserve him: integrity (right, pure living) and uprightness (conforming to the right standard, following the right path) These words are true of God, but they’re also supposed to be true of His people! David asks God to preserve and deliver him, but that doesn’t leave David off the hook! He’s responsible for living in such a way that it is reflective of God (or imaging Him)

-Ends by changing the focus of this from the individual to the nation. 

-The only way this can be true of the nation is by each individual waiting on the Lord, living as He has called and commanded us.

-This is also true of the church today! We individually need to be actively waiting on the Lord, which means living as He has called and commanded us. If we each don’t pursue that, we won’t be everything we as a church should be. So the question before all of us once again: how good are you at waiting? Not sitting back and doing nothing, but living as we need to, as God has commanded us in this time of waiting.