29 Dec Seeking God’s guidance

Psalm 25:1-21

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. ² O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. ³ Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. ⁴ Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. ⁵ Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. ⁶ Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. ⁷ Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord! ⁸ Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. ⁹ He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. ¹⁰ All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

¹¹ For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. ¹² Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose. ¹³ His soul shall abide in well-being, and his offspring shall inherit the land. ¹⁴ The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant. ¹⁵ My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. ¹⁶ Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. ¹⁷ The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses. ¹⁸ Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. ¹⁹ Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me. ²⁰ Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me! Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. ²¹ May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you. ²² Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.

How can we know that God is leading us and guiding us? How can we know the decisions we are making are not simply our own, but God is guiding us? As we end 2024 and look to 2025, many of us reflect on what has been, and we have major decisions to make for the upcoming year. We are asking, “God, which way should I go? How do I know this is the path that you want me to take? Is this the right school for me? Is this the right career? Or do you want me to look elsewhere? Should I go out with him? Should I break up with her? Should I stay in Sydney? Should I go back to Indonesia?” Let’s make it more personal for our church context. This is the question many of us have been asking ourselves in the past few weeks. “Should I join the church plant of Rock Redeemer Church? Or should I stay and serve in ROCK Sydney Church?” This is a hard decision to make. If the choice is, “Should I be planted in a church or should I just do livestream every week?” the answer is clear. The Bible commands us to be planted in a church. But what happens when both choices are not against the Biblical commands? What happens when both options are not morally wrong? For these situations, we can’t open the Bible and find verses that give specific answers to our situations. We can’t open Yosia 1:1 – You shall join Rock Redeemer Church. That verse does not exist. So, how can we be sure that we are making the right decision? This is probably one of the main causes of stress in our lives.

Does anyone remember the ‘Choose your own adventure’ storybook? You read the book, and you are given a choice. And every choice you make leads you to a different path and a different ending. “You are turning 40, and a handsome tall guy asks you to marry him. If you accept his proposal, turn to page 101. If not, turn to page 70.” You accept his proposal and turn to page 101. The man turns out to be a vampire, he bites you and turns you into a vampire. The end. And you are like, “Wait. What? Let me undo my decision and choose a different path.” You can do that in a storybook, but you can’t do that in life. Every choice is like a fork in the road. And once you make it, you can’t undo it. If you make a wrong choice, you can never go back. If you don’t make a good choice, it can be very destructive. That’s why you want to be sure that you are making the right choice. All of us have been, are, and will be in a situation where we are not sure what to do and ask God for guidance. So, how do we know that God is leading us in our decision-making?

Psalm 25 is one of the best passages in the Bible on how God guides us. Let me give you the context first. This Psalm is written by King David. We don’t know when he wrote this psalm and the exact situation behind it, but there are three concerns that David expresses in this psalm: the pressure from enemies, the burden of guilt, and the need for guidance. I am sure all of us can relate to these concerns. But in this psalm, we will see that David tackles these concerns very differently from us. A lot of times when we are not sure what to do, what we want is guidance. We think what we need above all is direction. But this psalm puts the emphasis in a different place. David is more interested in knowing God and becoming the kind of person God wants him to be than seeking God’s guidance for a particular decision. This tells us something important about God’s guidance. Get this. God’s guidance is less about telling us which decision we should make but more about making us the kind of people who make the right decision. The big idea of this psalm is not how God guides, but whom God guides. The focus is not on how God guides us, but whether we are the kind of person God guides. Let’s look at this psalm together.

Three points for my sermon: the request; the guidance; the mercy

The request

Psalm 25:1-3 – To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. ² O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. ³ Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

Does any of you have heard a story of a bride or bridegroom who was left at the altar? Every time I heard that kind of story, I cringed. I can’t imagine the rejection and the humiliation of being left at the altar. This sort of public humiliation is the kind of shame David talks about at the beginning of this psalm. David is surrounded by enemies. And David appeals to God to come to his rescue. He says, “Let me not be put to shame.” Shame in this context is not inward feeling, but outward public embarrassment. It is the humiliation from being abandoned. It is being let down by having trusted in something unworthy of trust. And David is saying, “God, don’t let that happen to me. Do not let me be put to shame by my enemies. Because if my enemies win, it will not only look bad for me, but it will also look bad for you. It will show them that you are not worthy of my trust. Do not let my enemies have the last laugh.” That’s verse 2. But in verse 3, David’s request turns into certainty. He says, “Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame.” So, David is not only making a request to God, but he is also absolutely certain that God will not remain silent. David has confidence in God who has not disappointed and will not disappoint those who trust in him. David knows for sure his enemies will not be victorious because that will be an insult to God. God will never allow those who wait for him to be put to shame. This is David’s first request. He asks God to help him deal with the enemies from the outside. But David also has an enemy from the inside. Look at the end of this psalm.

Psalm 25:16-21 – ¹⁶ Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. ¹⁷ The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses. ¹⁸ Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. ¹⁹ Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me. ²⁰ Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me! Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. ²¹ May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.

On top of external enemies, David is also dealing with an internal enemy, the misery of a sinful heart. He knows that some of his troubles are caused by his sins. And he feels lonely and afflicted because of it. That’s why he says, “God, please help me. Turn to me and be gracious to me. Help me deal with both my enemies and my sins. Deliver me from my misery.” And David ends verse 21 by saying, “May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.” At the beginning of this psalm, David says that those who wait for God shall never be put to shame. And at the end of this psalm, he says “God, I am waiting for you. Come to my rescue.” But note the kind of waiting that David does is not passive; it is an active waiting. Yes, David needs to wait patiently for God to act, but David is waiting with eager expectation rather than resignation. I recently read a wonderful book called ‘Waiting isn’t a waste’ by Mark Vroegop. I highly recommend everyone to read it. And this is how he defines waiting on God. “Waiting on God is living on what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life.” This is what David is doing. As he waits for God, he does not stay idle. He lives with integrity and uprightness. He takes refuge in God.

So here is what I want us to take away from these verses. Listen. No one can mess up God’s plan for our lives. Not the enemies from the outside, not the enemy from the within. God is greater than all our enemies. Do you believe that? Because if you do, you will face 2025 with confidence. I am sure all of us have people in our lives who really messed us up. It might be our parents, our children, our spouses, our business partners, our exes etc. But David is telling us that it doesn’t matter how hard they try to harm us, if we put our trust in God and wait for God, we will never be put to shame. God will act on our behalf. The Bible tells us again and again that God is able to turn what the enemies meant for evil for our good. The promises of God are far more powerful than the enemies’ evil intentions. What God wants is for us to trust him and wait for him. No one can mess up God’s plan for our lives. But it doesn’t mean we do nothing. It doesn’t mean God’s plan will work itself out automatically. No. God’s plan for our lives requires us to trust him and live with integrity and uprightness. So, as we make our requests to God, we remain faithful to God. We don’t go anywhere. We stick close to him.

The guidance

Psalm 25:4-5 – ⁴ Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. ⁵ Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.

So, how do we receive guidance from God? I have bad news and good news. Let me start with the bad news first. God is not interested in giving us fortune cookies. But that’s what we want, right? “God, whom should I marry?” Then suddenly your dog barks out the name of the person God wants you to marry. “God, where should I live?” You look up to the sky and you see the stars forming the word, Zimbabwe. Or if you want more certainty, you seek a prophet. “Mr prophet, can you tell me what I am supposed to do with my life?” He replies, “God told me that you will go back to Indonesia and have three businesses in the next five years. You will become very successful. And once you do, don’t forget to send 10% of your profit to my prophetic ministry.” That’s what we want. But God doesn’t work that way. How do I know? Because David is not asking God to tell him which decision he should make. David is asking God to make him know God’s ways and teach him God’s paths. And David is willing to wait for God all the day long. Wait is not a word we oftentimes connect to guidance. We don’t like waiting. We want guidance now. We want an answer immediately. But there is no shortcut to seeking God’s guidance. That’s the bad news.

Here is the good news. God has a plan, and he will instruct us in the way he has set for us. God does not leave us in the dark. There is a path, and God will move us along through it. This is the way Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:10 – For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. The word workmanship comes from the Greek word ‘poeima’ from which we have the English word poem. What it is saying is that we are a work of art. There is nothing accidental about us. Everything about us is designed. It means that our gifts, our temperaments, our experiences, none of it is random. It is all part of God’s design. And not only are we God’s work of art, but God also created us for good works that he has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. It means that we have been designed to do certain things only we can do. Our experiences and even our troubles shape us to become someone God wants us to be. And God has prepared good works that only we can do. There are people only we can address. There are speeches only we can make. There are tasks only we can do. God has prepared them beforehand, and God will lead us to walk in that path. So, life is not a ‘Choose your own adventure’ storybook. There is a plan. There is a path. God is an incredible artist, and we are his work of art. He is far more interested in getting where he wants us to be than we are. That’s the good news.

The question is, how does God get us there? Here is how. David says, “Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.” Here is what David is saying. “God, I want to know where I should go. I want to know who I should marry. I want to know what I should do with my life. But before you tell me the answer to those questions, I want to know your ways. I want to know your words. I want to know your commands. I want to know your promises. I want you to teach me. Before you tell me my way, I want to know your ways.” Do you see? God leads us by making us familiar with his ways. And he revealed his ways through his words. In other words, we won’t be able to receive God’s guidance if we don’t know God’s words. I love the way John Piper puts it. “The prerequisite of divine guidance is not the quests for messages, but the quest for holiness. Guidance is the product not of ecstatic heights but of spiritual depth.” Guidance is the product not of ecstatic heights but of spiritual depth. It is as we grow in spiritual depth that we are able to discern God’s guidance.

Let me give you an example. When I was 15, I learned how to play acoustic guitar. And if you ever learned how to plan an instrument, you know that the first couple of months were awkward and painful. It took me about a week for my fingers to get used to the G chord. It took another few weeks to be able to hold the F chord properly. And every time I did a chord change, I needed to concentrate and pay attention to where my fingers were. But as I continued to practice, my fingers started to get used to it. After a while, I no longer needed to pay careful attention to where my fingers were. I knew how to hold the B minor chord without thinking because I trained my fingers to do it. Let me give you another example. I love to hear people speak French. But I do not know French well enough to distinguish words. I can’t tell where one word starts and another one stops. It’s a blur. My faculties are not trained. What if I decide I want to be able to understand French? Can I just buy a French English dictionary, read it for 15 minutes a day, pray for it, get a little inspiration from it, and then go out there and talk to a French person fluently? Of course not. The best I can do is, “Bonjour Monsieur, comment vas-tu?” And then I won’t understand anything that person says back to me. To be fluent in French, I must be saturated in it. I must be immersed in it. It takes a lot of time to train my faculties so I can distinguish this word from that word. Do you see? If we want to know God’s guidance, we must be an expert in God’s words. If we do not know God’s words, we won’t be able to discern God’s guidance for our lives. God guides us by bringing our hearts and minds into harmony with his own heart and mind. So that when we decide, we make a decision that would best accord with the heart and the mind of God we know from his words. Being trained in God’s words develops the instinct to know God’s guidance. Because we are saturated in God’s words, we have faculties that can make wise decisions. There is no shortcut. But it doesn’t stop there.

Psalm 25:8-10 – ⁸ Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. ⁹ He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. ¹⁰ All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

Being trained in God’s words alone is not enough. We also need to obey God’s words. God will instruct us in his way. The question is, are we humble enough to accept God’s way? A proud person says, “I know what I want and where I want to go. I know what’s best for me and I will pursue it.” A humble person says, “God, I don’t know what’s best for me. Will you teach me? Will you show me the way?” A humble person is teachable. A humble person acknowledges that God’s way is the best way. And it is only those who are humble who will receive God’s guidance. In other words, listen. We can’t say we are humble if we do not obey God’s words. We can’t live in disobedience and expect God to guide us. Some of you are wondering right now, “God, what is your will in this decision?” But you have areas of your life where you are clearly disobeying God. You refuse to forgive the person who hurt you. You refuse to stop sleeping with someone you shouldn’t sleep with. You refuse to give generously. But you want to know God’s will for your decision. It’s not going to work. Before you receive God’s guidance, you must decide whom will you trust with your future. Will you trust God? Or will you trust yourself? Unless you are willing to obey God at whatever cost, unless you are willing to humble yourself, unless you are willing to say no to your own way, you will not receive guidance. God only guides the humble.

The mercy

Psalm 25:6-7 – ⁶ Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. ⁷ Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

One of the biggest hindrances in seeking God’s guidance is our sins. David understands this. He knows he is a sinful man. That’s why he asks God, “Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions.” David is not asking God to forget his sins. God cannot forget anything. He is all-knowing. But David is asking God to remember his steadfast love in the way he treats David. The word steadfast love is the Hebrew word, ‘chesed.’ It is God’s covenant love for his people. When a husband and a wife vow to each other, “until death do us part”, that is a covenant love. It is a love based not on feeling but a settled decision. God has committed himself by covenant to his people as a husband to his wife. By asking God to remember his steadfast love, David is asking God to remember the wedding vows he made to his people. David is saying, “God, I know you know my sins. But do not see me in the light of my sins. See me in the light of your steadfast love. Deal with me not based on my lack of loyalty, but your commitment of loyalty. Treat me not as I deserve, but in the abundance of your mercy.” In other words, listen. The prerequisite to God’s guidance is not sinlessness but God’s goodness. Our confidence in God’s guidance is not rooted in our lack of commitment to God but in God’s unbreakable commitment to us. But David does not stop there. He is not satisfied to simply ask God to not remember his sins. He wants God to forgive his sins.

Psalm 25:11 – For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. This is very interesting. Usually, when we make mistakes, we try to downplay our mistakes. We say things like, “I know I did wrong, but it’s not that bad. It’s not that big of a deal. I did this because of this and that…” But David does not do that. David does not minimize his sins. But he says, “God, forgive my sins for they are great.” David understands the weight of sins. Our sins are great before God. We have committed great offences against God. Why is this important? If we downplay the greatness of our sins, we won’t know the greatness of God’s forgiveness. If we minimize our sins, we minimize the cost of forgiveness. The greater the sin, the greater the forgiveness, the greater glory God received. So, David asks God not only to treat him in the light of God’s steadfast love but also to forgive his great sins.

Do you know what it means? It means that not even our sins can cancel God’s plan for our lives. I think one of our greatest fears is we fear missing out on God’s plan for our lives. We think that for us to accomplish God’s plan for our lives, we need to get everything right. We need to marry the right person. We need to go to the right school. We need to live in the right city. But what if we make the wrong decision? What if we marry the wrong person, go to the wrong school, and live in the wrong city? We think, “I miss out on God’s plan A for me. I’m stuck on plan B now.” But is that true? Does God have plan B? No, he doesn’t. God does not have plan B. He only has plan A. Everything we do, everything that happens to us, is all part of God’s plan A for us. If we do something dumb, if we make mistakes, there will be consequences. We will experience brokenness. But God will use that brokenness as part of his plan for our lives. Think about the story of Jacob. Jacob makes a big mess again and again in his life. He sins against his dad Isaac by lying about his identity. He sins against his brother Esau by stealing Esau’s birthright. He cheats on his uncle Laban at work. If we look at Jacob’s life, it is filled with lies and deceptions. And because of that, Jacob has to leave his house and lives in fear. There are consequences to his sins. But do you know what happens to him while he is on the run? He meets the love of his life, Rachel. And from his bizarre relationship with the other wife, Leah, comes the line of the Messiah. Is this plan B? Of course not. Does it mean it is all right that Jacob sinned? Of course not. His sins hurt him for the rest of his life. But the Messiah still comes from his line. What it teaches us is that if we love God, if we trust God, we can’t screw up our lives. Our sins cannot cancel God’s plan for our lives. God is too great for it. God is able to bring about his plan through our sins. This is such wonderful news. But it gets even better.

Psalm 25:12-15 – ¹² Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose. ¹³ His soul shall abide in well-being, and his offspring shall inherit the land. ¹⁴ The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant. ¹⁵ My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

I love this. David says that God not only forgives people and treats people with kindness, but God also extends his friendship to those who fear him. “The friendship of the Lord” is not a good translation. The literal Hebrew translation is, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.” It means that if we fear God, if we are fully dependent on him, if we trust him and walk in his path, God is going to tell us his secret. In other words, God will guide us. God will lead us in certain ways. God will prompt us. God will speak to our hearts. The Holy Spirit will lead us to do certain things. And this is such a blessing. It is one thing for God to teach us his path, it is another thing for God to tell us his secret. Do you know that Apple CEO Tim Cook offered to have coffee for an hour with up to two people? In that one hour, you can seek his counsel and gain as much insight as possible. The only catch is it will cost USD 210,000. But God is different. God is not selling us his time; he offers us his friendship. He reveals his secret to those who fear him.

But listen. Don’t get the order wrong. This is not the first step. This step comes last. Let me explain what I mean. The leading of the Holy Spirit, the revealing of God’s secret, should not be the first thing we seek. It will come last after we do everything else that this passage is teaching us. The secret of the Lord belongs to those who fear him. It means that we first must be saturated in God’s words. We first must walk in his path. We first must obey him at all costs. We first must humble ourselves. We first must have our faculties trained to discern God’s guidance. Then and only then we can trust the inner prompting of the Holy Spirit to lead us. In other words, we can never put our feelings over against the word of God. We can never set our feelings over against obedience. We can never set our feelings over against wisdom. We must not take a strong inner prompting and automatically say it is God’s guidance. We don’t know that. We must do all the other things first. But the closer we are to God, the more dependent we are on him, the more we trust him, the more and more we are going to be able to trust the Holy Spirit’s inner promptings.

So, let’s put it together now. How do we receive guidance from God? Here is how. We become the kind of person God wants us to be, make the best decision we can, and trust that God is guiding us like he promised he would. In other words, get this. God is not promising us step-by-step guidance for every decision in life, but he is giving us assurance that he is leading us in his path as we trust him. What God is offering us is not a guidance but a guide. Think about the time before Google Maps existed. Let’s say you are trying to get to A, and you are lost. And then you ask a local person for directions. You say, “I’m trying to get to A. Can you tell me how to get there?” He replies, “That’s going to be very hard. The road to there is very complicated.” So, he draws you a map. You look at it, and if you are like me, you are utterly confused. I got lost even with Google Maps. True story. Then he says, “You know what? Why don’t I just go with you and show you the way?” Do you know what he does? He doesn’t give you guidance; he gives you the guide. Does it change the fact that you are still lost? No. But it makes it so much better. Your guide says, “Turn right on that intersection.” That’s all he tells you. He doesn’t tell you the rest. Then after going down that road, he says, “Turn left here.” You still don’t know where you are going, but it doesn’t bother you anymore because you have the guide with you. Sometimes what we want from God is a map. And if God does give us a map, I am sure we will be overwhelmed by it. We will be extremely confused trying to make sense of it. But God is not offering us a map; he is offering us himself as our guide. What we need above all is a relationship with him and he will guide us to the destination that he has set for us. Do you see? The Bible teaches us that guidance is not something God gives to us; it is something God does for us. The Bible does not talk much about how to get guidance; it talks about the kind of person who receives guidance.

Psalm 25:22 – Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles. David ends this psalm by praying for Israel. David prays for God to redeem Israel, that God’s people will never know the humiliation of being abandoned and rejected by God. In other words, this confidence of guidance is not just for David, but for all God’s people. The question is, how can we be sure that we will never be abandoned? How can we have the confidence that God will be our guide? Most of the commentaries I read on this psalm agree that the heart of this psalm is verse 11. Psalm 25:11 – For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. David is asking God to forgive his great guilt. But on what ground does David ask God to forgive him? It’s not based on David’s goodness. David asks God to forgive him for the sake of God’s name. Name speaks of a person’s character and reputation. In other words, David does not put his confidence in his goodness but in God’s goodness. He is asking God to forgive him because that’s who God is. Let me tell you why this is good news. It means God is as committed to us as he is to his own reputation. God is committed to forgiving us and guiding us for his own name’s sake.

This is how apostle John puts it in 1 John 2:12 – I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake. Who is the ‘he’ John is referring to? It is Jesus Christ. It means that our sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake. It means we can know for sure that God will be our guide because of Jesus. Think about what happened to Jesus. For all his life on earth, Jesus always walked on God’s path. Jesus always obeyed God. Jesus always trusted God. On the night before the crucifixion, Jesus humbled himself to God’s will. He said, “Not my will but your will be done.” Jesus lived the perfect life that we could not. But at the cross, Jesus was abandoned by God the Father. At the cross, his enemies made fun of him. Jesus experienced public humiliation. The only person who ever lived out God’s covenant perfectly was rejected by God. He experienced shame. Why? Because at the cross Jesus took the humiliation that we should experience, he took the abandonment that we deserve because of our sins, so that when we put our faith in him, we will never be put to shame. We will never experience being abandoned by God because Jesus was already abandoned for us. We can have confidence today that God will not fail to be our guide because he does not guide us based on our worthiness but on the worthiness of Jesus. If we are in Jesus, we are God’s work of art. God has prepared our way for us. We can’t mess up God’s plan for our lives. He who began the good work in us will complete it in the day of Jesus Christ. All we must do is humble ourselves and he will guide us. Let’s pray.

Discussion questions:

1. What struck you the most from the sermon?
2. What does it mean to wait for God with integrity and uprightness? Give practical examples.
3. Why is it important for you to be an expert at God’s words? What can you do to grow in this area?
4. Explain the relationship between your sins and God’s plan for your lives. How does this truth encourage you to live responsibly?
5. How does the gospel assure you that God will not fail to be your guide?