Lead Me and Teach Me - Ps. 2,55

Make your way, if you have not in your Bible, please, to the book of Psalms. Psalm 25. I'm going to go Spurgeon style without it being that good because Spurgeon was a superhero. When I say Spurgeon style, we're going to look at a single verse and the phrases in that verse. Spurgeon was kind of known for doing that. This is another really, I think, helpful, moving lesson from King David. But I feel compelled— I was just talking about this this morning in the back of the church— that I feel a little bit compelled to prime the pump before we dig into the proverb. What I mean by prime the pump is I want— we're going to learn some things about the man after God's own heart, David himself, and the fact that If you don't know this, people often can think that God is the God after their own heart. Right? So the old saying is true. I just put this in some other sermon notes that I've done it dozens of times over the years that God created man in his own image and then man returned the favor. Right? So it's very possible and more than possible, it's extremely likely and probably not unusual at all that We often project our thoughts and worldview on God. And in particular, the subject we'll look at this evening is what we actually know. Our knowledge. I don't want to get all theological and talk about epistemology and those things. That's not really the thrust of this. But I do want to talk about that humans tend to think in and of themselves that they are right most of the time. When was the last time you heard somebody in a social media interaction say, "You know, I have heard you out, and now I'm going to change my thinking to your thinking." I say that because what you're seeing in those interactions is just humanity. People say sometimes that because people are hiding on the internet behind screen names that it's not real. The internet's not real. Social media is not real. And I very strongly beg to differ. I suggest to you it's the most real. That people are saying what they really, really think because they can hide in that anonymity to say what they really, really think. And so all that evil interaction out there, I actually think, is the heart of man showing plain as day that what we are is depraved and we think we're right.

And if you've never heard of things like metacognition or studied such things, this is the kind of stuff I do for fun, which I don't recommend you do. I would say take up gardening or something. There's something called the Dunning-Kruger effect. It is scientifically proven that the smarter someone thinks they are, the smarter they're not. What I really wanted to say is the dumber they are, but I'm supposed to be respectful in the pulpit. But the smarter somebody thinks they are on any given subject, the more knowledgeable somebody actually thinks of themself, it is actually scientifically proven that they know that amount ratio-wise, proportion-wise, less than they think they do. The other side of that is also true, that the smarter and more intelligent and high in aptitude that people get, the less they think they know. Meaning, you only know what you don't know the smarter you get. Makes sense, right? You all know this. Anybody that's worked in any sort of field with mechanical things, like you train somebody, OK, this is what you do. You step in front of this thing and you do these 5 things. And what do they say? The first thing they say, got it. And then how long is it before you're picking up pieces and fixing broken things and you're telling them, "Okay, you don't got it. Let's really learn it." And that's because of this effect, this thing that happens that is scientifically proven psychologically.

We think we know things and we don't really know what we don't know. And then we don't question our not knowing. So we don't know a thing and we think we know a thing and somebody comes along and says, "You might not know the thing." And then we think, "What are you talking about? It's me. Of course I know the thing." I'm saying all that to you because an author of a psalm, who I would think we would all agree has got to be pretty smart— King David, he wasn't the smartest, the wisest man who ever lived, but he was the wisest man who ever lived's father, the man after God's own heart. An author in Scripture is going to tell us tonight he doesn't know everything. He's not only going to tell us he doesn't know everything, he's going to ask to be helped with the fact that he doesn't know everything. So I suggest to you, this is me priming the pump. If you didn't know, Scripture is not here for our confirmation and affirmation. God is not asking our opinion on Scripture. He's not saying, "What do you think, Johnny? I'd really like to know your thoughts on this." When David tells us what he's telling us, we're supposed to, I think, humbly recognize if David doesn't know everything and he's smart enough to say, "I need some help because I don't know everything." then we, God's people, who want to be like David, the people after God's own heart, will say, "Well, why, maybe I don't know everything either. And maybe I need to learn instead of just be affirmed or confirmed or just look for things that I agree with in Scripture. And then once I agree with them, I will say amen and tell God, 'God, you were right.'" God doesn't need to be told that.

And that's what we will do as we look at Psalm 25:5, one verse broken up into four chunks, and we'll look at it together. Real quick, one more little priming I'll do is sometimes if we don't know a thing, we think that's not important, right? Sometimes if— and it could be a whole subject, it could be anything. Like, we— I, I for one don't know much about farming. I don't know much about raising crops. I don't know much about trees. So it's very possible that because I don't know much about it, I could say it's not that important to know about. But it's very important for you to know about, right? You might not know much about electric guitars and how many windings belong on a humbucker pickup. You might not know much about that, and then you might say because you don't know about it, not important. But it's important to me and people who make music with those things. So it's very possible that there are things that God would call important that because we don't know about them yet, we might not think they're important. But how many words of Scripture have to be fulfilled? All of them. So when we're talking about the things of Scripture, we don't get to say, "Because that's not my thing, it's unimportant." If it's in Scripture, it's important because God spoke it. And so it's a good thing to learn, like this principle that we'll learn tonight, the thing that David will share with us tonight. If we take it, it will apply to many things. The applications are actually endless. If you can do what David does in this passage in one verse, and take it with you to other passages of the Bible, oh my goodness, you can expect to learn a lot. But you have to know that you don't know before you can learn anything, right? You got to know you don't know first. And David will not know first for us and ask to know, then we will learn the lessons from him.

Let's pray. Father, teach us please from Psalm 25. Teach us just from this single verse. There's so much here, and we'd ask that we would take it with us and that it would strengthen us, but more than that, that it would give us maybe some lessons in humility, that we can take the lessons here and use that in our life so that we would be humble students instead of people who maybe think they know it all. Maybe we don't need to be your counselors, maybe we need to be counseled by you. Help us with that. Our world needs it. Our world needs to listen and to be taught by you. And we'd ask, Father, that we would maybe practice that and be good examples of it. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, first, you see, uh, back in verse 1, even though I'm not handling verse 1, I want you to see that this is a Psalm of David. And I said already that he's the man after God's own heart. And I'm emphasizing, before we dig into the verse that we're going to look at tonight, that this man, the man that we know, King David, who penned much of scripture, who was the king of Israel, who was God's chosen one, right, who is the anointed one, whose throne on which the King of kings will sit one day. King David is a very important person. This king who is very important, who, by the way, went through all of his problems, didn't he? He was not smart all the time. He failed miserably on major occasions. He had major character flaws and problems. He is still called the man after God's own heart, and he is humble enough, this king, King David, to ask for help. He's humble enough to say, "I don't want to take a step without your guidance." Got it? That's the idea. So I want you to know that David that we know, David that we respect, David we care about, doesn't say, "I know already. I got that." He's not that guy at the machine or whatever that says, "I got that." He's a guy that even after everything he's been through, penning a psalm in the Scripture itself, says, "I need help." And that gets us to our verse, Psalm 25:5.

Look at the beginning. I'll just do what I do and parse it up, right? We'll chop it up. The first thing that David says is, "Lead me." 'in your truth.' Lead me in your truth. And in a moment, he's going to say, teach me. And you could see those lead me and teach me as parallels. They might indeed be a Hebrew parallelism. That wouldn't be all out of place to think that he's saying the same thing twice. That happens in Scripture. It's the way Scripture emphasizes things. In the Old Testament, there aren't emojis, and there aren't things to underline, and circles, and capitals, and italics, and bold. They didn't have that. So how would the Hebrew Authors emphasize something. Very often it was repetition. Sometimes it was— you would even see things like a chiasm. Some people say chiasm. Anyway, it's a structure to where the first verse and the last verse essentially are thematically the same. And then the second verse and the second to the last verse are thematically the same. And then it all comes down to a point, which is the main point of the writing. There's these structures. If you know Psalm 119, all those verses, every 8 verses in Psalm 119, begins with a Hebrew letter. It's the way the kids would not only learn the commandments, but they would also learn the alphabet. So they would use their alphabet to— and you'll see that, by the way, in your own Bible. Usually there'll be a little heading that'll say Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Dalet. It'll have the letter in it. So there's the things that the Hebrew Scripture does to make an emphasis. And this could be one of those. It could be that when he says, "Lead me," he means lead me and teach me. He means the same thing. But I do want, for the sake of our discussion, to make a little distinction between the two. Not a separation, but a distinction, just to see that if it is a parallelism, the thing being amplified is not one or the other or that they are both down here, but it's to amplify them up to a high degree, not at a place down low where you would settle.

So when he says, "Lead me," I want to suggest to you that the word "lead" means you cannot stay still. Okay? You cannot be led in place. To lead means somebody is following. And if somebody's following, that means you're moving. And so the first thing David, I think, is saying, and I do think it's safe to assume that because it happens in other places, walking through the valley of the shadow of death and things like that, that language that we know so well in Scripture. I think what David is saying is, "I am ready as your child, as your person, as the one you love to make progress. But I'm not going to make any progress unless you are out front leading for me." So the first thing David is saying is, "Lead and I will follow." I think that's important because I think sometimes we'll essentially tell God, "You're going to have to drag me if you want me to change." or I'll wait here until I get a sign from above. And I really think that sometimes people don't realize that the Christian walk is supposed to have progress in it. It's not okay to sit still and say, well, I'll wait. And you'll see in a moment it'll say wait. You might think, well, that's a contradiction to wait and to lead. No, they're not a contradiction. You'll see they work together perfectly. So in the Bible, walking is an idiom. What do you do by faith? Do you live by faith or walk by faith according to the New Testament? If you read the NIV, which I'm not a huge fan of, it says we live by faith. And I don't love that because walking is the thing. Walking is an idiom. You know you're moving when you're walking. You understand that. You can live in place. You cannot walk in place. I mean, unless you have a treadmill, but that's a different story, right? But the idea of walking means movement. It means progress.

So I think what David is saying first is lead me, go out front and tell me where you want me to go. And that going will be by your truth. Your truth is what I want to be, the information that I follow as I progress. And that going will be by your truth. Your truth is what I want to be, the information that I follow as I progress. And then he says, he gives a reason, David gives a reason that he wants to listen to the leading and the teaching of the Lord in the next part of the verse. In verse 25, I'm calling it letter C, he says, "For you are the God of my salvation." Now, I would suggest to you that when David says this, that if David heard the way modern Christians think about salvation, I'm not going to say that thing people say where he'd roll over in his grave. I'm not going to say that. But he would definitely be upset.

And that gets us to the next point where it says, "And teach me." But before we go there, do you love when people walk in truth? Because John did. John loved when people walked in truth. Remember when the apostle says, "I rejoice greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you." He's talking to that group of people he's talking to in 3 John, whoever that church is. "Just as you walk in the truth." I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. So walking, I just want to put that in your frontal lobe that the Christian life experience is supposed to be one of progress, becoming more Christlike, walking with Him, having Him walk with you, movement. You're in a different place tomorrow than you are today. You're further along in the journey in your Christian experience tomorrow. And then that's when he says in the second part of verse 25 in the next section, "And teach me." So again, these could be parallels. They could be saying the same thing. And the reason they could be saying the same thing is if you didn't know this, another idiom, another Hebrew idiom is to hear is to do. So when you hear, "Hear, O Israel, hear the Lord our God is one," that idea of hearing means doing. So if you are told the Word of God in the Bible, it's assumed you're going to do it, right? So lead means to move in progress, and teach means the student will learn and do what he is told. So they are somewhat related. You can see they're at least first cousins, if not brothers, these two ideas. So, "Lead me and teach me." And the idea is there is something, someplace I need to go and some information I need to get there. And He already said that that information is the truth.

Some people think that doctrine and theology are optional, that all we really need is basic faith, right? If I understand the basics, that's all I need. And they would even call that a childlike faith. You've heard people say that, and you've also heard me delineate between childlike and childish. Sometimes people just don't want to do the diligent work of becoming a disciple and learning more from the Lord so that they can obey more faithfully. And you can't— you might think, well, all I need is the basics, and then I will just live my Christian life. But David isn't content with that. David isn't saying, well, I'm the man after your own heart. You already chose me to be the king of Israel. I already did the thing with Goliath. I'm already I've already gone this far in life. I know enough. David is saying at some point in his life, as an author of Scripture, I don't know enough. Clearly, I need more information from you, from your truth, in order to be faithful. And I'll emphasize it again. He's writing Scripture right now. This man is writing Scripture that the Jews will sing this song. This is going to be one of their hymns. And the guy that's writing the song is saying, I still don't know it all. And I would just ask you, are you smarter than David? Are you in the room smarter than David to where you can say, well, David might need help. He might need some book learning, but I don't. I'm fine. No, I think if David says he needs help and the basics are not sufficient for him— I've heard over the years, if I had a nickel for every time somebody said, what's the big deal about that? That thing that they didn't think was important, so to them it was not important. What's the big deal about that? Why is that so important, that doctrine thing you're talking about? Whatever the doctrine, it doesn't matter what the doctrine is. Why is the doctrine of election so important to you? Why is the doctrine of perspicacity important to you? Why do you care about those things? It's just like you're showing off. You just want to say big words. Why are they important to you? Because somebody doesn't know them, they assume they're not that important.

Well, how about this idea from David? What if David says, well, there are things I don't know, but I don't need to know. Not that important. Why is that a big deal to you? That is not what David is doing. He's saying, "If there's things I don't know in God's truth, I want to know them. I want to know them so that I can obey and be faithful to the Lord who gave them. I want to know the things that the God of truth says so that I can worship and live for the God of truth." He's not content to stay where he's at. Jesus says so clearly in His prayer, His high priestly prayer to His Father, "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth." David isn't content, and I don't think we should be either. We should never be okay that we are at any level of understanding of truth. We should never be the people that say, "I know that already." I've said it countless times over the years that I think any Christian who is genuinely desiring to know the truth of God should be able to walk into any, like, Sunday school class at our church or the Puggles or whatever, and there should be some level of value in there for that person if they're ready to learn. You know the old saying, "When the student's ready, the teacher appears." That's how that goes. Well, this idea that I'm hungry for learning, I'm listening to the Word of God, I'm listening to the people of God, this is what God has given me, the Spirit of God.

I have the Bible, now I know, and I have people talking the Word of God into my life, and we engage on scriptural things, and we encourage each other in the scripture, and we remind each other of what God's doing in life and with us. And when you do that, I think a good student, somebody who's a hungry student, a thirsty student— the old saying is you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, right? That's a lie. You just are messing with the wrong horses. You need thirsty horses and they'll drink every time. Okay, change the horse. Get a thirsty horse and they'll drink every single time you take them to the water. We need to be thirsty, thirsty for the Word of God, ready to be taught. Lord, I'm ready to move, so lead me. But I'm also ready to move in your truth with the words that you give me, so teach me. Give me the data. I need for the journey. And then he says, he gives a reason, David gives a reason that he wants to listen to the leading and the teaching of the Lord in the next part of the verse. In verse 25, I'm calling it letter C, he says, "For you are the God of my salvation." Now, I would suggest to you that when David says this, that if David heard the way modern Christians think about salvation, I'm not going to say that thing people say where he'd roll over in his grave. I'm not going to say that. But he would definitely be upset.

If David knew the way modern Christian people thought of the doctrine of salvation and the intended goal of salvation, and you were to tell David what I'm about to tell you that modern people think of salvation, David would say, "What are you talking about?" Just like you all know that if the founding fathers saw the state of our country, what it would do to them, right? Well, if David heard what we think, moderns think about salvation, which is that salvation is an end goal and it's the main thing that God cares about— the main thing that God cares about is whether or not somebody is saved. That is always the question people ask: are they saved or not? If you said that to David, David would say, well, what are you talking about? What about the obedience part? What about the part where you live for him? What about the part where he didn't save you so that you would be saved? He saved you so that you would live for him and glorify him and honor him and your life would be a testimony of his grace.

So look at that phrase. Why? He says, lead me, right? Lead me in your truth and teach me. Why? And what's his answer? 'For you are the God of my salvation.' It's not a foregone conclusion. I know this sounds obvious, what I'm saying to you right now, but it's not obvious. You want to know how I know it's not obvious? Try to talk theology with people. Try to. Try to talk about important doctrines. Try to talk about the doctrine of Scripture. Try to talk about the doctrine of hell. Try to talk about theology. And you'll see people say, 'I don't know about all that. Why are you making a big deal out of all that?' And they'll say what they've said for decades: doctrine divides. Right? Here's David saying, "You have saved me, and because you have saved me, I want to learn from you." He doesn't say, "You have saved me, ball game's over, I don't have to worry about anything anymore because the most important thing is done. I'm saved, so I can go kick back on the couch." No, David is saying, "I want to be led by you, move in your will, progress. I want to grow. I want to Be in Christ's likeness. I want to be more like your Son, like Jesus. I want to follow the Lord. I want to hear from him. And I want him to teach me his truth. I want to know his truth. Why? What's the reason? He doesn't say because it's going to pay off big time in the end, because I'm going to get mega blessings or anything. He's saying, you saved me. You saved me. What are you talking about? Be saved and then sit. No. He saved me. I want to know why. Why did you save me? What did you expect from me when you saved me? What are you hoping to see in my life because you saved me? Why did you see fit in your eternal plan to choose me out of everyone, to pick me and then save me and make me your child and make me your king? I want to hear from you.

He doesn't say, oh, I got everything I want. I have heaven guaranteed. I got all the blessings guaranteed.

Now, now, Lord, that you have saved me, leave me alone so I can go live my life however I want. Just know that it'll end okay. No, David's saying, I want to hear from you. I want to follow you. I want to be led by you. Why? Why do I want to be led by you? Because you saved me. You're the God of my salvation. That's not obvious. It should be obvious what I'm saying right now. It should be obvious to us that this is a fact, that this is the way it is. We Christians should automatically think, well, if he saved me, clearly I would want to obey him and honor him. But I'm telling you, in our culture, that is not very popular. There are people who really think that the end goal is just to see somebody make a profession of faith, that if they just say, Jesus, please save me from my sins, good, done, done. I don't have to do anything else. But I say it all the time, and I'm going to reiterate it. Salvation isn't the end. It's the beginning. Salvation is not the end. It's the start. It's God starting with you. It's God taking you out of darkness and putting you in light so that you can do His will and make Him happy. And by the way, so you could be happy too. You're only going to be happy doing God's will. He made you for that. You were designed for it. So when He takes you out of darkness, when He takes a guy like David with all of his failures and weaknesses, And he makes him into the man of God he was supposed to be. David's smart enough to say, "He saved me, so I'm going to listen to anything he says." He doesn't say, "Well, he saved me, so now what?" Now that I'm saved and I got my get-out-of-hell-free card and I can go to heaven, I know I'm guaranteed heaven, now I can go back to my life the way I want it and keep living the way I was living and not have to worry about anything in the future. My future's taken care of. All essentially I got is a heavenly retirement account. No, he saved you so you want to hear from him.

So make sure and take that with you. Please take that with you tonight. It's— God didn't save you so that you could wait around like at a bus station for heaven. He didn't save you for what happens after you die. Eternal life started the day He saved you. That was when your eternal life started. And you have life right now. You have it. We're seated in the heavenlies, Paul says. Right now. Right now we are His people. We right now are the sheep of His pasture. We right now are the ones who will live for Him and glorify Him in our lives. So why would you ask God to teach you and lead you? Because He saved you. And why would you not be content to just be saved? Because if He loves you, He wants to walk with you. He wants to be close to you. He wants to show you. He wants— like you're a sheep or a shepherd, the shepherd wants to lead you and take you and show you all the things that He's done. Let me show you what I've done. Look over here in the book of Exodus. Look what I did with those people that were stuck in Egypt. "Look over here in the book of Acts and look what I did when I sent my Spirit after my Son rose from the dead. Look at this, isn't this amazing?" And he wants to lead you like a child. He loves you and he wants to take you with him. And you say, "Well, I'm listening. If he saved me, he loves me and I'm gonna listen to whatever he says. He sacrificed everything for me. He gave me," in this case we know the future, "he gave me his Son, so I'm happy. It's a package deal for me that if he saved me, I'm listening." He doesn't say, "My salvation is the end goal." It says, "My salvation started my relationship with the Lord, and my Father loves me, and I want to hear from my Father."

It's so different than modern Christianity that says, "He's my Savior, but I don't know if I want Him as my Lord. I want salvation. I want the free gift and the blessing, but I don't know if I want to obey." That's such a harsh word, isn't it? Obey. I don't like to hear that language of bondservant, obligation. No, no, no, no, no. I don't like that language. So the modern doesn't like that idea, but you and I should love that idea. Not only that we must obey because He saved us, but we can because He saved us. It's like we get to be holy. I don't know. Sometimes we think you have to be holy. We hear that as like, "Oh, holiness, it hurts. I don't know if I can do it." But no, you get to be holy. Before, you couldn't do that. In your sin, you couldn't be holy. You couldn't be righteous. You couldn't have peace. You couldn't walk with Him because you were broken and you were His enemy. Now you're His friend. And He empowers you with the Holy Spirit to be holy.

So, "You are the God of my salvation." That's why I want to be led by You and taught by You. And then lastly here in the end of the verse, "On You I wait all the day." Now again, that sounds like a contradiction to "lead me." But no, he's essentially saying, "I'm standing here waiting for instructions. I know You have a plan. I know You love me. You've already saved me." And now he's saying, "I'm not gonna— now that I'm saved and now that I've asked for you to deliver me and to do these things, I'm not gonna go and either expect immediate response." That's the way we pray, isn't it? Like, "I feel sick, so heal me immediately." "My bills aren't looking very good right now. My income's not looking good. Give me more money." That's the way we pray. We expect immediate response. Well, essentially David is saying, "I'm asking you to lead me. Tell me where you want me to go. I'm asking that that journey, when we go on it, would be according to your truth." I want to be taught your truth and be informed by your truth. I want my mind to be the mind of Christ. I want to know the Word of God. I want to know what you have to say. And I want to do all of that. I have a desire to walk and to move and to learn and to study and to hear and do because you saved me. And now I'm waiting for instruction. Now I'm waiting. And if it takes a while for me to get clear instruction, that'll be okay. Because I've asked and he loves me. So I'm okay if the answer isn't immediate.

Hey, make this choice in your life right now. Change your job right now. Change your living situation right now, stop that friendship right now. That's the way we want. Like, I'm having this immediate trouble right now, trouble I probably got myself into. But as I'm dealing with that trouble and the bad decisions I made, and I'm asking the Lord to bail me out, and He's not answering right away, like, hurry up, hurry up. Do you have prayer waiting, or what's going on? Why is it taking so long? I sent you the note, and I'm waiting for a response. David says, no, I'll be content. I'm saved. He loves me. I already asked, and He'll tell me where He wants me to go. I'll understand according to His truth. I'll have joyful expectation of good answers. I'm essentially praying, "Guide my steps, inform me. I'm now ready to go wherever you call me to go." And I don't need to force the Lord to have an immediate response. I don't need to pray and say, "Tell me what to do here, Lord, or else!" That's not what David is doing. David is saying, "I don't know everything. I'm not even sure what the next step is." Have you ever been there? Have you ever been there where you don't know what the next step is? Like, "I don't know what to even do next." Like, I'm confused as to even how to function right now, let alone make a step in any sort of direction.

So those are the times where you say, Lord, I do want to go the direction you have for me. I absolutely only want to do the will of the Lord. But right now, I'm asking for help and leadership. I'm asking for guidance from your word because you've saved me. And until I'm clear for takeoff, I'm not taking off. I'm not going to force your hand. I'm not going to say, I asked, where's my answer? I'm impatient. I want to know. I'm going to relax and wait on the Lord. So waiting is different than we think it is. For us, waiting is being stalled, right? We all think of when you have to wait in a line or you're in the waiting room. Those are all negative ideas, right? For us, waiting is not active. We think of waiting as a halt to activity, don't we? Like, I was moving. I was busy. I was doing things. And now that I have to wait, I'm I'm stuck. I can't move anymore. But in the Bible, that's not the way the word wait means. Like the other idioms, like learning or hearing means doing, or walking means progress, another idiom is that waiting is active. Waiting is active. You don't wait passively. You wait actively in the Word. So as you're waiting, you're waiting like your antennae are up. You're listening for the call. You're on duty. You're vigilant. You're just not moving, and you're not making bad decisions, and you're not doing what Abraham did when he lied about Sarah, you know, you're not forcing God's hand or did what he did with Hagar. You're listening. You're ready. He said he was going to do something. He told me to trust his word. I have now asked him, lead me, guide me, teach me your word. I love you. You love me. You saved me already. Now I'm ready for the answer, and I'm waiting with eager anticipation, and I'm waiting with my antenna up. I'm actively waiting. I'm not passively sitting thinking nothing's happening. I'm ready to hear from the Lord. I wonder what He's going to expect of me. I know He's got good plans for me because He loves me. So now I'm waiting.

So when you hear him say he waits all the day, that means he's not saying, "Okay, I prayed. Now I'm going to go get busy back with my life." No, I prayed. I expect leadership. So I'm waiting actively, participating in the expectation that God's going to say something. So if I paraphrase this verse, it's something like, I'm one of your saved people, and because I'm one of your saved people, I want to be taught by you. And in the meantime, until I know the answer and the teaching of what you expect me to do, I'm going to wait. And I'm going to wait on you actively. So there's something like that. And maybe you know this, and I'm sure you do and you've heard it, God opposes the proud, but he exalts who? He exalts the humble. And I love David's humility in this verse. In a single verse, You learn so much about the King David, the one we respect so much. This verse probably is a really good indicator why he is considered the man after God's own heart, isn't it? Think of him saying, "I need you to tell me where to go, and I know you will according to your truth, and I know you want to lead me because you saved me." It would be a silly thing for me to think God does not want to take me somewhere considering he saved me so that I could go with him. And now I'm anxiously, lovingly— when I say anxious, I don't mean negatively, I mean excitedly— waiting to hear from Him.

That's like an entire Christian life experience in one verse if we would take it, if we would not try to force God's hand, if we would be humble and know that we don't know. You notice what David doesn't say here. Now that I'm waiting, I'm going to guess all the possible answers that You're going to give me. I'll be nervous about them too while I'm guessing them, all the things that could go wrong and all the shoes that can drop. Nope, I prayed, I expect the Lord to deliver, and now I'm waiting. And he continues honoring the Lord all day long, he says. So back to the beginning and then we'll wrap. Humble people know they don't know. Humble people know their limits. Humble people don't go to God and tell Him what to think. Humble people like David say, "I want leadership. I know the Word is where I find the guidance and the things I need to know for my life and where I'm supposed to go. The direction is found in Your Word. I know You love me. You saved me. You chose me." For David, he, out of that tribe, raised up the son of Jesse, the smaller son, right? The not impressive son. He picked the not the soldier to stand. The Lord picked Jesse, Jesse's less than great son. So God clearly had a plan for this guy David. He told David he's going to rise him up to the throne of Israel and eventually that there's promises that are going to be fulfilled in that throne that he gives him. He blesses him. He takes care of him. And the end of his life, his life ends with honor.

Even the part where David wanted to build a temple. Do you remember that? Where David wanted so badly to build a house for the Lord. And what did the Lord tell him? You don't get to do that, but your son will. And what was David's response? But I want to. I prayed about it. Give me what I want. No, he's honored. Oh, hallelujah, if it's my son that gets to do it, hallelujah. I don't need to do it as long as it gets done, as long as the Lord is pleased. We often sing, I Need Thee Every Hour, and I always tell you the story that the first time I ever heard that was from Kenny Simmons. I heard it. Cassette recording of it for me. I'd never heard church music before, so it was not only weird to hear church music, but it was weird to hear a guy I saw as a carpenter that usually had a tool belt on singing church music, right?

Because he showed me this cassette. That guy, who I love dearly, is in heaven now. I got to speak at that special thing they did for his family, different. That guy said to me one time— and he is one of the few people allowed to call me John, by the way— and so since he's gone and my dad's gone, I think that's The last of it, except for my stepmom, calls me John Boy. Everybody else has to call me Johnny, okay? But Kenny, for some reason, because he called my dad John and both of our names are Johnny, he called me John too. And one time he was talking about humility, we were just having a conversation, and he said it just like this. It was so helpful to me. He said, John, humility is taking what God gives you— you all fell for it just like I did. That was it. That's what he told me. It didn't have a second half of the sentence. And it made the point, didn't it? I'm talking about it 30 years later. What is humility? Taking what God gives you. That's what it is. Asking for help and then receiving what he gives you. Right? Not arguing, not saying, "No, I would have done it a different way, Lord." Lord, I need leadership. I know you want to take me places. I know you have a goal for me, a direction for me. That I can live for you and honor you in my life. I want to do that according to your truth. You saved me, and I'm waiting to hear exactly what that direction is. Tell me, and I'll go. And if it's tomorrow, I'll go tomorrow. And if it's a month from now, I'll go a month from now. But I'm listening. I'm listening because I want to do the will of the Lord. I want to go where he sends me, whether that's the mission field, whether it's to knock on your neighbor's door and share the gospel, whether it's to pray for someone at church, maybe to do the meal train and give somebody a meal, whatever it is. The Lord will be honored when you listen to Him and then do what He says.

So you can know things and you can think you know things, and sometimes you cannot know you don't know things. So know what you don't know and ask the Lord to teach you. Ask Him. Ask the Lord to teach you. Do you remember the last time you learned something? Would you be able to mark that down? The last time you learned something, anything. Are you still a student? Are you curious? Are you listening? Things you want to know, things you care about, things that the Bible says. Like, I don't know, what does the Bible say about this? Go be a good student of the Word. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful for David's few words here. It's one sentence, but there's so much in it. This is just the way Your Word works. Just a few words are rich with wisdom. And we do thank You not only for the words but for the man. David is an example with all the warts and everything in the Word. We see his worst and his best, and we see that you used him, and we definitely know, Father, that you loved him. And we'd ask, Father, that we would walk the way he walked—carefully, humbly listening, ready for your answers. And we'll thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.