Mute That GPS!
Notes
Transcript
Maggie and I travel differently, especially when it comes to GPS. We both plug the address into our phones, so that we have the map and the directions in front of us. We have a phone holder that attaches to the vent in the dash so that the phone is held up for us.
But, here is where the difference lies. Maggie leaves her sound on. So that she can hear the directions and be reminded of when to turn. She wants the help.
I turn the sound off, because I can see the map. I don’t need anyone or anything telling me what to do, especially when I don’t want to do what it wants me to do.
Turn right in 2 miles. Turn right in 1 mile. Turn right in 1000 ft. Turn right in 200 ft. Recalculating. Recalculating. Recalculating.
Continue for twelve miles and then take right on Hwy 20.
Technology is pretty amazing and I am so grateful for the Global Positioning System and for voice artists such as Karen Jacobsen and Susan Bennett so that people can find their way from point A to point B.
Now, what I am about to say has no statistical proof to it. I believe that the most important direction that a map program can give is “continue for a certain amount of miles.” You come to a popular exit and everyone else is getting off and the map says: “continue on 680.”
That direction tells us that we are to go straight, no matter how many turns or exits we pass, we are to continue in the same direction, even when we are confused and think the road actually goes that way—we are to continue in the same direction.
We are to continue in the way that we know that we are to go.
Over the past nine weeks, we have discussed a way that we are to go. A path for addiction recovery and for fighting besetting sins.
We are powerless
God has the power
We must trust Him in faith
We must make a fearless moral inventory
We must be people who confess
We must be people who repent
We must be people who follow
We must be people who forgive
We must be people who make amends
This is a roadmap, telling us which street that we are to drive on. And at this point, if the voice of the GPS was turned on, it would say:
“Continue on path until you arrive at destination.”
We must continue.
We continue to examine our lives, and when we sin promptly confess and turn to walk with Christ.
This is the passion that David had when he wrote Psalm 139. We are only going to focus on the last two verse, but lets read the whole Psalm together.
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Pray
We must continue!
1. We Ask God to Search
1. We Ask God to Search
Which means we ask God to search.
David prays:
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
This is a bold prayer. What is David beseeching God? Well, let’s look at some words, shall we?
Search has a force of examining: to consider in detail and subject to analysis in order to discover essential features or meaning.
Job uses this word for mining:
Mortals put an end to the darkness;
they search out the farthest recesses
for ore in the blackest darkness.
David is begging God to examine everything about his life, nothing hidden.
Test relates to metallurgy. It speaks for finding the nature of something, including imperfections, faults, or other qualities.
David explicitly explains this process in Psalm 66.
For you, God, tested us;
you refined us like silver.
You brought us into prison
and laid burdens on our backs.
You let people ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water,
but you brought us to a place of abundance.
The metallurgist takes the precious metal and melts it down, testing to see the purity. If it is impure, all of those impurities will rise to the surface, being easily seen through that heating process.
David desired righteousness, he was surrounded by evil men who hated God and hated him. David didn’t want to be affect by them, so he turns to the one he knows he cannot run away from and says:
Search me God! Try me! Examine all of me. Root out all of the imperfection. May they rise to the surface.
He specifically asks God to know his heart and his thoughts. This the core of the person, the heart and the mind. Passions and the reasons. The desires and the thoughts.
James writes:
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
It’s one thing to look at our actions and say: yes, that’s wrong. It’s another thing to have our innermost parts laid bare and the sovereign holy God place his finger on a part of our thought processes or desires, even before it morphs into action, and here him say: change this.
Do we yearn for righteousness that much that we would pray this? Do we detest our sin and addictions so much that we yearn for transparency?
We must continue in the path, daily acknowledging that we are sinners, desperately in need of a savior, and Jesus is our only hope.
We ask God to search.
2. We Ask God to Find
2. We Ask God to Find
We ask God to find.
David prayed:
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
David asks God to see if there was any offensive way in me. Do you know what the word “see” means? It means to see. We have looked for something and then we see it.
From time to time, my sons and I go for walks, and they want to find stuff, pretty rocks, sticks, bugs. They keep some for themselves, they give pretty stuff to Grace, and they give some cool stuff to their grandpa.
So, we go on those walk searching for something and then they see it. And they pounce on it, holding it up: Look what I found!
The word means to see. But, when tied with searching and testing, it is a see of result: to find out, figure out ofter an investigation or search.
God, search and find out the offensive way in me.
What did he want God to find?
Well, different translations say different things:
Hurtful, grievous, wicked, offensive. Interesting words. And it could definitely be translated those ways, as is seen in other verses. But, what is the hurtful, grievous, wicked, offensive way?
Well, the word could also be translated as seen in Isa 48 5
Therefore I told you these things long ago;
before they happened I announced them to you
so that you could not say,
‘My images brought them about;
my wooden image and metal god ordained them.’
It can be translated as an image of idolatry, or the idolatrous way.
God, find out, search and see, where I have idols in my life. Tendencies to worship others or other things more than you. Root those out, God, because I know that is hurtful, grievous, wicked, offensive.
Show me the mirror of who I am, what I pursue besides you, and why I pursue those things, so that I can confess and repent.
Find it and lay it out in front of me!
William Arnot notes:
The Treasury of David, Volume 6: Psalms 120–150 Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings
The difference between an unconverted and a converted man is not that the one has sins, and the other has none; but that the one takes part with his cherished sins against a dreaded God, and the other takes part with a reconciled God against his hated sins.
We ask God to find.
3. We Ask God to Lead
3. We Ask God to Lead
We ask God to lead.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
The Hebrews had a saying when they referred to keeping the law: they talked about not turning aside to the right or the left.
It is from Deut 5 32
So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left.
There is a straight and narrow road to holiness, to following God, and we cannot keep to it without his help. Left to ourselves, we will turn to the right or the left, off of the way everlasting.
Many times, left to ourselves, we are like the people in Nineveh:
And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”
We do not know the difference between right and wrong, without God’s guidance.
As the Robert Robinson wrote:
“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, oh take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.”
We need God to take charge of our life and lead us. We need to take our hands off and give control over to him.
As A.W. Pink wrote:
There is no way that we by ourselves can generate sanctification. Our sanctification is Christ. There is no way we can be good. Our goodness is Christ. There is no way we can be holy. Our holiness is Christ.
Arthur Walkington Pink
David wrote:
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
Jesus said:
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Jesus died on the cross for our sins, allowing us the ability to know him and follow him. He promises to be our shepherd, providing for our needs, physically, emotionally, spiritually. He promises to guide us along those right paths, the way of righteous. The way of everlasting.
If we would but allow him.
We are torn. Because we know that the way everlasting is the way of following, forgiving, and making amends, seeking to love God and love each other. Finding all we need in him, and showing that to those around us.
We don’t want that, but truthfully, the more we spend time with God, the more we yearn for him, because he is so beautiful, so good.
I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.
We ask God to lead.
4. That We Might Follow
4. That We Might Follow
David prayed
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Every single person who confesses to be a follower of Jesus Christ must decide whether they are really a follower of him or not.
We can easily say nice things with our mouths. We can easily live good moral lives when other people are watching. But, in the dark, by ourselves, we are horrible, rotten sinners.
Jesus called these people, whitewashed tombs.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.
God help us, if that is any of us. We confess to be a follower of Jesus Christ, but when it comes down to it, we are not.
Now, I am not saying that we can lose our salvation. Our salvation has been bought and paid for by Jesus Christ. It is done, it is sealed, if we have come to him in faith.
However, if we have come to Jesus in faith, receiving his gift of salvation, bought on that fateful day 2000 years ago, we are called to leave it all and follow Jesus.
Spurgeon said:
Perseverance is the badge of true saints. The Christian life is not a beginning only in the ways of God, but also a continuance in the same as long as life lasts. It is with a Christian as it was with the great Napoleon: he said, “Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest must maintain me.”
Morning And Evening, Page 295
Charles Spurgeon
We are called to persevere. To follow Jesus to the end.
So, what is holding you back? What detour are you itching to take? Leave it! It’s not worth it.
If it’s pornography, leave it. If it is drug addiction or alcoholism. Leave it. If it is control, leave it. If is people-pleasing, or safety, or financial success, or sweets, gossip, or you name it. Leave it. Those are idols.
Don’t let go of one and hold on to the others. Leave it all for Christ.
John, James, Peter, and Andrew left their nets, their boats, their family and followed Jesus.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
We are called see the way of Christ and to continue in it. There is no recalculating the Christian life. There are no detours. We are either following him or not.
It is Him and only Him, now and forevermore. Because he alone is worthy to be our guide. He alone is worthy to set the path. He alone.
Oh, God, search us and try us, find the way of idolatry, and lead us in your holiness, because we yearn to follow.