My Church’s Building – our goal – to see it restored and filled with people who find healing in Christ Jesus, while helping others heal

Accomplished by His Anguish
God WILL FORGET
Psalm 25:1-10 

May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ cause you to experience peace beyond all understanding!

• The Paradox of Divine Impossibilities

It is said that there is nothing new under the sun. or was that the Son? Both work!

This is especially true for those that think they have finally proven that God doesn’t exist! Usually, they ask me or just ask the air a philosophical question that cannot be answered, at least in their opinion.

One of the classic questions is this, “If God is all powerful, can He make a rock so big that He can’t lift it?”

Or “if Jesus is God, how could He be born, and die?”

Some hit a little closer home, “how could a good God allow suffering, or evil?

Or the one that comes out of the Psalm today, “If God is all-knowing—how can He “not remember the rebellious sins of my youth?” I mean—He knows everything, so how can He not know all the bad things I did back in 1981? That doesn’t seem to make sense. Either He is all knowing, or if He doesn’t know my sins, He’s not knowing—and that would mean He’s not God, right?

So if God has to be all knowing, how can He answer the prayer to forget the sins of the psalmist’s youth, or more importantly—ours?

• Avoiding Disgrace!

As the psalmist starts this intimate conversation with God he is telling God that he will surrender his life to God—that he completely trusts God! Hear it again,

O LORD, I give my life to you. ²  I trust in you, my God! Do not let me be disgraced, or let my enemies rejoice in my defeat

The more I read this, the more it sounded like a husband trying to get on the good side of his wife, before buying a new guitar…or a child who broke something, and needs to convince dad to fix it…

God—I’m giving you my life…and I trust you…sooooo…. don’t let me be disgraced! Lord, I’m losing over here don’t let my enemies and adversaries see it!

Doesn’t that mean that the psalmist did something that was—well–Disgraceful? Doesn’t it mean he was losing whatever battle he was in? You don’t ask for something like not being disgraced or letting your enemies see your embarrassing loss, unless well, it was happening!

Just like when the psalmist pleads, “Show me the right path!” I mean, how far does a guy have to go down the wrong road until he asks for directions?

Life is still like that. How badly do we have to screw up before we ask for help? How much guilt or shame has to crush us before we look for help?

How many times will we go through Lent, without dealing with the weight of sin it encourages us to let God deal with?

That Is why, finally, the psalmist cries out the plea for God to no longer remember the sins of his youth!

• He will forget – more than that – the proper path!

The ability of God to forget, to no longer remember our sins, whether of our youth or our old age, is found in the rest of verse 7, and in verse 8.

“Remember me in the light of your unfailing love, for you are merciful, O LORD. ⁸  The LORD is good and does what is right; he shows the proper path to those who go astray.”

While God knows everything, He can choose to overlook and forgive our sins. He’s God, He has that ability and power, and in fact, His love, which will never fail, compels Him to do so!

This is what the Psalmist has learned to count on, what He is sure of, what He needs—the love and compassion/mercy of God, who guides men and women who have gone astray.

I love the picture here! God taking us off the road to hell and putting us on a path leading into the presence of God, our Father! He remembers His love for us, and He sees us, broken, disheveled and lost, and moves all that blocks us from Him.

He then picks us up, battered and now healing, and places us on the path, but it doesn’t end there!

• On the Path

Hear again the last two verses, “⁹  He leads the humble in doing right, teaching them his way. ¹⁰  The LORD leads with unfailing love and faithfulness all who keep his covenant and obey his demands.

The idea translated lead here is simply to accompany us on the road, to be more than just a guide, to travel with us. He teaches us, He guides with unfailing love, He is faithful in doing this….

This is the God we need to learn to cry out to more, this is the love of our God which we need to help others see and experience!

This is our God! This is the God who we can entrust our lives to, this is the God we depend upon…

Because this is the God who embraced the agony and anguish of the cross, because of the joy set before Him, He endured it all – for us. AMEN!