Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church Podcast. If you would, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Look at verse 4. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Verse 5. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Verse 7, our last verse.

Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. These are great verses, aren't they? These are great verses, aren't they?

I thought so. Trust in the Lord, and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Well, that's a nice verse. Oh, you have no idea how wonderful that verse is. Father, I pray that you bless us as you have promised in your word and given us promises in your word. And Lord, I thank you for the things that you do for us that we notice. And Lord, I thank you for the things that you often do for us that we don't ever notice.

We would only notice them if they weren't there. But you faithfully do them without gratitude, without thanks from us oftentimes. Thank you for being so good. And Lord, all the folks that are gathered here today, we appreciate their presence. I hope, Lord, that they will get something from your word as you always do when you read your word. In your name we pray.

Amen. It's amazing here how the Bible often outlines itself. And really, verse 3 is a point. Verse 4 is a point. Verse 5 and 6 are a point, I guess. And verse 7, they're kind of separated, and they all have their own promises. They all have their own statements. They all have their own things that we can take to the bank when we need them the most.

And they all represent a major area of our life. And I'm going to explain all that in just a second. Notice verse 3, if you would, the Bible says, Trust in the Lord, and do good. In other words, this is what I'm asking you to do. And if you do that, then God has made a promise. He said, Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.

Now, what does this verse mean? That word, trust, in the Hebrew here is the word that means this. To be confident, to be sure, to be bold, to put confidence in. That's what He says, if you will put confidence in the Lord.

If you will trust, if you will be bold, if you will be sure, if you will hope in the Lord. He says, if you'll do that and do good. Now, what does it mean to do good? You say, well, it just means to do good deeds, preacher, something like that. This word good in the Hebrew means this, it means best.

Best. So this is what God says, if you will put your confidence in me. If you will trust me. If you will be bold in me. You know, it reminds me when God says later on in the New Testament, you know that we ought to come boldly to the throne of grace. Come boldly to the throne of God.

Give our requests to God. That means this, we have reason this morning to be bold because God's told us that we can be. Because if you've been saved by the grace of God, you can come boldly to the throne of God.

And here's why. Because that's exactly where He wants you to come. Oftentimes we say, well, I don't want to bother God with my issue and I don't want Him to think I'm... What are you talking about? That's what He wants. He doesn't want us to go to our neighbor. He doesn't want us to go to a book or a television or something else to try to get our resources. It's okay to do that, but where He wants us to come first and foremost is to come to His throne. He says if you'll trust me, put your confidence in me, come boldly to me and do what's best.

Not what you want, but what's best. He says this, so shalt thou dwell in the land. Now that word dwell means to reside and that word land is the word earth. What He is saying is this, if you'll trust me while you live on this earth, if you'll just trust me and do what's best, even though you might not understand if I've given you principles for my word, if you'll just obey it, if you'll just trust me, put your confidence in me. Remember the Bible says put no confidence in the flesh. Don't put confidence in yourself. Don't put confidence in others. Trust in the Lord. Depend on Him.

Put your confidence in Him and do what's best. And God says you'll live and dwell here on this earth, and while you do, verily, thou shalt be what? Fed. That word fed means to graze or pasture.

This is what God says, if you'll trust me, I'll take care of you. I'll feed you. It's as if that whenever you need it, this term pasture or graze, let me tell you why cows sometimes haven't made. Because they can eat wherever they are just about. As long as they're somewhere where there's some grass.

Now if they're pinned up on a beach somewhere, they're stuck. But the whole thing about pasture and grazing is this, wherever you are, there's nourishment. Wherever you are, there's something to eat. Wherever you go, sometimes pasture's not that great.

Just ask my family. This past week, we have, I say we have, my in-laws have a bull. And somehow that bull kept getting out of the pen. And I live in a subdivision.

A subdivision has roads, houses, and a big bull walking through the subdivision. My mother-in-law kept having to go get this bull during the week. So guess what they decided last night? Steaks are coming. They can't keep them in the pen? Steaks are coming. It's great.

That's why I kept letting them out this week so I could get some steaks. She's like, I don't know how he got it. It's not even touched, but somehow he's out of that pen. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know how it happened. We had neighbors calling. There's like a thousand-pound bull running down the street. Cows can eat wherever. That's what pasture is.

That's what grazing is. God says this, if you'll just trust me, if you'll have faith in me, if you'll put your confidence in me, and that's what faith is. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

That means this, God, even though I can't see it and I don't know it for sure, I'm just going to trust you, put my confidence in you, and I'm going to be bold enough to know that you're going to meet my need. God says if you put faith in me, then I'll feed you. That means this, faith brings the feeding. Faith brings the feeding. If you have unwavering faith in God, you will receive unwavering results from Him. That's a promise. He says if you'll just trust me, if you'll just put your faith in me, I'll feed you. You say, well, preacher, I don't know. Let me tell you something. You know, my years of ministry, things are different, economies different, and I understand all that, and I certainly had some extremely lean times in evangelism.

You can just ask my wife about that. But I didn't have probably as many lean times and the enormity of lean times that my mom and dad had oftentimes in evangelism. And I remember as a kid getting down and praying that God would provide food for us. I'll never forget one revival meeting my dad drove to, left Florida, drove from Florida to Ohio. We left all the way from Florida to Ohio to preach a meeting. A man had asked Dad, hey, I need you to come, really need you to come. And Dad said, well, you know, I'm in Florida.

It's a long trip. He said, yeah, but I really need you to come. And he said, okay, because usually they try to book meetings in areas. So he left Florida, went all the way to Ohio. When that meeting was done on Friday night, he had to drive all the way back down to Florida to start his next meeting.

But that pastor wanted him to come. We drove all the way up there and, you know, my dad had at that point an Airstream travel trailer in a Suburban, a blue and white Chevy Suburban. It had a 454 engine in it. And, you know, you don't get real great gas mileage with that. I have an 85 Chevy truck. That's what I drive.

And I'm going to tell you something, you know, it's just like you can literally hear the gas coming out while you're driving it. So my dad drove all the way to Florida, went all the way to Ohio, and I remember it, you know, vaguely. I was young, obviously, but I remember it.

And, I mean, I was 8, 9, 10, somewhere in there. Went all the way up there, preached that revival meeting in Ohio, had numerous people saved, really had a great meeting, got done. Pastor didn't give him a love offering, didn't give him any money for gas, didn't pay for any meals during the day.

We ate on our own. And dad got in that car and started driving back down to Florida. And I just remember that time because it was a lean time anyway, and then you spend, you know, four or five hundred bucks to get up there, four or five hundred bucks to get down, a whole week of no income. You've spent a thousand dollars basically to go up and preach this meeting.

And your next meeting, we had just a little church in Florida, had about 40 people. I remember as a kid the concern. I remember seeing the concern on mom more than dad. I just remember it. And I remember those times and praying we'd get in the car, we're heading down, and Lord, let's give us safety as we travel, and Lord, protect us from traffic, create a hedge. I just heard that phrase. I pray that now.

Oftentimes it's my mom always, create a hedge around us, protect us from oncoming traffic, and keep our vehicle mechanically sound. They just had everything that we asked every time we left. And Lord, somehow would you provide our need? And as a kid, they didn't tell me their need. I didn't know all the things. But I'm going to tell you something. We got to that little church in Florida, and I don't know what all, because they didn't share all these things with me.

But you talk about down before we got there, there's just nothing. And meeting starts, and you've got to be energetic and ready to go, and you're just doing what God wants you to do. And that little church of about 40 people, God began to bring revival to that church. And there was an individual in that church that came and put tires, not only on my dad's vehicle, but on the travel trailer. Bought some things that needed fixed.

Our hot water heater had begun to go bad on our air stream trailer. That individual probably put almost four or five thousand dollars fixing up our trailer and stuff that needed. And that little church gave one of the largest love offerings just that year. And just as if God said, if you have faith in me, I'll feed you. And dear friends, oftentimes we think, well, I've got to have this job, and I've got to make this, and I've got to do this, and so we sacrifice church and family and everything because we think we've got to do this to meet the needs. I'm here to tell you, God meets our needs. God's the one that takes care of that.

Let's quit putting our faith in an economy that is obviously going to crumble. Let's just put our faith in a God that will never crumble. God said, you trust me, I'll feed you.

Faith. Number two, look at verse four. He says this, delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee, shall give thee the desires of thine heart. He gives us a promise here that we're going to get the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in the Lord.

Now, I've always taken delight thyself in the Lord to be a certain thing, that the things of God, that's what makes you happy, and that's what you enjoy, kind of thing. But I did some digging, as I always do, and this word delight is a very interesting word in the Hebrew. It means pliable. It means delicate. So where we get a word delightful and like a delight, it's like something that's very pliable, very soft, very movable. It's very delicate, but it just moves wherever you want it to move. It means pliable. And I thought, that don't make sense. Pliable thyself in the Lord?

What is he saying? It's amazing, you know what this word delight means, and I started following it through the Bible, and I realized that in almost all the uses where this particular word for delight is, do you know what it basically is saying is this, is that you and I have to be pliable to God. In other words, our delight is to do what God wants us to do. Our delight is to be formed by God. Our delight is for him to make out of us what he wants us to be. It's the word, if you want to write it down for this verse, submission. Delight thyself in the Lord.

Make him the priority. Whatever he wants, wherever he wants you to go, be pliable, be formable, don't be stubborn. You know, the Bible says he that being often reproved and hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed. It says be pliable. Be delightful. In other words, God, whatever you want to make of me, however you want to move me, he said this, if you'll delight yourself in the Lord, that he'll give you the desires of thy heart. That means this, whatever is God's desire will become my desire, because hey, I'm pliable. Hey, I'm bendable. Whatever God wants me to do. It means this, whatever of my desires God doesn't like, I'll remove. Anybody out there?

I had something in my nose, I had to get it off right there. What are you saying, preacher? What do you mean pliable? Listen to me. God says this, if you'll submit to me, you let me have the priority in your life, you follow me, you do what I want you to do, you allow yourself to be pliable to me, he says this, then I will reward you by giving you the desires of your heart.

Now here's what's wonderful. When you're pliable and you let God change you, that means God's going to give you the desires. Do you understand where your preacher's going this morning? That means this, God will make you want what he wants you to have.

All of a sudden now what would make you the happiest is what God wanted you to have anyway, and now not only are you doing what God wants you to do, but that makes you happier than anything you could do. This past week we had a chalk artist, evangelist, and he did a good job for us, we'd never met him, kind of a thing, and how many of you saw his RV out here? How many of you have? Okay. It was pitiful. It's him, his wife, two kids, and a dog, and why? Any time anybody is in a bad situation living, they always have an animal. Let's just make it worse. Oh, but I just love my dog.

Whatever. I've run bus routes for years, did in college, ran a bus route in high school, and I'm going to tell you, I'd go to Florida and I'd go to some of the slums. We call them Florida's back in the swamps. I mean, it's not like city slums. I mean, it is out in the marsh and dirt, and you'd go to a trailer, didn't you, and have hardly a floor, and there'd be a big satellite dish out in the yard in Florida. But they'd have a big old TV, no floor, no running water. The bathroom didn't even work, but bless God, they got a TV, and there'd be 39,000 dogs come out of that trailer. It's like, we live a miserable life. Let's just add something filthy, something that'll go to the bathroom in the house.

Let's bring that in here. They live in this RV. They're getting ready to head out north. It's a four-cylinder, 80-something Toyota truck with a cab over it, real little tiny RV. There's him, his wife, two children, a dog, and they live in that full time. He just had to put a new alternator on it.

The new alternator went out, something else went out a couple weeks ago, and they came to our church to try to minister. I know what it's like to live on the road. I know what it's like to live in a trailer. I know what it's like living in the trailer I lived in was a little bit bigger than that one, and I know how hard even that was. But I'm going to tell you something.

You talk to them, and you hang around them like we did. They seem, now they might have been faking it, like some of the happiest people I've ever met. Now, the average of us would say, you're going to put me in that full time? We ain't going to be acting happy. You know why? That doesn't look appealing to you, and it might not look really satisfying and contending to you, but when people are pliable to God, God molds them and changes them, and all of a sudden, when God is able to get ahold of you, He will put in you desires that you wouldn't normally have, and all of a sudden now you do what God wants you to do, and while everybody else might say, well, that doesn't look appealing to me, you can be the happiest person alive. You know why? Because God put those desires in your heart, and then He gave you your desires, and it all started when I became pliable to God.

But you give me an individual that's not pliable. They're going to do what they want to do. They're going to love the Lord and all that, but I'm going to do what I want to do. Let me tell you something.

I've seen people live in the biggest houses, have the nicest cars and the biggest bank accounts, and they're miserable, and I've seen individuals that have absolutely nothing that this earth has to offer, but because they have the desires that God put in their heart, and they're following God, they're more content and happy than a person living in a mansion. Dear friend, listen to me. God's given you some promises. If you'll be pliable, if you'll delight yourself in Him, let Him have control. He says this, if you'll submit, if you'll submit, if you'll just submit, you know how hard it is to submit?

He said, if you'll submit, I'll supply. If you'll submit to me, I'll supply the desires. You'll end up having what you want, you'll automatically end up having what God wants, and you both want the same thing, because God could change you.

You know what's so hard nowadays? It's for individuals to submit enough to God to where He could put His desires in their life. You and I oftentimes, we don't want to get rid of our desires and what we want and our plan and all the things that we think are important, and yet God says, if you'll just be pliable to me, I'll give you the desires of your heart.

You submit, He will supply. I've told this here before, I'll try to be as brief as I can, but I'll never forget when I resigned as assistant pastor here back in, I think it was 2000, and I'd been here from 94 to 2000, and God began to deal with me about going to evangelism, and I had no desire to go to evangelism. I grew up in evangelism. Why would you want to do that? I didn't understand. I've been there, done that. Wasn't that great?

I don't want to do that. I didn't realize how great it was. God began to inside change, and I said, Lord, that's not what I would like to do.

I love it here. I love whatever, but He just, Lord, and He began to change, put desires in the heart. All of a sudden, it's like, you know, this is what God wants you to do, and then it got to the point, it was so strong, that I felt like I would hurt this church if I didn't leave, because I knew God wanted me to do something different.

I'll never forget doing it. Like I've told you, I went up and resigned, and I didn't have any revival meetings. You're not really an evangelist if you don't have meetings. You're just a guy who says you're an evangelist. You gotta have meetings to be an evangelist, and you know, I said, Lord, I don't know what to do, and you know, you have a salary here, and at least you know what you're gonna make, Lord willing, if the offerings come in, you know what you're gonna make, you know, twice a month, and you know, if you have insurance, you know you have insurance, whatever the case might be, and man, you walk out of there, and you don't have the security of a job, and I lived here, and you know, you're not gonna have a house, you're not gonna this, and you're not gonna that, and Brother Joe obviously was just, you know, anything I needed, but I was like, you know, I've gotta do what God wants me to do, and all of a sudden, you have these things settled, and this is, you know what's gonna happen, and all of a sudden now, you're just thrown right into living by faith, and you don't have meetings, and God's calling me to do this. This is the dumbest thing I've ever done, and I don't know what in the world, but I found this, that if you will be pliable to God, and God, whatever you want, you tell me to do it, even though it might not make sense, but if you wanna mold me, and bend me, and change me, I'll do it, and God began to put desires in my heart that didn't even make sense to me. Why would anybody wanna leave a wonderful place like this to go out on the road, and you don't even know what's gonna happen, or what you're gonna make, and how is this gonna happen, but I know this, that now I'm here, 2013, I'm here to tell you, if you submit, he will supply.

That's just what he does. I want you to notice, thirdly, we've seen faith, we've seen submission. I want you to notice third, look at verse five, commit. That word commit means to roll on, to roll on. It would be like if I had a cot laying up here, and I just decided, all right, I'm just gonna just lay on that cot. I am committing all my weight, that's a lot of commitment, I am committing all my weight to the strength of that cot. I am saying, I just believe that that cot's gonna hold me up. I one time had put up a hammock when I used to live over there by my in-laws, I put up a hammock one time, put up the bolts and all this stuff, you know, I thought everything was secure, and I believe, I don't know if it was, I think it was Daniel, Daniel was young, and I laid down on that hammock, and Daniel came up, and I was laying down, and Daniel ran over, and he was just like two, two or three at that point, and I reached out and picked Daniel up, and I was sitting up, and I had him, I was laying on the hammock, and I was like, how you doing?

Bam! Man, I fell, hit that ground, Daniel fell on me, of course I held him, and he started crying, and man, I was sore. I had committed to that hammock, but it wasn't able to hold the commitment.

Now that I think about it, why did I tell that story? That makes me look even worse. When you commit your way unto the Lord, this verse says, that means that I basically, everything that I have, I'm just gonna roll it on God. I'm saying I believe that God can hold me up. I believe that God can take care of me.

I believe that God can make all this happen. This is what he's told me to do, so I'm just gonna commit my way. Yeah, but you're gonna have family that say, well, how are you gonna meet needs, and how are you gonna pay bills, and that makes sense to me, and I know this, but you know what, if this is what God wants me to do, I'm just gonna lay down on this, I'm just gonna roll over on him. God says if you'll do that, if you'll commit, if you'll just roll on thy way unto the Lord, notice what he says, trust also in him. He shall what?

Bring it to pass. God says if you'll just 100% commit to me, then I'll make things happen, then I'll take care, then I'll take control, and I will make them, what is he saying? He's saying you commit, and I will control. If you commit, then I'll control.

By the way, dear friend, I have been around the block a few times now, and I'm here to tell you, everything in your life that you try to make happen is gonna end up in a mess. It's not gonna go the way you want it, it's not gonna go the way you planned, and if it's all your plan and your doing and you tried to make things happen in your life and you make a mess, look at me, you look at me right now, I'm telling you, if there's anything in your life that happens, you wanna make sure that God's the one that made it happen. And God says this, if you'll just commit your way, roll all your weight on me, throw everything that you have on me, just trust me, he says next in that verse, just commit, put all the weight on it, trust me, and if you do that, I will bring it to pass.

Oh dear friend, if you just, if we'll just commit, if we'll just roll on him, let him have it, you commit, he says, I will control. Let me close with this if I can, if you'll look at verse seven, for sake of time, let's just go to verse seven, he says this, rest in the Lord and wait patiently on him. That means this in verse three, he says faith, verse four, he says submission, verse five and six, he says obedience.

And what does that always bring? In verse seven, it brings rest. He said rest in the Lord, wait patiently on him. Let me give you these two things and I'll let you go, you rest, he says, and he will reassure. You rest, he will reassure.

You wait, he will do the work. These are promises that God has made. If you will trust in the Lord and do good, he'll feed you. He says this in verse four, and let me just rewrite, delight thyself in the Lord, he'll give you the desires of thine heart, commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, he will bring it to pass. Dear friend, in the midst of confusion and life and all the things that can happen, let me give you something you can hold onto, let me give you something you can take to the bank. If you'll just commit to God, if you'll just give it all to him, stay pliable to him, put your faith and trust in him, be confident, be bold, put everything, lock, stock and barrel in God and he will take care of it, he'll make it happen, he'll feed you, he'll give you the desires of your heart. What a life. He'll give you.

What a life. And he's promised it to us. Father, I think sometimes with us, talking is one thing, walking's another, doing's another. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kirtland Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kirtlandbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you.