Destined for the Best, Part 3

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem.

C.S. Lewis said, If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. There are longings within all human hearts that can only be filled by the one we were made for. 2 Corinthians 5, 1-8 reminds us that we groan in these earthly bodies, longing for the eternity with God we were made for. Let's listen in to this message titled, Destined for the Best. This is part 3 of a message first preached on March 30, 2014 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem.

And because you now have that sense, you now want that synagogue. And so it is with the Holy Spirit whom God has given us as a guarantee of the great satisfaction that is to come. That word guarantee means first installment, a down payment if you will. It is the guarantee of the completion of a transaction.

What transaction is that? The Lord tells us, As my child, you are destined for the best. We are invited into communion with the Trinity. You see, we are called into fellowship with the Trinity. We are called to belong at home with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

That is our home and that is where we belong. That is our longing. And we've been given the foretaste of that in the presence of the Holy Spirit. And verse 5 says, Now he who has prepared us for this very thing is God who has also given us the Spirit as a guarantee. How has he prepared us for this? He's prepared us for this by regeneration through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. And as I surrender myself to him in faith, he gives me his righteousness and I am new creation. He says that, by the way, at the end of this chapter.

Remember that? New creation. He has prepared us for that so that within me is the innate longing for home, for dad. That's how God has prepared us for that in the third person of the Trinity is the down payment for that perfection which is to come.

It is the foretaste. Let me share with you the power of Christian fellowship. Thursday mornings we have a Bible study, a sermon-based discussion at Panera Bread. Colin Lavoie leads the discussion. He does a wonderful job at that.

Sometimes I wish we could have that discussion before I get up to preach the sermon. But as we were talking of that in the context, Colin was given illustration. He says, Rich, he says, you know, when you get to heaven, one of the first people you're going to seek out is your dad. I've not had my dad for 20 years now and this one. But, you know, when Colin said that, I was silent for the next couple of minutes. I don't know if they recognized it or not, but I couldn't speak and tears running down my cheeks because I had actually never actually thought of that in all these years.

The first, one of the first people, not the first, you know who the first is, obviously. One of the first people I'm going to seek out is my own dad. There is a connection that we have even though he is in eternity and I'm still in my earthly tent. That's the power of Christian fellowship. Of holding on to your brother's hands because that sibling is your connection to home. The other day I was doing dishes because no woman ever shot a man with his hands in the dish pan. Look outside on our deck, there's a window right there over our sink and they're looking out and we have one of these decorative little flags hanging on a bar and it was just draped there.

That's all it was, just hanging there. The thought comes to mind, why do we do stuff, I think, weird thoughts like that? Why do we do stuff like that? And then all of a sudden this whiff of wind comes along and the flag is fluttering like that. I'm like, there's something beautiful about it and it grabs your attention. And you know the Greek word for spirit is pneuma. Do you know it's the same word for wind? And so you can't see the wind but you can clearly see its effect on the physical entity. And so it is with the spirit of God. We can't see him, he is spirit, but we can see his effect upon us and among us.

What is that effect? The effect that the spirit has upon me is a delight in God because the spirit delights in the Father. And so his effect on me is to delight in God. The spirit is yielded to the Father's pleasure and that's his effect on me, is that I become yielded to the Father's pleasure and that's our topic next Sunday. But not only that, as he says back in chapter 4 and verse 16, that we are the inward man is being renewed day by day.

How is that? That's the effect of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, the foretaste, the guarantee that God has given us of where we belong. You see, only the gospel of grace satisfies this longing.

It clearly defines it and it satisfies it. He says in verse 7, for we walk by faith and not by sight. And then as you come to verse 8, is this your testimony? So we are confident, there's that word again, confident. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather, meaning this is something we prefer to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. It is better, I would much rather be home than on a bad camping trip. And that's the best this life can become for us, is a bad camping trip.

We long to be home. Is it your testimony? J. Vernon McGee writes, what is your ambition in life today? Is it to get rich?

Is it to make a name for yourself? Is it even to do some wonderful thing for God? Listen to me beloved, he says, the highest desire that can possess any human heart is a longing to see God. This is the apostle Paul's heart.

This is his communication to us this morning, a bit of a challenge, a bit of a challenge as we come to a conclusion this morning. In his book, the book of dead philosophers, Simon Critchley writes this, if proof were needed that many religious believers actually do not practice what they preach, then it can be found in the ignorance of religious teaching on death, particularly Christian teaching. Christianity in the hands of a Paul, an Augustine or a Luther is a way of becoming reconciled to the brevity of human life and giving up the desire for wealth, worldly goods and temporal power. But many Christians today are actually leading desperate atheist lives bound by a desire for longevity and a terror of death. Christians, loved ones, people of God, I hope this paragraph does not describe you.

If it does, what can we do about it? You see, Paul the apostle did not consider death to be a dreaded catastrophe. Death was simply folding up the tent and walking through the door to home. If God to you is little more than an idea, or maybe he is a distant judge who is kind of aloof, or if your walk of faith is simply a matter of just doing the right things, then I would guess that you are probably not too much longing for home. If you have ears to hear, please listen. But if your walk of faith is a growing walk in communion with God, the person, and a growing delight in him, then you're probably longing to see him face to face.

I would gather that you are. You see, the more you seek God and delight in him, the more confident and longing you will become of being with him. And the less distracted you will be by temporal attractions and afflictions. And the more you will desire to invest yourself with abandon. Why? Because you are destined for the best.

Sco-pe-o. Fix your gaze on the objective and do not be distracted by what surrounds, whether those distractions are attractions or afflictions. Invest yourself with abandon because you are longing, as a human being, you are longing for something, as a Christian, you are longing to go home to Dad. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.