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Living by Faith: Goodness

Delight in Grace / Grace Bible Church / Rich Powell
The Truth Network Radio
February 4, 2025 10:00 am

Living by Faith: Goodness

Delight in Grace / Grace Bible Church / Rich Powell

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February 4, 2025 10:00 am

C.S. Lewis said “The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” See, goodness is a natural outflow of a life of faith in Christ. A life surrendered to Him will be a life that leaves footprints to help others move toward the Lord. We are continuing through Psalm 37 in this series titled Living by Faith. In today’s message, Pastor Rich focuses on how goodness is branded into the life of God’s people. Let’s listen in.

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Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. CS Lewis said, The Christian does not think God will love us because we're good, but that God will make us good because He loves us. See, goodness is a natural outflow of a life of faith in Christ. A life surrendered to Him will be a life that leaves footprints to help others move toward the Lord. We're continuing through Psalm 37 in this series titled Living by Faith, and in today's message, Pastor Rich focuses on how goodness is branded into the life of God's people.

Let's listen in. This is part two of a message that was first preached on March 17th, 2019 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. In the footprints that you step in those steps, otherwise you're not sure what you're going to be stepping on because Nathan knew the terrain. He knew where he was stepping.

Step where I step. This is what the Lord tells us. And when we do step where he stepped, he establishes it. He authenticates its validity, its authority, and its lastingness. This word that is used, the Lord establishes, it's used in 2 Samuel 7 16 where the Lord is promising David, a descendant on his throne. He says, And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me, your throne shall be established forever. That's how the Lord establishes the steps of a man.

The good steps you take are an example. You leave footprints and the Lord establishes those because we don't just walk with God and towards God. We don't walk with him in a vacuum.

This is not an isolated individualistic experience. We walk together in community. And when you walk and you follow the Lord in his steps, you leave examples and steps for others to follow. And so in doing that, you are contrasting what is abiding and what is passing away. What abides is when you walk in line with God's character and purpose.

What passes away is when you drift away from God. And God establishes those steps that are following him. This is why Paul said, the Apostle Paul at 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 1. Let me back up 1 Timothy 4 12. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct and love and faith and purity. Set an example.

That's establishing the steps. This is why Paul said 1 Corinthians 11 one. He says, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Wow.

Can you say that? You say, well, Paul was an apostle, so he was a Christian just like you and me. He was a sinner saved by grace just like you and me.

He was tempted just like you and I are. And he said, be imitators of me as I am as I am of Christ. It means I am following Christ. In other words, I should follow him only so long as he's following Christ.

Can you and I say that? This is essentially what discipleship is. Maybe a reason why many of us are so skittish about discipleship is because we can't say this.

You need to work on that. Are you following Christ? Are you intentionally taking steps that follow the Lord? Are you walking in his steps? Are you desiring the things he desires? Or do you think you know better than God?

It's delusional. Be imitators of me as I am of Christ. The writer of Hebrews says to the church, he's writing to the church and he's speaking of those in leadership of him, which is which place huge responsibility on leadership to lead by example. And he says of them whose faith follow. Now, that's not just for the leadership of the church, but it ought to be especially of the leadership of the church. But for everybody in the church, you ought to be walking in steps where you are able to say whose faith follow. If you are following Christ, the Lord establishes your steps and you leave steps for others to follow in yours. A life of goodness is a life that leaves footprints to help others move Godward, overcoming setbacks.

What it says there, verse 24, though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong for the Lord upholds his hand. Overcoming setbacks, leaving footprints to help others move Godward, overcoming setbacks. Setbacks are unexpected frustrations and distractions in life. But you experience setbacks without defeat. Failures are not permanent.

Why? Because you're in the grip of God's grace. And this is why Paul would say things like he does in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 8. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair. Do you know how much the apostle Paul suffered for his faith? Read 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Take a look at that. You and I will never suffer to that level.

And yet he was one who said, be imitators of me as I imitate Christ. Follow in his steps. Does life have setbacks? Yeah, it does. It's difficult. Life is difficult. Life is hard.

Let me give you an example. Liliana grew up in Colombia, a country where I was born. She grew up in a notoriously dangerous region where Christians sometimes received death threats just for attending church. When my family left the mission field in 1977, we were starting to experience that. People we knew were receiving death threats just for attending church. Liliana's dad planted and pastored a church with a clear conviction of their calling. We do not fear what man can do with us.

We fear the Lord. The armed revolutionary forces of Colombia known as the FARC opposed their work because Colombian youth who came to Christ tended to abandon their revolutionary movement. When Liliana was 13, her dad disappeared and she never saw him again.

It was confirmed that the FARC had killed him. The family was shattered emotionally, physically and spiritually. They were moved to a safe house for a year with help from Voice of the Martyrs and with discipleship from Colombian believers and pastors the family was ready to move on. Liliana had been touched by a missionary to Palestine and God provided healing. And she said, and I quote, many things I could not do before because I was afraid, but there was a restoration in my relationship with God in seeking him and communicating with him. It was arranged for her to study at a discipleship school in Chile to pursue her calling to missions to the Palestinian people. And she said, my life and my testimony are going to help people. Through faith, though her faith had been threatened to crumble beneath her feet after her father's murder, today Liliana stands firmly on the spiritual foundation he helped build.

God used these trials and setbacks to direct his purpose for her life. Though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong for the Lord upholds him with his hand. That's a life of goodness. But that means you're following in the steps.

You have the right reference. Your desires are his desires and you are intentionally taking the steps to follow in his steps, even if those steps are hard. You do that and you leave a legacy of goodness.

A legacy of goodness. This is what the psalmist is telling us. I have not seen the righteous forsaken, verse 25. I have been young and now I'm old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his children begging for bread. Listen to this. No one, no one who has built his life upon God has ever said, well, that didn't work.

That doesn't happen. If you feel like you are on the precipice of abandoning God and saying that didn't work, it only means one thing. It means you don't know God. You need to get to know him. You need to build your life upon him. And God also is not like us in that he does not use us and then abandon us. You are an instrument in his hands. He's like, okay, I'm done with him.

Now I'm going to go on and something else. He does not abandon his own. David said, the Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want, I will not be in lack. We have a great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews chapter 11. Those who have gone on before us and not mentioned in there is also the apostles and all the martyrs of church history because Hebrews was written after that.

I mean, before that. So we have this great cloud of witnesses that's gone on before us that says, you know what? Yes, life is hard. You will experience adversity. Did not Deontay say the same thing to us? My life has been harder since coming to Christ, but it's what? Do you remember what he said?

It's worth it. That's the great cloud of witnesses. Ravi Zacharias, in speaking at the dedication of his new training center down in Atlanta, was recounting how so many times he's gone to very, very dangerous for 40 years. He's been traveling sometimes to very, very dangerous places. And his wife set up an appointment one time for him to go to a very dangerous place. And he's like, I really don't want to go here.

And his wife's response to him was, God will protect you until he wants you back home. Do you believe that? Yeah, but I don't want to go home. I said it, didn't I? That's what you're thinking. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Because all the time in my growing up when I went camping, that's all we were doing is just camping. It was a temporary stay. But you know what?

I really looked forward to getting back home. Do you know Dad? Do you know Dad to where you desire to be with him? Because you know what? The Lord will protect us until he wants us back home. And then what? Where are you?

You're home with Dad. I hope you know God that way. It's very, very difficult to make sense of this journey if you don't know God that way. I feel a lot of American Christians are struggling with that.

Because we're so cushioned by our prosperity. But we can leave a legacy of goodness. And it's important that we do this and as we walk the steps, the faithful steps that the Lord has left for us, and then we leave footprints for others to follow, and in that way we pass on the baton of faith. We pass the baton of trusting in God's goodness, intentionally trusting God's goodness.

His children know the one who sustains, and they don't go looking for other sources of satisfaction. That's the legacy of goodness, of trusting in God's goodness. And it says of the righteous man that he is ever lending. He is ever lending generously.

Isn't that an interesting thing to say? In other words, the entrusted resources that I have as a righteous man, the entrusted resources are a benefit to others. God is a benefit to others. God doesn't entrust stuff to you just so you can hoard them for your own pleasure. God, whatever stuff God has given to you is for the benefit of others, for your enjoyment and the benefit of others to his glory. And so the entrusted resources are a generous benefit to others. They're a helping tool. And the reason why he says lend, he lends generously, is because he's not just giving a handout.

Giving a handout to people is never really a help to them. But you give them means as a catalyst to improve, a stimulus to further goodness. And then it says of the righteous man, his children become a blessing. His children become a blessing. When you pass the baton of living in the outflow of God's goodness, and living in line with God's character and purpose, you leave a legacy of goodness. 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.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-02-04 10:06:37 / 2025-02-04 10:11:39 / 5

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