Welcome to Delight in Grace. The Teaching Ministry of Rich Powell. Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The God of the Bible. is a dangerous beauty.
A consuming fire eliciting awe, and wander. Our God is also ever good. and ever faithful. Deuteronomy 9 has a lot to teach us about the character of God. and a lot to teach us about ourselves.
May our understanding of Him spur us to follow hard after our God. Let's listen to this message titled, A consuming fire is the Lord your God. This is part four of a message first preached on June 23rd, 2024, at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. God's promise is a pillar of your walk with Him. His promise, his purpose ensures, his promise ensures that his purpose is realized.
This is one of the beautiful things about the grace of God. And that it's not just simply about you. doing everything you're supposed to do. to become acceptable to God. First Thessalonians five.
Verse 24, a very simple verse: He who calls you is faithful, he will surely do it. The third pillar of your walk with God. is God's grace. The first is His holiness, the second is His promise, the third is His grace. Verse 1, I mentioned it before.
Here, O Israel, you are to cross over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess the nations. God was going before them, and He was going to lavish them with blessing. And where you find it, look back with me at chapter 8. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains, of springs flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees, pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, and a land which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper, and you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he is giving you. He is going to lavish them with blessing.
It's undeserved favor. It's not because they deserve it. It's because God delights to give it. His Grace. Ephesians 2:5 makes this abundantly clear.
And when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. Oh, it's not anything about what we deserve. Let's be very, very careful that we don't fall into those pitfalls of privilege because you know what? Let's admit it right now.
We are a privileged people. In Christ. God's elect ones, holy and beloved. A chosen generation, a royal priesthood, his own special people, the people of his own possession. We are a privileged people.
Let's not fall into the pitfall. of self-righteousness or comparison. or an exalted self-perception. A pillar of God's walk, of our walk with God, number one is holiness, number two is promise, number three is grace, number four. God's people interceding.
God's people interceding. Look with me at verses 18 and 19. This is in the incident of the golden calf. And Moses comes down. He's got the two tablets of the covenant.
One is a copy of the other. And he sees what the people are doing, and he drops them. And you know, for a long time, I thought Moses was like. That's not what happened. He drops them, he throws them down he thrusts them down and the stone tablets shatter Do you know why?
because Israel had shattered their covenant relationship with God. It was, after all, a conditional covenant. And he says, You have done to your relationship and your walk with God exactly what has happened to these stones. And then what does Moses do? He lies face down on the ground and he pleads with God because God has already said, get out of my way.
I'm I'm done. Moses, I'm going to raise a nation out of you and take them into the promised land because you're still part of my people. And I'm going to make a nation out of you. And what does Moses do? He lies down on his face before God.
I want you to notice what he prays for. Did you catch that? Do you notice what he prays for? He's not praying, Lord, please, please, please have mercy. Just overlook what they're doing.
They're That's not what he does. It's not what he does. Moses was concerned about God's reputation. Lord, if you destroy these people... Then the people back in Egypt and all the nations that we have come through And you have gloriously delivered us.
They're going to say You see, Jehovah wasn't able to take his people into the land. He's no more special than our gods. This was Moses' concern. He said, Lord, it's your reputation. that will be impacted more than anything here.
And he says, Look at the end, look at the end with me. Verse 27, remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people or their wickedness or their sin, lest the land from which you brought us say, Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness. For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out of your great with your great power. and by outs your outstretched arm.
It was God's reputation that he cared about. Do you realize how important it was that Solomon was interceding for his people at this time? Do you realize how important it is? Each one of you, that God's people intercede for you. Day after day after day.
Do you realize how important that is to your walk with God? Philippians chapter 1, verse 4, just as an example, Philippians chapter 1, verse 4, he says, Always, Paul says, he writes to the church, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy. He's constantly praying for the people. And here's why else that's important. James chapter 5, verse 16.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. How do we pray for each other? When you get together in care group, and you know what? You should be praying in care group.
A huge chunk of time in your prayer group should be devoted to prayer. And we should pray for each other. And when you say, let's, what do we need to pray about? Here's what I'm challenging you to do. Don't think about the hospital list.
We need to pray for those in the hospital, don't get me wrong. But we need to be praying about what God wants to do in our lives and in the lives of the people that we love and care about. Because praying for each other is a huge part. of God's purifying process. in our lives.
Because you might be going through a struggle. When I was down in Haiti, For an extended stay? It was incredibly meaningful to know that God's people were interceding for me. But you know what? You weren't just praying that God would rescue me.
And you were, and I appreciate it. Thank you very much. But you know what else you were praying for? And I know this. There was a spiritual battle going on in here.
And your intercession helped me. It moved God's spirit. To help me. We should be doing that for each other every day. Because there is spiritual warfare going on day after day after day after day.
And our intercession for each other is so key. Do we realize that my earnest prayer before God moves the arm of omnipotence? Yeah. To take action in a loved one's life. to protect them.
To purify them. to change their thoughts. To switch their focus from the obstacle that's in front of them to the glorious one. who loves them and delivers them. It's exactly what Moses did right here.
And do you see the outcome? It almost makes it look like God is human and changes his mind, doesn't it? But I think this was written for us to learn from it. That we, as we pray for each other, it's a really powerful thing. It becomes a pillar.
A pillar. of our walk with God. His holiness, his promise. His grace. And the intercession of God's people for each other, because that's what Jesus is doing for us, right?
He's interceding for us.
So it only makes sense that we would intercede for each other. Because we are his, we follow him. And we're seated with him in the heavenlies.
So let's intercede for each other. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. 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.
