Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem.
C.S. Lewis wrote, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Son has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. Today we're looking at Isaiah 51 with Pastor Rich, as he asks us to consider how God's righteous character is the great reference point for all of life.
It is by God's revealed self-disclosure that we can clearly see everything else about our world and ourselves. Let's listen in. We are happy to have with us today Dexter and Jacquelle Kirby. They're missionaries in St. Vincent. How many of you know where St. Vincent is for sure?
All right. Well, they were hosts to our summer missions team that went down to St. Vincent in 2011. Dexter is a graduate of Piedmont International University, and he's pastoring down there establishing a church, and God is blessing his ministry. And so I asked Dexter to just come this morning and give us a living picture. Dexter, would you come up this morning and share with us?
Thank you, Pastor. It's good to be with you folks this morning. I've chosen an unusual day to be here.
No power. We're out here in the sun. I think the Lord wants me to work on my tan. My wife and I, I came here about over four years ago. Some of you would remember me, but at that point I was flying solo, but I went home and got married. So I've upgraded since you last saw me.
Praise God. We're back actually on four low. We're in for three and a half months.
In fact, we just got two or three months, weeks remaining before we leave to go back to St. Vincent. We went right back to the city there of Kingston. And you know, the city is controlled by the Catholics, the Anglican and the Methodist. But when we went there, I said to myself, I said, Lord, I'm going to be brave or I'm going to be stupid, but I believe you're calling me to the city. And we went there and the Lord is blessing that work tremendously. We were able to establish a church right there in the city to continue to pray for that work. That is our first church plant. We hope to branch off in the coming years to start much more work there.
But I want to share something with you that is really rather interesting. How our savior, how God worked last year was a very, very challenging year in our life and in our ministry. But last year we experienced the good hand of God as well. Our church was growing rapidly and there in the city. And so we started praying well over a year ago that the Lord would bless us with some lands or he would bless us with a building. Just do something because we are renting the upstairs of a three story building. And if you're an elderly or you're a bit overweight, it's a challenge for you to get up there to that third story. And so we started praying, Lord, would you just bless us with a facility, a piece of land or something so that we can have our own place so the elderly can come up there to church?
Well, the Lord answered that prayer last year in the most amazing way. Around September of last year, one day I was home and I heard someone calling my name in the yard. So I went outside and I moved the curtain and I looked outside and there was Mr. Leon Knight. Now, Mr. Leon Knight, there's not a way to put it, but he is known as the village drunk. If there are seven days in the week, Mr. Knight is drunk on eight days.
That's just the harsh reality of the situation. But there he was standing in my yard and I'm thinking, I know Mr. Knight don't want to talk about God. He don't want to talk about theology. But then I looked closely and I saw that he had tears in his eyes. So I hardly went outside and I said, Mr. Knight, are you okay? With that, he says, Pastor Kirby, I just want you to know that I couldn't sleep last night. At that point again, I started thinking to myself, well, if I were you with all that liquor in your system, I wouldn't be able to sleep either. Now, not that I said that to him, but that was my thought. But then I said to him, Mr. Knight, what kept you up last night?
Why is it you weren't able to sleep? And with that, he said, well, Pastor Kirby, you see, last Sunday, I was standing outside in the street. Now, what he does on Sundays, he would not come to church, but he would stand across the street and he would be watching as everyone is making their way up to church. And that particular Sunday morning, here he was across the street and here was this lady. Her name is Miss Shirley. Now, Miss Shirley is overweight and she's elderly and she has arthritis, but she doesn't want to miss church. So every Sunday, it's a struggle for Miss Shirley to get up there. And Miss Shirley would take her time, step by step, she'd hold on to the rails and be fighting her way to get up to church. And that particular Sunday, here is Mr. Leon Knight across the street and he's watching all this as Miss Shirley is struggling to get up to church. Then he said he went to bed that night. As he's standing in my yard that day, he recanted to me, he said, I just couldn't sleep.
I keep seeing this image of Miss Shirley struggling to get up the steps and to go to church. And that just kept me up. And he said, I think I know what God wants me to do. Well, he had my attention.
You know, I'm thinking of praise God, I'm going to get to, you know, share the gospel with him. But at that point, that wasn't his intention. He said, Pastor Kirby, I think God wants me to donate some lands to the church. Well, you see his mother died several years ago and left him and his two sisters with tons of lands right next to the church. But here he was this particular day in my yard saying he doesn't want to sell us any land. He wanted to donate some lands to the church.
Mind you, we are talking about the village junk. He's standing there and he said, you know, God, God wants me to do this for the church. Well, to be honest with you folks, I wasn't convinced.
So what I did, I waited a couple of days and I went back to see him. I said, Mr. Knight, you remember a couple of days ago, we had this conversation in which you mentioned about donating some lands to the church. He said, yes, sir, I do. He said, I want to do that.
I want to do that. But again, some of his drinking buddies was wrong. And I just, I wasn't convinced again. So I waited a couple of days later and I went back to see him again. Time I showed up, he said, Pastor Kirby, can we just go see my lawyer? As he suggested, we went to see his lawyer. I could never forget that day as we stepped into his lawyer's office, even before Mr. Knight can take a seat, his lawyer was asking him to leave his office.
You know, that's the reputation that he had. His lawyer said, listen, you're just here to waste my time. You don't want to donate no lands to the church.
You want to make money so you can buy more liquor and do all that stuff. Isn't that right? Mr. Knight said, no, sir. Can you just produce the document? Let me just sign my name and be on out of here. And the lawyer even said, well, you're not even saved. He said, I know that.
And I know this would not save me. Well, church, to make a long story short, God used the village drunk to donate 5,000 square feet of land for us, for us to build our church. That is simply amazing. There are so many lessons that we can learn from that. Of course, Proverbs 21 one comes to mind. It says the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. You know, but again, it points us, it reminds us that we serve an omnipotent God, a God who's all powerful, a God who is sovereign, a God who's not surprised by anything.
It's incredible. You know, God is still on his throne. You know, tomorrow I might not wake up, but tomorrow God will wake up. And not that he goes to sleep, but tomorrow God is always on his throne.
You know, so again, these lessons again, they just serve to remind us. So one of the things we are doing here, uh, you know, we're trying to raise $100,000 to build our church building and God's been good to us so far. We've already raised close to 40% of that goal, you know, because I'm convinced folks, if God can use a drunk to give us land, God could use his people to build a building.
I'm convinced. And also I'm, I'm, I'm equally convinced that if it is God's will, it is God's bill. God, God's going to pay for it. You know, so I ask you Grace Bible church to prefer us, prefer us, uh, that, you know, this would be done God's way that none of us would get ahead of God, but just pray for us in that endeavor. And if the Lord leads you to participate with us in this ministry, please feel free to participate. Thank you Dexter.
Appreciate you sharing that with us this morning. It's time now for us to read the scriptures. If you would take your copy of the scriptures now and open it to Isaiah chapter 51, as we continue in our series, behold your God, Isaiah chapter 51, listen to me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the Lord, look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham, your father into Sarah, who bore you. For I called him alone and blessed him and increased him for the Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places. He will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in it.
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody. Listen to me, my people and give ear to me, O my nation, for law will proceed from me and I will make my justice rest as a light of the peoples. My righteousness is near. My salvation has gone forth and my arms will judge the peoples.
The coastlands will wait upon me and on my arm they will trust. Lift up your eyes to the heavens and look on the earth beneath, for the heavens will vanish away like smoke, the earth will grow old like a garment and those who dwell in it will die in like manner. But my salvation will be forever and my righteousness will not be abolished. Listen to me, you who know righteousness, you people in whose heart is my law.
Do not fear the reproach of men nor be afraid of their insults, for the moth will eat them up like a garment and the worm will eat them like wool. But my righteousness will be forever and my salvation from generation to generation. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord.
Awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are you not the arm that cut Rahab apart and wounded the serpent? Are you not the one who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep that made the depths of the sea erode for the redeemed to cross over? So the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, an everlasting joy on their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. That is the word of God. Let's meditate upon these things. Father it is with great joy and delight that we stand here on this beautiful day thanking you for how good and how faithful you are. Father we thank you for your righteousness.
Thank you for revealing yourself to us so that we can know you and walk with you and serve you with delight. And Father as we during this time now open your word to engage it, to listen. Father I pray that you would guide us and manifest yourself to us Father and mold us more and more into the image of your son the Lord Jesus Christ. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. In Isaiah chapter 51 in the first eight verses the word righteousness appears five times. My righteousness the Lord says and so we're going to be focusing on the righteousness of God this morning.
The righteousness of God. He says my righteousness is near it will not be abolished. There was a young man that I was discipling up in Michigan and when I first met him he had a common phrase whenever something was right whenever there was something that he thought was good that he agreed with he would say that's righteous. And at first I thought why are you using that word you don't even know what it means. And yet as I study the word as I look it up and I understand it you know his statement was pretty accurate because righteous means pretty much that.
Now we're going to look at three aspects of it this morning. Righteousness has the idea of rightness. Thought something that is right. Things that are right. You know everyone has an opinion of what is right. You know how we know everyone has an opinion? Look around there are protests everywhere. They all have their opinion of what's right don't they? Something's not right and they say it needs to be made right so we're going to protest. 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.
