Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. In Psalm 37, three through four, we find five life habits that God calls us to, followed by the promise that God will give us the desires of our hearts. That's a lot to pack into two verses.
What are the five habits? And if you follow them, will God give you whatever your heart desires? Let's listen as Pastor Rich unpacks these two verses in a message titled, Living by Faith, Faithfulness. This is part three of a message first preached on January 27, 2019 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. To hear more messages, you can visit www.delightingrace.com.
A plot of ground, it means territory. Let me put it this way, your element, the very air you breathe is God. I'm not a pantheist, don't go there. Do you know how to practice the presence of God?
The Lord is my portion forever. Can you say that? You can't say that while you're fretting.
But it's a great remedy for fretting. So, five imperatives. We've talked about three of them so far. Trust in the Lord. Number two, do good. Number three, dwell in His presence. The Lord is my portion. Dwell in the land.
And here is the fourth one. And this one is kind of curious because some of the translations say different things. But of course, I'm reading from the ESV. And I think, frankly, not because I'm reading it because sometimes I've disagreed with it, but I think they have done an excellent job of translating it, this part of the verse.
Dwell in the land. And here is the fourth imperative, befriend faithfulness. And by the way, it is an active imperative in the Hebrew.
Okay. And the word there is to tend or to graze. It's nuanced as to associate with as a friend.
So associate with as a friend, associate with what? The object of that phrase is faithfulness. Faithfulness.
Which is why, again, to trust Him, we need to review what He has done. But it's to pursue and to practice faithfulness. Now, because it's an imperative, we're not talking necessarily about God's faithfulness. We're talking about our faithfulness.
Why? Because I am trusting the Lord. I am doing good. I am dwelling in His presence. I am practicing the presence of God. And who is God? And when I do those three, then this one follows.
I pursue and I practice faithfulness. We probably have several athletes, so those who have been athletes in here before. I played basketball in high school. I was the first one off the bench.
Point guard was too short to be anything else. But we practiced hard. I also learned the violin.
Did you know that? I used to play the violin. I sold it 30 years ago. I had to practice the violin.
I really wasn't into it. But, you know, just like an athlete or someone learning a fine art, for it to become something that is done well, for it to become a habit, it requires what? Practice.
You know that, don't you? It requires practice. And this is his whole point when it comes to faithfulness. You can't just one day wake up, flip a button and say, I'm going to be faithful. You have to practice faithfulness. You have to develop the habit of faithfulness.
But there are three that come before that that are very much required if you are going to be successful at practicing faithfulness, aren't there? You see, to develop that stick-to-itiveness, whether you feel like it or not, that's faithfulness. It's like the athlete developing that muscle memory, which is why the coach had us shoot 100 free throws after every practice. You develop that muscle memory so that when you get up to the free throw line in the heat of the contest, you get there. You're not having to think through, OK, what do I need to do? Oh, I hope I can make it.
No, you just get there, boom, and there it goes. The fruit of faithfulness. Pursue it and practice it. This word faithfulness, Isaiah 33 says this, the Lord will be the stability of your times. Stability.
How many of you would like more stability in your lives? Faithfulness is the key. Faithfulness is the key. That's living by faith. Faithfulness means steadfastness, firmness, security, truth, as opposed to drift. Kylan Dalitch, the German commentators, say it very, very succinctly.
And here's how they put it. Diligently cultivate the virtue of faithfulness. Diligently cultivate the virtue of faithfulness.
Do you know how much this rubs against the culture that we live in? In a tremendous way. You want to stick out? Practice faithfulness. You will. Now, some say we're talking about faith, and so many people say, you know, living by faith is hard. And I struggle with that. When Jesus said, come to me, all you who are weary and heavily laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. For my yoke is? What does Jesus say?
My yoke is what? And my burden is? So why is living by faith hard? I'll tell you why living by faith is hard, because we're battling the flesh. To the degree that you're listening to the flesh, your faith is hard.
Let me use the illustration I was just using with regard to faithfulness. You plan to run a marathon. It's crazy, I know. But you plan to, I love the cars that have the sticker on the back, it's a 0.0.
It's so funny. But you plan to run a marathon, and the marathon's coming up. It's two weeks away. It's one week away. It's a day away. You wake up, you're consuming donuts, bacon, and eggs. You're just consuming it to the hilt, right? And the morning of the marathon wakes up, and you get out there ready to, because you are so pumped, and you are just so believing in yourself. And you start running the marathon. How's it going?
By mile two, how's it going? It's what? It's hard. Why? How about playing the violin, or the piano, or the flute, or the drums?
And I envy Cynthia and Tim. Oh my goodness, if only I could wail like that while I was worshiping. But I don't play the drums. But if I get down there and say, I'm going to play the drums. For me, playing an instrument like that would be hard, unless what? Faithfulness. None of these people over here just decided one day to get up and say, I'm just going to play this instrument.
None of them did that, did they? Faith is hard in the same way that running a marathon or playing the violin is hard to the person who will not practice faithfully. Faithfulness. Again, as Kyle and Delish say, diligently cultivate the virtue of faithfulness. Imperative number five, delight yourself in the Lord. Delight yourself in the Lord.
And you hear the word delight, and immediately you're thinking of an emotion, right? Don't start there. That's not where you go to start. It's not, I'm in right, out right, up right, down right, happy all the time.
You remember singing that? That's not what it is. Don't begin with the emotion, begin where? With understanding. Begin with understanding. To delight means to luxuriate yourself.
To luxuriate yourself. You cannot luxuriate yourself, you cannot delight if you don't know what riches you have. There's too many Christians walking around today who do not know what they have and who they are in Christ. They think faith is just simply a list of things you're supposed to do and not do. That's Pharisaism. That's hard. That's a drudgery. That's not faith.
God didn't call us to that. There are many, too many people today who luxuriate in wealth they do not have or a wealth that they cannot keep. Listen.
You want to know what wealth you have? You, listen to these words, you need to consume his self-disclosure. How many of you are treating the Bible just simply as a reference book?
Oh, see, I got this issue. Oh, what does the Bible say about that? God help us if that's how we treat this. You want to be faithful? You want to cultivate faithfulness? You want to delight in the Lord?
You want to live by faith? You need to consume his self-disclosure. The riches of his grace. To delight in the Lord needs to take pleasure in him to enjoy God.
I mean, you remember Colin Lavoie. He was here for about 13 years, moved up from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He came to Christ in a very performance-oriented church, pretty rigid performance-oriented church. And when he first came here, he came to grace, and then eventually he became the leader of the Bible study discussion at Panera on Thursday morning. So men get together for a Bible study discussion. And he would listen on Sunday morning intently with a view towards leading that discussion. And he dedicated Tuesday to creating the discussion guide for Thursday morning at Panera.
And when he was here, Colin grew by leaps and bounds. The transformation in his life was phenomenal, and most of it was in his attitude. And by his testimony, he said this, he says, you know, when I first came to grace, had you asked me, do you enjoy God? He said, no, I don't enjoy God. I do it because I'm supposed to. But now that he has moved to Pennsylvania, before he left, his testimony here was, you know, you ask me now, I can say, yes, I enjoy God.
Do you? 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.
