Growing in our Delight in God - Psalm 37:4 — Matthew 6

0:00 I'm actually from a... Not a... I'm not from Augusta, Georgia. Now y'all would know Augusta because of the Masters golf tournament. If anybody is into golf, has any recognition of a major sporting event, Augusta is the home of the masters.

0:16 And my granddaddy, who coincidentally was the same age as Andy's granddaddy, was a bicycle boy back in the 1930s, which was they used to ride with the groupings. The scores would come in and then he would ride back to the clubhouse and give him the score before they had any of the technology that they have today. But so I am I'm from the area but we live in a little town called Hephzibah which is on the South Side heading down towards Savannah, Georgia and it's a rural, more rural area of of the county and I just don't like cities to the most part. I spend most of my time out out on the tractors and the like. Sweet.

1:02 The only problem is I I guess I'll have to signal y'all to switch. Okay. Because I won't be able to see my notes, so I'll kind of have to turn on on occasion. But I I I do want you to know that we can rejoice because Punxsutawney Phil and Beauregard Lee both saw their shadows or did not see their shadows. Whatever it is, we got spring early supposedly.

1:39 And and let's face it. Whether men and women are the only people that can be wrong every day and still keep their jobs. So is... Whatever Beauregard Lee and Punxsutawney feel is probably just as good as channel twelve or six or twenty six or weather channel that you have up here. The point is, I'm looking forward to spring because I just don't like cold.

2:06 But we're on our way to Emmaus Bible College. My son goes there. We're going to the CMS Christian Ministry Seminars. My wife and I run... Actually, she does almost all of it.

2:17 The Augusta Counseling Ministry where we provide professional counseling, to the area. We work with children all the way up to... The age ranges from three to 78. We work with CMML and other full time workers. We basically utilize it as a gospel outreach to the hurting.

2:42 We use it as a place for Christians who are in need of counseling, and don't wanna go to a secular facility. We operate in that regard. We also serve as a place where, like I said, full time workers, missionaries that do not wanna end up on the prayer chain can come and get some help privately. And then we also serve as a place where young people come to complete internships in the counseling and professional licensing fields. We just had our first intern last semester.

3:20 Wonderful. Steve Price, actually, that's coming to do your... He's the one that that hooked us up with this young lady, and we have another one coming in the spring summer air... Time. So if you know anybody that's interested in that sort of thing, we're we're always available to help the next generation move in that direction.

3:43 One further or last announcement regarding that, Andy will be putting up an announcement that we send to him via email. The counseling ministry is teaming with Paul Rabideau out of, New Jersey, who works with CMML, and we're gonna be putting on a a conference in the mountains of Tennessee in April of this year, the end of April, in which we're inviting elders and church leaders that would like some education in the world of professional counseling and the needs basically from Child abuse to trauma in children and marriages to addiction recovery. There'll be a wide range of seminars that will be offered at that conference in the end of April. So, I will send that on to to to Andy and we'll go and and y'all take it with that whatever you... But you're welcome and invited.

5:11 We we understand more now than we did when we were married a year. How much give and take it takes to have a successful marriage. We enjoy our marriage. I would say much better than we did ten years ago and probably better than we did twenty. I I I don't know.

5:28 I just I'm kind of a happy go lucky everything seems alright. I I don't know of any big problems but you know, we we but we we do it's it's come to a stage in life. The kids are gone for the most part. We miss them desperately but we are serving the lord and doing those sorts of things that that you kinda have when you have an empty nest. She goes off to counsel and save the world.

5:49 I go off to feed cows and and then we come back together and watch some British mystery show at night and go to bed because we're old. And that's just how I like... It's it's just kind of... We we enjoy that. But my wife wanted to go to Scotland on our twenty fifth anniversary.

6:04 And me being probably the greatest husband, there he is. I arranged for that to happen. So you you wanna talk about marriage conferences. You can listen to Steve Price all you want to. But, you know, most people call me and say, how do you how do you navigate such a successful marriage?

6:19 Folks that know me are laughing because they know exactly what's going because I'm the... Would be the worst marriage counselor ever. But I took her to Scotland. I took her to England, and we had a blast. We really did.

6:30 It was a wonderful, wonderful time. We toured from the South all the way. We rented a car and drove for two weeks and went to Ireland and Wales and England and Scotland and... But we went to a couple of places. My father, grew up in a...

6:49 The Pittsburgh Christian home. My grandfather operated the Christian home. It was an orphanage from 1952 to 1972 and then a retirement home from 1972 on, and he retired in 1982. But his hero was a man named George Mueller. Don't know if y'all know about George Mueller.

7:10 He's a kind of a... The old generation knows George Mueller. The young generation needs to be introduced to George Mueller. But George Mueller was a man of great faith. And, this younger generation is always looking at, we wanna get involved.

7:23 We wanna get involved with the community. We wanna do this. George Mueller couldn't have been any more involved with the word of God and the community. He ran a series of orphanages in Bristol, England in which he didn't ask a dime from anybody else. He just took his needs before the lord and the lord provided as a testimony to himself provision for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of orphans.

7:50 So, in our trip to England, we wanted to go and see where George Mueller's orphanage was and go to the museum there. Tammy's father lived a life. He was a full time worker. He he was out of North Carolina and his entire life was spent not asking for anything. Leaning on the lord for provision Mueller was a big was a big big influence on his life.

8:18 So, we had to go and see George Mueller's museum. I'm a tell you this. If you go, it's gonna be disappointing. Okay? Because you can read everything about this George Mueller online, and and it would have been just as easy that...

8:33 But you did see the buildings. They're now apartment buildings, but I did pick up something while I was there, and it... And I'm hopeful that it will change my life. I'm hopeful. I'm gonna preach to you a day...

8:44 Today a sermon of aspiration. This is not David Hollingsworth telling you that he has reached this pinnacle but I hope to grow this year in my delight in god. The book that I picked up... By the way, let me ask. How many of you remember what I preached on last year?

9:09 Can I get a hand? Anybody remember what I preached on last year? Okay. What? Okay.

9:23 So, I only have to really preach to two people in the audience, Okay? So, that takes a lot of pressure off me, okay? That's where I wanted to find out because now, what I'm saying is, I know that you're not going to remember what I say. I I I understand this. I've been doing this a long time.

9:37 I taught for a living for years and years. It goes in. I I want you to grasp a couple of thoughts while we're here today, and maybe if you will latch on to them, and both of y'all are right. It was the compassion of Jesus. It's a verb, tenderness, those are...

9:50 You... Great job. If I had fireballs or suckers, I'd throw em to you like vacation bible school but I don't, okay? The point is, the point is folks, I want you to take from this today. That delighting in god should be the focus of your daily life.

10:12 Not how hard you serve him, not how many bible verses did you remember. I'm not saying that any of those things are wrong. Please please do not mistake me. But actually finding exquisite pleasure and happiness in god and your relationship to him, if you grasp that, then everything else will follow. And so I'm hopeful that today, you and I, as we explore the scriptures, will see what delights god, what pleases him, and how if we organize and orchestrate our steps in those things that please him, we will accomplish much to the glory of our savior, the lord Jesus Christ.

11:07 So that's the goal today. And if you only remember that, great. But there'll be other points that hopefully you'll latch on to and chew on for the rest of the week. Our starting verse is in Psalm 37. Psalm 37 and we're gonna look in verse four.

12:05 And he quoted it and it became the the tagline for the biography, delight thyself also in the lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Delight thyself also in the lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. You know, There are a lot of things that I desire in life. I desire a right knee that does not ache every time that I jump off a tracker. I desire to see my children much more often than their college thousands of miles away.

12:50 I desire to to not look at the bank account at the end of the month and go, how exactly am I going to make that payment for that order of hay that I've got to come in to feed my cat. We all have things that we want. Some of those things that we want are wrong they're they're evil. Why? Because we are human beings that still possess a sin nature.

13:21 And so this verse is not telling us that everything that we want in life apart from our walking with him is something that we'll get if we do. If we delight in god, what's gonna happen? If you and I delight in god, what is going to happen to our wants? They're gonna change. Okay.

13:42 Good. Good. I I wanted somebody to acknowledge that that we're in the room together. But we... They're gonna change.

13:51 I'm not gonna sit here. Now, I've never wanted a Lamborghini. There there are probably people out here that want to, I certainly don't want an electric car. Maybe something that you want. I want something diesel or loud.

14:01 You know, that's what that's what I want, okay? But whatever it is that you want, right? If it takes you or drives you away from the lord, if you delight in god, what's going to happen to that desire? It's going to fade. It's going to be cut off.

14:17 It's going to be chiseled away. So, what we want to look at today is what delights god and what we should be attempting to pursue and accomplish with our lives. Before we go any farther, let's go to the lord in prayer because we're gonna need his help this morning. Dear heavenly father, thanks. We thank you for your word.

14:40 We thank you for your people. We pray that today that a snippet of what you have to say to us will take root in our lives and that we will walk out of here ready to allow our desire for you and your fellowship to dominate our lives, and in doing so, present to the world a testimony of someone who actually knows your son. May our desires move toward a sheer delight in knowing you and becoming more like your son this week. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

15:41 Delight thyself also in the lord and he shall give thee desires to thine heart. Now, let's look at the next slide. Now, y'all probably don't know what chocolate delight is. I I don't know. Do do y'all have chocolate delight in in Ohio?

16:03 Okay. In the South, in the South, where where we're from. I don't know if you could figure that out. You know, not sure if there maybe some language barrier but we have a dessert that used to show up at every every meal, every not every meal but every fellowship dinner. You know what fellowship dinners are?

16:57 We know how to say it. You'll know how to. So, just peeking. Yes, you had to have pecans on the top and chocolate drizzle. So, we use that word delight to to discuss and name things like pleasant desserts, chocolate delight but this is why it was so important for me to tell you that I'm not from Augusta, okay?

17:19 I'm from Hepzeba. Now, you can't say it or spell it and I I get that. Nobody can but we are from Hephzibah and you can't really see this but on this slide, you see a water tower. It's a big, round, blue water tower. My town has one stoplight.

17:39 My town has one grocery store. It has two and a half gas stations, a family dollar, a Dollar General 17 schools, and 100 church groups. You know, something like that. It's just how the South goes. But the name of my town is Habsaba which means the lord delights in thee.

18:13 You go to Isaiah sixty two four. It's in your Bible even in Ohio and it will tell you that my town is where the lord delights. Now, Westlake is fine. Okay, I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to put anything down on Westlake. It looks like a beautiful place and a and a wonderful place but Westlake means direction and body of water, okay?

18:37 That's all it means. It's not not not anything, it's not really important. Y'all are important. Don't don't I don't want be stoned but the the reality is my town, the lord delights in my town. And and we he doesn't say anywhere in scripture that the lord delights in Westlake.

18:55 He delights in his people and so I I don't I I'm not trying to put y'all down anyway but I'm just trying to say, the word delight, the word delight means to take pleasure in, to be happy for. And we use that word in in a number in a number of ways. Naming desserts, naming towns, even if it's in Hebrew. You know, we understand that word. How many of you have heard the hymn, oh joy, oh delight, Should we go without dying?

19:32 What is that speaking to? Our aspiration that the lord come back and translate us home to glory before we have to go through the veil of death. That would be indeed something to be happy with or for. Right? So we use this word delight in in a number of ways.

19:49 Could you please turn the slide? Now I cannot read this to you, and so we're going to skip through this. But I I do want you to tell you that in the slide here, George Mueller... And and you might be able to see this, but George Mueller speaks of this important thing. The important thing was that he found his delight and his satisfaction in the lord.

20:20 He found his delight. Now, I'm gonna tell you this. I don't know what you are doing for the lord. I do not know what you're... And you may be accomplishing great things for him and not all of us or many of us have to run an orphanage that saves 10,000 children from the streets of Britain during the the terrible nineteenth century famines and whatnot.

20:44 We're not all going to do that sort of thing. The so the lord is going to be pleased with you in whatever you're doing as long as you are serving and and and following him but but whether you're doing something small or great, if you find your satisfaction and delight in him, it will enable you to walk forward when the times are difficult, when the supplies are not there, when the winds of Satan or external enemies or even friends within the church start throwing darts at your work. If you delight and find your satisfaction in god, then, then, you will be able to stand and march forward for him. I'm sorry that I can't read that but so so be it. I I told you I was a technological genius and I picked the wrong colors.

22:15 That's generally the general definitions of delight. Remember what's our verse that we started with? Delight thyself in the lord. So, when we take that, we look at that verse in particular and it says, that word means to be happy with or take exquisite delight in. Now, I am a teacher formally.

22:34 I taught history. I I I feed my addiction to cows by leading people through the dissertation process at the University of Cumberland. So, I still do a lot of in in the world of education and when you define something using the same word, it's a no no. So, I'm not sure how to get away with but this is what everybody said. They said that in Psalm thirty seven four, it means to be happy with or to take exquisite delight.

23:03 So, what I can tell you in this is that there is a different level in taking exquisite delight in something. Our English definitions, something that gives us great pleasure if it's a noun. We also use it as a verb, and that means to please someone greatly. So you... That's the word that we're discussing today.

23:31 But let's look at the next slide because this will help us. You got the wrong... Just... We got the wrong PowerPoint somehow. I'm not sure how this happened.

23:42 It's alright. We'll move on. It was the one that said Westlake, Ohio. My young people are they're mad at me for my lesson last night. That's what's happening.

23:58 But this slide was supposed to be, this supply is supposed to be was a picture and and I'll just paint the picture for you because I'm that good a preacher. I mean, just amazing, okay? You'll remember nothing except the terrible PowerPoint that we put together. There's a picture of a Hershey bar, okay? Everybody likes Hershey bars, right?

24:25 There it is. Wow. Man, the skills, the skills in that upper room. Everybody loves a Hershey bar. I mean, most good Americans like chocolate, you put them to own s'mores, right?

24:40 You've you've you've eaten them at y'all have Hershey bars up here? Okay. Y'all are just looking like a Hershey bars, but they are common chocolate. Right? They're common chocolate.

24:56 Up in the right hand corner, and you can't really see it as clearly as as I'd love you to see this. These are chocolate truffles. Okay? And below this, you will see a storefront. Now, I told you that I took my wife to Scotland.

25:13 Again, great husband. Any tips that you need, you know where to get them. I took her to Scotland and we are driving to the Highlands. We've left out of the Edinburgh region and we're heading north, heading to Inverness. We're going to the Battle of Culloden.

25:30 I'm sure all of you are scintillated by my history but I just, I'm a history PHD. That's what I like. I love history. We're heading there and on the highway, all of a sudden, there's a sign that says, the Highland Chocolatier. That sounds like a place at Hollingsworths were destined to visit and it was raining.

25:54 So, why not? Let's go see the Highland Chocolatier. We get off the highway and we go on these little bitty roads where pheasants are everywhere and some Highland coos and that kind of stuff and we go around and we find in the middle of nowhere, the Highland Chocolatier. Now, one, you should go. But if you can't, I understand.

26:16 You can order online for a fortune, these chocolates. But my point here is, what are we looking at? We're looking at ordinary versus exquisite. We stepped into this chocolate shop, and we knew immediately that we were out of place because we did not bring a Brink's truck with us to buy the chocolate. But we decided we had to have something, and they had these little things called truffles.

26:43 There were two or three different types of truffles. But on the wall on the wall were award after award after award for world championships, United States championships, European champion. I mean, he just had the whole wall was littered with these awards. It's like, I guess he's proud of his chocolate because he's won a lot of things and we bought a little package of truffles. It cost us 12 pounds.

27:18 Now pounds means that we're looking at $15 or $16 And these little truffles are about this. They're just tiny. Just tiny. And me, being a good redneck who doesn't like to spend his money on something... I mean, if I'm gonna spend $16, I want it to be a barbecue plate the size of Texas.

27:39 You know? Yeah. And and here, I'm buying these truffles. I get the truffle, and we get out to the car, and we we didn't really wanna wait to... You know, because they told us that if they melted, you're in deep trouble.

27:50 We couldn't sit. We're gonna buy these for my dad because my dad is... He's really hard to please. And he said, oh, no. You can't do that.

27:57 You can't take them with... Because if it gets below 60 degrees or gets above 60 degrees, the truffle's... Okay. Fine. So we take the truffle.

28:05 We put it in our mouth. And it was the best £15 $15 I've ever spent in my life. Well, here's the reason for that. That was exquisite chocolate. Know how you take the the Hershey bar and you take the bite of the Hershey bar and you eat it and it's got a kind of a a waxy taste to it.

28:29 It's chocolaty but it's kind of waxy and and it's and it's gone. And basically, you eat the whole bar, and the chocolate taste is gone in thirty two and a half seconds. Right? You're you're done with the chocolate. I can tell you, I can attest to you that we put that little two and a half pound truffle.

28:51 That's not what it came out to be. Some ridiculous price for this quarter ounce of chocolate and forty five minutes later, I was still tasting the chocolate. It was exquisite. It was incredible. All of us that know the lord Jesus as our savior.

30:06 Now I'm gonna have to skip... Go go through to the next slide. But I do want us to see this. The Old Testament is where delight, the word, shows up most of the time. But if you're taking notes, you might wanna do a little study on this.

30:21 But you'll see that there are many dos and don'ts when it comes to delighting God or delighting in God. If you go to first Samuel fifteen twenty two and and most of you that know your Bible will remember the story. What happens? Saul is told to go down and kill the Amalekites. He's told to kill Agag and he doesn't.

30:41 He brings back all of these sheep and he brings them back and and Samuel comes in and he says, low, what am I here? I'm hearing you. I'm hearing sheep. What why am I hearing sheep? And what does Saul say?

30:53 Well, the people made me do this but we brought it back to sacrifice to the lord and what is what is Samuel's answer to them? Has the lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as he does in what? Obedience. That was one of the very first Bibles verses I ever learned. That was a huge verse in my daddy's life and I just think about that so many times.

31:20 We check off boxes. Instead of heartfelt obedience to him. The do's of delighting god are to actually listen and to obey. If you look at Isaiah 111 through 17, it tells us this, it tells us to delight the lord, you do these things. You cleanse your ways.

31:45 You cease from evil. You learn to do well. You relieve the oppressed and orphans and widows. That delights god. That shows that you are delighting in god.

31:57 Isaiah 58, the whole chapter says, look, this is what I want. I want you to lose the bands of wickedness. I want you to undo the heavy burdens of the oppressed. I want you to break yokes. I want you to help the poor and needy.

32:12 I want you to delight in my set ordinances. That's what brings him delight and that's what will bring you delight if you delight in what he delights in. Okay? Now, I want you to see this. We don't have time to go there but it says in in Isaiah 58 to delight in my set ordinances.

32:32 In that day, it was talking about the Sabbath, okay? But does he not set ordinances for us? Do we not have set ordinances? What do we do every Lord's day at 10:00 in the morning? We have the ordinances set before it, the ordinance of the Lord's Supper.

32:52 Have you ever come to the Lord's Supper and not actually worshiped and delighted in him? I'm telling you, flat out, I've sat in hundreds of lord's suppers where I just showed up. What would my fellowship have been with the lord Jesus that morning if I had delighted in him? Do we follow his set ordinances to check off Sunday school star boxes? Or do we do it because we wanna delight him?

33:29 Now please understand me. The Lord says, this do in remembrance of me. You're to obey him. So you really shouldn't take it as a choice. You come to obey him, and you come to remember him.

33:47 But these Israelites, what were they doing? They were doing all these set feasts, but they weren't delighting in him and it wasn't delighting him. They weren't delighting in him and he was not delighted by them. And yet he sets for us. He says, come.

34:04 Remember me. And yet we'll come and go, What a good boy I am for sitting in the Lord's supper this week, and sister so and so is not here. Do you understand what I'm getting at? Do we delight in his set ordinances? Not so much that we delight in the ordinance itself.

34:25 He said, what are we doing? We're remembering him. We're delighting in him. In Jeremiah seven twenty two, the lord says, if you want to delight me, you obey my voice, you walk in the ways I have communicated or commanded you. Micah six six two eight, you know this, to do justly, to walk humbly, to love mercy.

34:47 What don't we do? These passages all say, we, the lord hates offerings made for our own self aggrandizement. Watch me like the Pharisee put my money in. Watch me like the Pharisee. Look how I am taking care of the poor and needy.

35:05 Make sure my name is on the the billing. He hates offerings made for self self aggrandizement. He help hates repetitious, meaningless offerings, and feast days. He hates man made religious observations for outward show and debate. Isaiah 58 says, you produce this fast day.

35:26 You produce this fast day. I didn't even order this fast day and you did it so that you could argue with one another and debate how much you knew the lord. I am not saying that we don't stand for truth because Jude says, contend for the faith but how many times do we take greater pleasure in defeating some other brother in argument than we do in delighting god in our relationship with that brother or sister. Delight in him. The people of Israel in Jeremiah seven two had rejected god's revealed will.

35:59 Folks, we know what god wants us to do. Everybody, take a second. I know it's getting late. You're probably getting sleepy and hungry. What's in your lap?

36:08 You're about, raise it up. The B I B L E. Yes, that's the book for me. I stand alone on the word of god, the B I B L E. What is that?

36:17 That's the revealed will of god. Do you and I understand it fully? No, we don't but there's enough in there that is absolutely plain and simple that we can follow and love our god and revel in our relationship with him. And then finally, in Micah six six eight, what what the first, we we know verse eight but in verse six and verse seven, it says, if I could give all of my sons and and rivers of oil and all of these things, is it is the lord pleased? He's not pleased with hyperbolic acts of sacrifice.

36:54 He's not he's not pleased with us shouting out how great we are giving to the lord. He's pleased with simplicity. These are the old testament dos and don'ts. I've got four minutes to give you an application for your New Testament life. So, I want you to buckle up your seat belts.

37:47 I'll get on the road for ten hours and my wife will tell me how I failed in so many ways. It makes me stronger. No, she's she's a she's she's a wonderful helpmate. First of all, you know this verse. We don't have to turn there.

38:03 Matthew six thirty three. What does it say? Seek you first the kingdom of god and his righteousness. You want to delight in god? You want to take pleasure in god?

38:14 You want to take exquisite pleasure in the lord Jesus? Then, what do you do? Seek you first my family's agenda. Seek ye first my vocational aspirations. Seek ye first my country's dominance over the world market.

38:35 Seek ye first my political party. Is that what the Bible says? Seek ye first his kingdom and his righteousness. The first step to delighting in God is to seek his agenda first. The second S, if you go to Philippians chapter three verses 10 through 14.

38:58 And I do wanna turn there and read that to you because it's such an amazing passage, and and you know it. Verse seven of Philippians three, but what things were gain to me? Those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, I count all things but loss for the excellency and the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ to be found in him not having my own righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of god by faith that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death, if by any means, I might attain into the resurrection of the dead, not as though at it already attained either were already perfect but I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth into those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of god.

40:09 In Christ Jesus. We must strive to know him. Where do we know him? In his word. We strive to know him.

40:20 We strive to be like him. We strive. We strive. We delight in him by setting him as our target. Third, we savor his word.

40:33 Now turn if you will to Luke chapter 10, and our last two points are from this wonderful story. Verse 38. Did I say Mark? Is it, no, it's Luke. Sorry.

40:50 I told you I was good with technology and spelling. Luke, my bad. I was I was testing you biblical geniuses. You should have known still where the story of, you know, Martha and Mary was. I mean, you should have known that instantly.

41:10 That's what I do with my students. They enjoy catching me in errors. Verse 38, now it came to pass as they went that he entered into a certain village and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house and she had a sister called Mary which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word but Martha was cumbered about much serving and came to him and said, lord, thus thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone. Bid her therefore that she help me and Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen the good part which shall not be taken from her. The third thing that we do to delight in God and to be delighted in him is to savor his word.

41:53 What did Jesus say? What did Jesus say about Martha... About Mary's decision? She has chosen the good part and it will not be taken away from her. And the last part is, Martha, folks, we we always fuss at Martha.

42:11 What is Martha doing? Martha is serving. If you are a child of god, you are commanded to serve him. Service is compulsory. It is obedience.

42:25 It's exactly what you should be doing. But what is the problem with us as believers? We start serving while looking at everybody else. What was Martha's problem? It wasn't that she was serving.

42:40 It was that she was serving, looking at Mary instead of looking at Jesus. And so if you want to delight in him, what destroys assemblies? The assemblies are destroyed when we start thinking, you're doing this, I'm doing this, you're doing that different than I would do this. I'm not getting my just do and and human beings strive and we we we grasp and we look at Mary instead of Jesus. You want to delight in god?

43:22 Remember the chocolate, the truffle. Savor his word. Serve focused on him. Obedience requires service, but let your service be motivated by delight in your savior and his word delight in him and you will delight in your service to him. It's all about the center.

44:39 I don't know if you'll be able to read it. The first thing to be concerned about, this is George Mueller. The third first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the lord or how I might glorify the lord but how I might get my soul into a happy state and how my inner man might be nourished for I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted. I might seek to benefit believers. I might seek to relieve the distressed.

45:03 I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of god in this world and yet, not being happy in the lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attained to in the right spirit. If you delight in god, you can do all of these things well. Delight in him and he and he will give you the desires. May our desires change to be like his desires. Heavenly father, help us, we pray.

45:39 Thank you for this body of believers. Ask you to strengthen them. I pray for these young people. There's so many here just... May they grasp may they grasp the need to desire deeply a relationship with your son.

45:55 Protect them, I pray. And may we that are older be rejuvenated, rejuvenated to continue our walk not as habit or force, but as deep, deep love of the one who loved us. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.