Why not make God Happy, Happy, Happy?
Psalm 37:23 NKJ
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.
The Lord Himself delights in his ways.... That sounds like a pleasant place to be doesn't it?
So who is this good man or woman, in whom the Lord delights
The person in whom God delights is one who follows God, Loves and trusts him, and takes Him at His Word.
And in return, God faithfully watches over every step that person takes.
Would you would like to have God direct your steps, then seek his advice before you step out.
Ask yourself the question, is this the way the Lord would have me go?
ILL. A man called his neighbor to help him move a couch that had become stuck in the doorway. They pushed and pulled until they were exhausted, but the couch wouldn’t budge. "Forget it," the man finally said. "We’ll never get this in."
The neighbour looked at him with a puzzled look and said, "In?" You must be joking, I thought we were going out.
TBS. to ask for wisdom from God
James 1:5 NKJ
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
If you ask Him, He will give it to you and in good measure
So, what are the steps of a good man or woman?
First of all, ask yourself this question, are your steps ordered by the Lord or are you the one, who is always calling the shots?
Mark 10:17-22 MSG
17. As he went out into the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?”
18-19. Jesus said, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God. You know the commandments: Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honor your father and mother.”
20. He said, “Teacher, I have—from my youth—kept them all!”
21. Jesus looked him hard in the eye—and loved him! He said, “There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.”
22. The man’s face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.
To be a good man or woman, we must become a God man or woman and be willing to let go and let God have His way in your life! Amen?
we must acknowledge Him in all we do, by putting Him first in all that we do.
If we place other things before God, sooner or later, it will always end up being about our agenda, instead of His.
The worst part is that when we do that, we set ourselves up for a recipe for failure,
we think what we're doing is right and then when something goes wrong, we question God, like its all His fault and say "why did you let this happen to me?"
It happened to the Israelites.
Judges 17:6 NKJ
In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
During the time of the judges, the people of Israel experienced nothing but trouble, because everyone just did their own thing, there was no authority and no one to answer too.
This produced horrendous results, to many chiefs and not enough indians, always does!
Ignoring God’s direction leads to confusion and destruction.
If you don't believe me, All you have to do is turn on the news and look at what's going on in the world today,
Anyone or any country who has not submitted to God will end up doing whatever seems right at the time.
And when that happens, it leaves you with the sick feeling of, what in the world is going to happen next?
To know what is right and to have the strength to do it, we need to draw closer to God and his Word.
The steps of a good man or woman, are ordered of God!
Proverbs 3:6 NKJ
6. In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
What does it mean to be ordered by the Lord
Is that like we have no say whatsoever, like were robots or something?
Not at all!
Proverbs 16:9 A man’s heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.
If your a child of God this morning and God’s Word is in your heart then the Lord will direct your steps, if you ask Him to!
So, why wouldn't anyone ask Him to, each and every day?
Now, the accuser will try to confuse you and tell you that you're not worthy of asking God for anything, don't believe it, not for a minute!
We are often confused by the events around us. Many things we will never understand; others by no involvement from us at all, naturally work themselves out, or so we like to think,
all the while we can attribute it to and rest assured that God is the one responsible for it and is all the time working on our behalf, behind the scenes
There is no need to worry, if we don’t understand everything as it happens. Instead, we should trust that God knows what he’s doing, even if his timing or design is not clear to us.
That's where our faith comes to the rescue, or it should anyways!
TBS. The Bible says He is an on time God, always right on time, never early, never late, but always right on time! Amen?
There are times, we may wonder about His timing, thats when we are on a need to know basis and we need to trust that God will let us know, when we need to know!
And if we did know, what would we do with the knowledge anyway, worry about how it would all play out in the end!
Psalm 119:129-133 MSG
Every word you give me is a miracle word—
how could I help but obey?
Break open your words, let the light shine out,
let ordinary people see the meaning.
Mouth open and panting,
I wanted your commands more than anything.
Turn my way, look kindly on me,
as you always do to those who personally love you.
Steady my steps with your Word of promise
so nothing malign gets the better of me.
Rescue me from the grip of bad men and women
so I can live life your way.
Smile on me, your servant;
teach me the right way to live.
I cry rivers of tears
because nobody’s living by your book!
Isn't that the way it still seems today, nobodies living by His book, the whole world it seems, is to busy with the circumstances life presents, to pay attention to the things of God!
Our focus should always be on the Lord not on our circumstances, Circumstances will try to get the best of you, however if you acknowledge Him, there is no circumstance that God cannot over come! Amen?
To have our steps ordered by the Lord
we must first seek Him in all that we do
And get His Word firmly planted in or hearts
When we are young, we tend to look at things differently, then we look at them when we are older.
The things we do in life can make a big difference to our future, at any age. Amen?
Eccles. 11:9 MSG
9. You who are young, make the most of your youth.
Relish your youthful vigor.
Follow the impulses of your heart.
If something looks good to you, pursue it.
But know also that not just anything goes;
You have to answer to God for every last bit of it.
We often hear people say, "Whatever, it's my life, I'll do what I want." Young people especially,
But the fact is and its a hard lesson for some people, but we have choices in life that we all make along the way and every choice has a consequence!
At some point in your life, if we have made Jesus The Lord of our life
We must develop a Kingdom mentality!
If we haven't got one, then we need to ask ourselves,
Are we building God’s Kingdom or our own?
TBS if we take care of His, He will take care of ours,
Don't you think we can trust Him to be faithful to His word?
Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Not only His kingdom but his righteousness,
That’s how our steps are ordered by the Lord.
Seeking His kingdom, His righteousness, produces right living!
ILL. One day a little girl, dressed in white, carrying a bunch of flowers, passed a small boy who was playing in a dusty street.
The boy threw a handful of dirt at the girl.
It struck the edge of her dress and fell on her shoes. She stood still. Her face flushed as though she would cry,
but instead she smiled and threw a flower at the boy who waited to see what she would do.
He was surprised and ashamed because in return for dirt he had received a flower.
Kind of how we are with Jesus, we give Him our filthy rags and He washes them white as snow and gives them back to us as righteousness, in return!
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; [6] In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.
When we seek His kingdom and His righteousness through what Jesus has done for us on the cross, God directs our path,
And TBS He delights in our way,
God gets, as Phil from duck dynasty says..."happy, happy, happy"....to be invited and involved, in our lives!
Isn’t that an awesome thing? To think that we could actually make God, "happy, happy, happy"!
The Lord God almighty, the creator of the universe, the maker of heaven and earth takes delight in our ways!
In this life we can get so caught up in the things of the world and miss out on how much God truly loves us, His children!
if only we could get the world, to realize what God thinks about us and what He wants to do for us!
For you see, that's exactly what we have been called to do.
Ephesians 2:1-10 MSG
2 1-6 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
The kingdom of God, is at hand.
Christ return is closer than anyone thinks,
Tomorrow may very well be to late,
No one knows the day or the hour
Mathew 9:36-38 NKJ
36. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.
37. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
38. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
That should be our prayer, Lord let me have the privilege of being a laborer for your Kingdom.
Tell someone about Him, share what He has done for you in your life!
Throw them the same lifeline, someone once threw you
Psalms 40:2 NKJ
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
Give the gift of life, give the gift of Christ!
Lets pray
