The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; 24 though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.
My brother and sister: This morning, I have come on assignment with a reminder for all of us. It is a simple reminder with colossal implications for Christian life and living. And for those reasons, I think every now and then, we need to be reminded, and encouraged to Go with God.
In the irrevocable process of life, in which we all must go through as life unfolds, and with everything else that we have tried, I think I need to tell you that we might as well Go with God! It just makes sense to follow God’s plan for our lives.
God’s plan for each of us is already Planned, Preordained and Promised as our every Present Christ has already established its end before the beginning. I mean come on let’s examine the situation. God knows where each of us are. God knows where each of us are headed. And God knows how to get each of us there. And please let’s not take this for granted. May I suggest we need God along this journey!
God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent and may I add a little Spiesism to it, He’s also Omnidirectional You never Know which way he went, He’s coming or Going He’s Omnidirectional. I mean let’s face it:
God has all power.
God knows all things.
God is everywhere.
God is always moving and still Simultaneously and succinctly MOVING, MAKING or MANDATING
That means you can’t lose, if you Go with God.
In fact, as we shall see as we engage the todays text, going with God leads to and “GUARANTEED GAIN.”
Listen! Need I remind you Our God knows the end from the beginning.
That means that God is prepared for every challenge that we face, and He is willing and able to lead and to guide us safely along life’s journey.
In leading us, God goes ahead of us and makes a way for us.
In guiding us, God helps us along the path that God has set for us.
Our life’s journey will have its ups and downs and twists and turns – but when we GO WITH GOD that journey will take us all the way from earth to glory! I know that life is an adventure filled with the unexpected, unanticipated, unpredicted and unforeseen Journey. In fact the senior saints used to sing a song that said, “The road is rough and the going gets tough and the hills are hard to climb.” But if you put your trust in Jesus, he is able to make your road roads smooth, you crooked places straight, your low places high and definitely, your high place low.
He is able lead you through. Guide you through and direct you through life adventures.
There will be times when we have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but God is there with us. But we don’t have to fear. We need only to walk with Him in paths of righteousness, where He will keep us for His Namesake, and the reason why is because God’s very reputation is on the line.
To Go with God is to travel a path that offers “God’s Guaranteed Gain.” Can I tell you, my brothers and my sisters, it pays to Go with God! Most of us are familiar with the poem Footprints By Mary Stevenson
It tells the story of a child of God, who dreamed that she is walking along the beach with the Lord, as scenes from her life flash across the sky. At some points, she notices that - accompanying the scenes - there are two set of footprints, while at other points, there is only one set.
Upon closer inspection, she notes that the places where there is only one set of footprints were in those [quote] “low places in my life, where I suffered anguish, sorrow and defeat.” [end quote]
In her dream she questions the Lord about those time where only one set of footprints are visible – and the Lord replies that in those low moments of life – when things got to be a little too rough, where your strength failed, and where you felt overwhelmed – in those low moments, where there was only one set of footprints, those were the times in life where I carried you. And we’ve got to know that when the burdens are too hard for us to bear that our God is able to carry us through.
That’s the kind of God we serve! He leads, and guides us along the path that He has set for us, and when are unable to walk because of our human frailty, God will hold us up – He will carry us through. It pays to GO WITH GOD! I don’t know whether Mary Stevenson had Psalm 37:23-24 in mind when she penned her famous poem, but her poetic exegesis is “spot on”!
If we submit ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, God will see us through. God is with us as we walk and go through life, and God is willing and able to carry us, and to hold us up with His hand when we fall.
It’s there in the tones and tenement of the text: The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he falls, he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholds him with His hand. That’s a good reason to Go with God. Please Understand, the Providential, Promises our God provides us with
[1] Sequenced Steps that, when followed, elicit, educe and when evoked these steps produces memory for what has been done can be done again.
[2] Divine Delight, and (therefore) we have the assurance of
[3] Guaranteed Gain
“Sequenced Steps” – “The steps of a good person are ordered by God.
“Divine Delight – “He (God) delights in his/her way.
“GOD’s Guaranteed Gain – “Though [the person] fall, he or she shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholds him/her with His hand.”
Let me say, again, “All of us must go through life. And I have come to suggest to you that if you want to be victorious and Join the lyrical cadence of the secular song writer ALL I DO IS WIN then you better Go with God! It doesn’t matter where you are, right now. God knows the path to get you to where God wants you to be.
You want the formula for a successful life: Sequenced Steps + Divine Delight = GOD Guaranteed Gain.
Go with God! Follow the steps He has sequenced and strategically laid out for you, and you will discover the blessing of Divine Delight, which will ensure God’s Guaranteed Gain!
1. PLANNED PROGRESS & PRE-ARRANGED PAUSES (SEQUENCED STEPS)
To “Go with God” means that we submit ourselves the leading and guiding of God.
For the Christian that means accepting Jesus Christ as Savior and allowing Him to become Lord of our (individual) lives.
Savior v/s Lord, Savior What He’s done for me, Lord what am I willing to do for Him.
Can we talk about that for a minute? Accepting Christ as Savior is instantaneous – Romans 10:9 “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you shall be saved.”
By allowing Him to become Lord of your life is a life-long process of submission.
As we submit, means He becomes Lord.
As we submit, means that we get out of the way and allow God to lead the way.
As we submit, means that our lives – our thoughts, our actions, our decision-making process belongs to Him.
Jesus becomes Lord of our (individual) lives, as we do what He says to do, live the way He says to live, go where He says to go. And let me tell you something that you probably already know… Submission to the leading of the Lord is a process! A Daily Process
A challenging process
A process of trial-and-error; mostly because we experience trials as the result of our errors.
It’s only as Christ becomes our LORD – when we trust Him and submit ourselves to him – that we are able to follow the path that He has ordained for us.
Allowing Christ to become Lord means that we proclaim in word and deed that “not my will but Your Will be done, Lord.”
As we yield to the direction of God in our lives, we discover (as is promised in this text) that the path that God would have us to travel is defined by a set of “sequenced” (the text uses the word “ordered”)… but Saints you all know that I’m a fan of alliteration as an aid to learning, so I’ll say “sequenced steps.”
Now, let’s not take the word “steps” too literally.
We’re not talking about putting one foot in front of the other.
No! As used in this poetic passage the word “steps” really means “stages of a journey.”
In other words, as we submit ourselves to God’s direction, the journey unfolds for us.
We are able to see that the stages of our journey are already mapped out.
Even when we can’t see what is ahead, we can look back and see that God has brought us along life’s journey. THEME: MOVING FORWARD IN GOD’S WILL
And even in those times when we got off track, we can see that God has been with us to steer us back to the path that God has set for us.
Listen: In any journey, there are both “periods of planned progress” and there are “prearranged pauses.” There are times when we forge ahead.
And then there are times where God calls for us to stay right where we are for a little while.
As the 23rd Psalm notes –
At times the Good Shepherd leads us beside still waters and along paths of righteousness, and at (other) times the Good Shepherd has us to lie down in green pastures. There are times when we walk through the valley and other times when the Lord restores our soul in the valley.
But whether walking or resting, whether progressing or pausing, we need to remember that the whole of life’s journey has been ordered and sequenced for us by God.
We simply need to follow the steps that God has ordered!
Jesus will lead and guide us; we need to only follow.
THE PATH IS LAID OUT……..
All we have to do is surrender ourselves.
Our prayer and our practice ought to be:
Lead me, guide me along the way
For if you lead me, I cannot stray
Lord let me walk each day with thee Lead me, oh Lord, lead me!
Yes, there will be times when we are tempted to turn to our own path and try to make our own way.
But we ought to remember that God has prepared a better path.
God offers to us a set of sequenced steps.
Can I park here for just a moment? It’s particularly difficult for some of us, when we see others getting ahead by doing everything and anything, they are big and bad enough to do. But the Lord says to us,
“You don’t have to get ahead that way. Just follow my lead.”
I know they’re fussing and fighting and kicking and scratching, and pushing and shoving – but I can hear the Lord say that if you just follow my lead:
I will take you to places you never imagined.”
“You don’t have to break down their door.
I will open the doors for you that no one can shut.”
I hear the Lord say, “Trust me and I will do exceedingly abundantly above all that you could ask or think!”
For when we Go with God, we discover that we become the beneficiaries of Divine Delight!
2. DIVINE DELIGHT (FAVOR/BLESSING)
It’s there in the text.
The Psalmist declares in verse 23: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way.”
God delights in the way – in the journey – of those, who follow His sequenced steps!”
And can I tell you that Divine Delight is the key to DIVINE BLESSING?!
Listen: What God delights in, God blesses!
And the Bible is clear: God delights in our obedience.
That’s what Samuel was trying to explain to King Saul over in 1st Samuel 15.
The Lord doesn’t get excited about big, public sacrifices. No! God delights in private obedience, that's why "obedience is better than sacrifice."
That’s all Joshua was trying to tell the Israelites as they stood at the entrance to the Promised Land. Joshua proclaimed:
“If the Lord delight in us, He will bring us into this land, and give it to us; a land which flows with milk and honey.”
The Promised Land would be theirs, if they followed the sequenced steps of God and went into the Promised Land.
But the story is that the Israelites didn’t follow God’s leading and guiding. Instead they refused to obey.
As a result, the Lord let them wander in the wilderness for 38 more years. Had they followed the sequenced steps of the Lord, the children of Israel would have made the journey to the Promised Land in 2 years…but because they chose to disobey the Lord, to walk away from the ordered path God provided – they wandered in the Wilderness for 38 years.
Can I just tell you that God has a plan that will take you where God has destined for you to be? And you will discover that you will get there much faster, when you walk in the path that God has ordained!
Follow where God leads. Go where God sends. For when we walk in the right path, God will delight in us. And what God delights in, God blesses!
That means that no matter where we journey takes us however with the Lord, we will be blessed!
Blessed In the City Family-Blessed
Blessed in the field Finances- Blessed
Blessed going out Blessed- everyday
Blessed Coming in Blessed in everyway
Blessed because of Divine Delight!
All we need do is do walk in the path that God has ordered for us.
Walk with the Lord and the Lord will bless you!
When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word
His glory will shed upon our way.
When we follow the sequenced steps of God’s plan, we become the beneficiaries of Divine Delight!
WE ARE BLESSED!
And the blessing of God assures us of “GUARANTEED GAIN.”
The fact of the matter is that the battle is already won!
The victory is ours.
We shall make it.
We shall succeed.
We don’t have to wonder.
We don’t have to worry.
We have “guaranteed gain”!
We will win, if we Go with God.
No matter what it looks like, when you Go with God.
God is at work in the “all things” making sure that they work together for your good!
THAT’S GUARANTEED GAIN!
3. GUARANTEED GAIN (SEQUENCED STEPS + GOD’S FAVOR = GUARANTEED GAIN; ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO
GAIN HEAVEN)
Now let’s be clear – it’s not that we won’t have setbacks in life.
Rather, going with God guarantees that for every setback God will grant us a comeback.
We may fall down – but we won’t stay down!
The promise of the text is that we who “Go with God” will “NOT be utterly cast down because the Lord upholds us with His hand.”
Now don’t be fooled that we as Christians don’t have to deal with the realities of life. Because Jesus said, “In this world you SHALL have tribulation.”
We will face tests and trials and some of those tests and trials will knock us down!
But over against the certainty of tribulation, Jesus says, “Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world!”
In other words, don’t worry about your trials, I overcame them, when I overcame the world!
Listen even though we may get knocked down…we can’t be knocked OUT! Why?
Because the Lord promised to uphold us with His hand!
To be in God’s hand is to have the promise of God’s strength! Yes, we must stand in the face of life’s vicissitudes, but we don’t stand alone. And when our strength runs out, God’s strength is more than enough to uphold us.
Like He told the Apostle Paul, I hear the Lord say, “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
The challenges of life may get us down…but God has promised to uphold us by His strength.
No matter what it looks like, we shall make it over, we shall make it in, we shall make it through. Because, when you go with God you have the assurance of “guaranteed gain.”
And because Jesus is victorious, we have the assurance that we, too, shall be victorious!
In the Name of Jesus, we have the victory!
In the Name of Jesus, we have “guaranteed gain.”
And not just on that “great getting up morning” in the “sweet by and by
The challenges of life may get us down, but they can’t hold us down.
I like the way Paul puts it in the 4th Chapter of 2nd Corinthians:
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed—
“We can’t be utterly cast down.” Why? Because the Lord has promised to uphold us! He has ordered our steps. And when the burden is too heavy. When the challenge is too great for us. The Lord will pick us up and carry us safely through.
Just ask the Savior to help you. Comfort strengthen and keep you. He is willing to aid you.
He will carry you through!
When traveling days are done down here, well, David says it; after the Good Shepherd has led us and guided us, and provided for us – we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever! Yes!
That’s “guaranteed gain.”
Oh…I want to see Him! Look upon His face.
