DELIGHT YOURSELF IN THE LORD
Ps 37:4
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: THE ANSWER NOT RECOGNIZED
1. A group of UT trained managers were given the assignment of measuring the height of a flagpole.
2. When they got to the flagpole with ladders and tape measures, the difficulty began. They were falling off the ladders and dropping tape measures right and left. The whole thing is just a mess.
3. Then an engineer from Texas A & M came along and saw what they were trying to do. Walking over, he pulled the flagpole out of the ground, laid it flat, measured it from end to end, & gave the measurement to one of the managers, and walked away.
4. After the engineer has gone, one manager turned to another manager and started laughing.
5. "Isn't that just like an Aggie? We're looking for the height and he gives us the length."
B. TEXT
Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. 2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. 3 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. 4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
C. THESIS
1. For many people, food is not an inconvenience or duty, it’s a delight. They pursue it with passion. Everybody around them can tell they’re enjoying their food.
2. Do we enjoy God? Do we enjoy all the things related to God? His Church, His Word, worship, prayer? I want to be a person who delights in the Lord!.
3. In our experience, is God a delight or a duty? How many have discovered that delight is a better motivator than duty?
4. For a very large number of people, Christianity is a 2 hour commitment per week. That’s less than 2% of the person’s time, yet it’s often perceived as a drudgery. And that’s why we’re focusing on a higher motivation than duty. “Delight yourself in the Lord…”
5. How do we do that?
I. KNOW, YOU WERE CREATED FOR SUCH DELIGHT
A. GOD MADE ALL FOR OUR ENJOYMENT
1. When God created Adam, He demonstrated considerable concern for Adam’s enjoyment. He placed Adam in a GARDEN—not a wilderness. He provided for Adam all the trees of the garden and the fruit (FOOD) of those trees for his enjoyment.
2. God has given him a perfect ENVIRONMENT. God gives him work that is affirming and meaningful. He is a gardener for God. He is privileged to do a WORK that God has assigned him to do. I’m sure he was delighting in that assignment.
3. In John 4:31-34 “Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?" "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
4. The work (God gave Adam to do) yielded something in his soul that was absolutely wonderful. For Adam dressing that Garden was a delight much more than a duty.
5. In Genesis 2 you see God’s supreme interest in Adam’s joy. God took delight in Adam and took joy in providing him everything he needed for living life to the full.
6. When He saw something missing in Adam’s life, God said (2:18), "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." And God made Eve, Adam’s most beloved possession.
7. Is there anything missing in your life? “No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly before Him.” He withheld no good thing from Adam and He will withhold no good thing from us if we will live in obedience to Him.
B. THEIR HIGHEST JOY
1. Everything we have described was for Adam’s enjoyment. But none of it was the most important thing for Adam.
2. More important than a perfect environment and a perfect mate was the daily presence of God. In the cool of the morning God would meet with Adam and Eve.
3. I believe Adam & Eve passionately looked forward to those personal times with God, the shekinah – “high on the Lord!” In his perfect state man delighted himself in the Lord because he was designed to do so.
C. LOSS OF THEIR MOST SPECIAL GIFT
1. That delight was broken by only one thing: Adam & Eve stepped out of God’s revealed will they lost something immensely precious – they sinned.
2. Instead of enjoying God they hid from God. Instead of looking forward to His presence they dreaded it. Tolerating sin and disobedience in their lives robbed them of the joy of the Lord.
3. It’s NOT possible to delight in sin and delight in the Lord at the same time. Satan destroyed their delight in the Lord. He seeks to rob us but Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” Jn. 10:10.
4. How do you delight yourself in the Lord?
II. DISCOVER GOD’S GOODNESS FOR YOURSELF
A. MAKE IT PERSONAL
Without an experience with God Christianity can seem like an old worn out set of rules and regulations. That’s why David wrote in Psalm 34:8 “Taste and see that the Lord is good....”
B. ICE CREAM…DONUTS
1. There is nothing like experiencing the real thing. You
could describe ice cream to me, explain what it tastes like, but I’ll never know how good it is until I taste it for myself.
2. I don’t eat donuts out of duty. I eat them because I want to. I delight in Crispy Crème or Shipley’s donuts every chance I get.
3. Are you here tonight out of mere duty? “Taste and see that the Lord is good….”
4. How else can we delight in the Lord? We can
III. NURTURE AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
1. One way to delight in the Lord is to remember your previous experiences with Him.
a. Do you remember the day Jesus saved you out of darkness?
b….the moment the load of guilt and shame was lifted off your soul and your sins were forgiven?
c. Think about those times of refreshing that you have experienced in God.
d. Think about the times He delivered you from the snares of the enemy.
2. In Ps. 37:1-8, we’re told 3X to ‘not fret.’ The Bible never tells us to worry. We are told to pray. We are told to rejoice. We are told to trust.
3. If God be for us who can be against us?
A. EX. OF ISRAEL -- CIRCUMSTANCES
1. When the Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea they were filled with joy. Can you imagine walking across that river bed with a wall of water on each side of you—held back by the hand of God?
2. When Pharaoh’s army tried to follow, the waters drowned the most powerful army on earth at that time. They saw the Egyptian soldiers lying dead on the shore.
3. They danced and sang the song of the redeemed. They were happy in God that day, weren’t they?
B. THEY LOST THEIR JOY
1. But did they continue in their joy? No, within a few verses they are complaining because of a lack of water. Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
2. And the children of Israel said to them, "Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." Ex. 16:3-4.
3. You know the rest of the story. They entered into a life-long pattern of complaint and disobedience. We know from Heb. 3 & 4 they failed to enter into the promises of God and died in defeat because of their unbelief.
C. CAN YOU DELIGHT?
1. What is going on in your life?
2. Whether the sun is shining or the night is dark—you can still delight in the Lord.
3. Praise is comely for the righteous!
D. PAUL & SILAS
1. In Acts 16 Paul and Silas were in a pretty discouraging set of circumstances. They had been faithful to do the will of God when they were thrown into a dark, stinky prison. Why in the world would God let this happen to His servants?
2. But unlike Israel in the wilderness, they had found a delight that was greater than their circumstances. Because their delight was in the Lord they continued to worship and praise God.
3. Remember what God did in that situation. The prison doors flew open. Their chains fell off. And the jailer got saved. They were not praising God because the prison doors had opened and the jailer had gotten saved.
4. Their praise preceded that because their joy was rooted and grounded in God Himself. I wonder how the story would have read if Paul and Silas had withdrawn into a pity party. I wonder what would have happened if their delight had not been in the Lord.
5. I wonder what God may be trying to do in your life and my life. I wonder what chains He wants to break and what soul He wants to save. But first I think I hear Him saying to us, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
6. Phil. 4:4 is the New Testament echo of our text. “Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice.” How is that possible?
7. Circumstances come and go. Circumstances and feelings are not the basis of our joy. Our joy is found in delighting in the Lord Himself.
8. It’s easy to think we are delighting in the Lord when in reality we are simply delighting in what the Lord is giving us at the time. I thank God for a nice house, a good wife, a car to drive. But would I lose my joy if I lost all that? I would feel the loss but my life would not be void of peace and joy.
IV. DESIRE TO PLEASE GOD & YOU’LL BE PLEASED WITH GOD
1. If we live to please ourselves or to “feel successful,” we’ll often fail.
2. But if we will live to please God, we’ll find satisfaction even if externally we seem to fail by the world’s standards.
3. Here’s the paradox. When we live to please ourselves we find ourselves frustrated, disappointed, and unfulfilled. Jesus said, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.” Luke 9:24.
4. But whoever gets lost in doing the will of the Father will discover abundant life. Whoever seeks to please God will ultimately find himself pleased. That person will delight himself in the Lord and live life to the full.
5. One other key for delighting in the Lord:
V. ANTICIPATE GOD’S GOODNESS
A. EVIL PEOPLE WON’T GET AWAY WITH IT
1. The future is bright for every child of God. Look with me for a moment at Psalm 37. There is a significant contrast between what happens to God’s people verses what happens to the ungodly.
2. Verse 1 tells us not to fret or be envious of those who do wrong. They may seem to prosper…enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season…seem to be get away with murder.
3. But 37:1 says, “…for like grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.” Verse 10 “A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found;” Vs. 13, “their day is coming;” Vs. 17 promises, “for the power of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous.”
B. GOD’S PEOPLE WILL BE BLESSED
1. Ps 37:3-4 “Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Verses 18 & 19
2. Vs. 19, “In times of disaster they will not wither; in days of famine they will enjoy plenty. Verses 23 & 24 3 If the LORD delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm; 24 though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand.”
3. Which team would you rather be on? Which set of promises do you want to live in?
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: Secret of a Quiet Mind
1. A man had health and riches, and several houses, all beautiful and well furnished, but would often trouble himself and his family to move from one of them to another.
2. On being asked by a friend why he moved so often from one house to another, he replied, 'It was on the chance I might find contentment in one of them.'
3. But his friend, knowing his temper, told him, “If you would find contentment in any of your houses, you must leave yourself behind, for contentment can never dwell except with a humble and grateful soul."
4. Jesus must be our treasure hid in a field, our pearl of great price. Only them will we abandon our worthless trinkets for the greatest treasure of all – God Himself!
B. THE CALL
1. Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” God will satisfy the desires of anyone who is truly delights in Him. Let’s let the longing for God consume us!
2. Prayer & consecration
3. Prayer for deeper love for God.
[This is an altered version of Richard Tow’s msg of the same name.]
