Delight in Yahweh
This is a transcript. It may contain small inaccuracies.
Delight yourself in Yahweh. What a sweet and wonderful theme to dwell on tonight. We've been thinking in this chapter about the life of faith and how faith should look at life, how faith should respond to the various situations that we encounter day by day, how faith should respond to trials and to trouble. And here we've been considering several instructive words from a mature man of God to guide us in the right way. He teaches us how to respond, exhorting us to find our comfort and our delight, our joy, our satisfaction in the Lord our God. We are to delight in the Lord.
The people of God take heart in the sure reality that God is faithful. He is for us. He is mindful of us. He cares for us. He knows us. He's acquainted with all our ways, and our life is in His hand. He upholds us, and no one can pluck us out of His hand. And so we don't need to worry or fret.
And we have this exhortation, the first instructive word that we consider together: Do not fret because of evildoers. Do not recoil in fear. Do not worry. It's expressly forbidden. Don't be envious of the unrighteous. The Lord will deal with them in due time. Worry and envy only leads to further problems, as we saw last time in verse 8. We can lose perspective, and our responses to trouble can range from mild unrest to complaining to envy, distrust, lying, discontent, covetousness, and worse still, anger, and anger with God because of our circumstances.
Proverbs 12:25, "Anxiety in a man's heart weighs it down," so guard your heart. These are wrong responses. Rather, trust in the Lord. Do not let your heart envy sinners, but live in the fear of the Lord always. The fear of the Lord, as we've noted already, is that disposition of heart that rests in and recognizes the sovereignty of God over every area of my life. He is God over all, and He knows all about my ways, my life, my needs, and so on, and so I submit to His all-wise plan. My times are in His hand, and I ought to be content to leave them there, to rest in His hand, and so that needs to be the disposition of our heart to God.
Don't fret. Don't worry, but rather, principle number two, verse three, trust in Yahweh and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Trust in God. Do good. Cultivate faithfulness. Oswald Chambers, you will know, is the author of that well-known book, that devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest, and he said, “the one thing that keeps us from worrying is bringing God in as the greatest factor in all our calculations.” We factor God into all our calculations, all our projections, all our plans, all the things that we have to do, and that keeps us from worrying. God is over all. He's in control.
Trust in Yahweh and do good. Hold on to God and continue to do what is right in the eyes of God. Forget the temptation to run away and hide. Sometimes we just want to run away. Oh, that I had wings like a dove that I could fly away and be at peace, Psalmist said. Forget the temptation to run away and hide or to look elsewhere for help or to trust even in yourself for solutions, but keep looking to the Lord. Keep your eyes fixed on God. Trust in Yahweh and continue to do what is right before Him, what you know to be right in His sight.
We're admonished then to look to God. I'm called to look to God for answers to my daily problems. Didn't Christ say that to His disciples? Don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me. Trust in Me. I can guide you and direct you in the way that you should go. Trust God and do good. Cultivate that faithfulness. Trust God for everything, the big things as well as the small things. Should I only look to God and trust Him for the big significant decisions that affect my life or should I trust Him for everything big and small? What about the mundane details of my life? Do I trust God for all things? And we confess sometimes, sometimes I do, but sometimes I don't.
And I lack faith, and I'm like the disciples, ‘O ye of little faith.’ But the psalmist encourages us to do good even when we're not sure what God is doing. Continue to trust God and do good. Hold on to God even when you don't understand His plan. When you can't trace His hand or see what He's doing, you can trust His heart.
We can trust Him even when we don't understand, when we're in the dark, when we're ignorant of what is next. And we can trust our faithful God who keeps His promises. And the answer, as we've discovered here, the answer to unrest or anxiety, which is the result of distrust or distraction, is to seek a fresh perspective of the glory and the grace of our great God. Trust in Yahweh. Do good. Cultivate that faithfulness. Lean on Him. Graze on His faithfulness. Feed securely on His faithfulness. Fix your hope on the living God.
Because God never makes a mistake. He never makes a mistake. He's the all-wise, perfect, all-knowing God. Spurgeon, in his well-known sermon entitled ‘A Happy Christian,’ he said, "God is too wise to err, too good to be unkind." Listen to these words of Spurgeon. He said, "The worldling, the ungodly, blesses God while He gives him plenty. But the Christian blesses Him when He smites him. He believes Him to be too wise to err and too good to be unkind. He trusts Him where he cannot trace Him. He looks up to Him in the darkest hour and believes all is well."
That's the attitude. That's the response. Trust in God and do good. He's too wise to err, too good to be unkind. We trust Him where we cannot trace Him. We look to Him in the darkest hour and we believe it's good—all is well. God is in control. He's on the throne. He's ruling and He's reigning. He's working according to His timetable, His plan, His purposes, and I trust Him. The righteous who trust in the Lord will be sustained to the end. Do we not read that in verse 17. "Yahweh sustains the righteous." Do not fear. We set our hope in Jesus. Faith maintains a right perspective on life by trusting in God for grace to live each day in His service, for His glory, by His grace.
And I love the way the messages dovetail together. Morning and evening. It's by His grace we live and for His glory we live. And so we come to the next principle here, number three: delight yourself in Yahweh. So having commended this trust in God, He takes it further. Delight in God. Can you even delight in God? Can you trust in God? Yes, you can. What about when the way is hard? Yes, you can. He's faithful. What about delighting in Him?
And I want us to think about this tonight in a few ways. First of all, what it is not, what it is, and what delighting in God will do. What it is not, what it is, and what it will do. Delight yourself in the Lord. I suppose what it is, first of all, delight yourself in God. We delight in God, in His very existence. God is, and we need to keep that in mind.
When the world around us would say, there is no God, we say, that's foolish. "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" God is. We are to delight in God. We delight in His very existence because God is, and He's the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And delight in God is the fact that we delight in His very existence. There is a living God.
Remember those words of Hudson Taylor? There is a living God. He has spoken in His word. He means what He says, and He will do all that He has promised. Our God is a living God, and He's intimately acquainted with all my ways. He made me. He knows me. He knows when I sit down, when I rise up, when I go out—going out and coming in. He is. God is. He is there when all else fails. God is there. When all else forsake, God is there. There is a living God.
Paul was able to say, remember in 2 Timothy 4:17, when others abandoned him and left him, "But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me." The Lord is with us as His people. His Spirit dwells in us, and we could say, our God reigns. Let the earth rejoice. Our God reigns. There is a God, and He's ruling in the heavens. He rules and reigns over all the affairs of men. God is, and we delight in the fact of His very existence.
He rules the macro and the micro, both the magnificent and the minute. He rules, and we can trust Him. Psalm 9:10 and 11, the Lord will be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble, “And those who know Your name will put their trust in You, For You, O Yahweh, have not forsaken those who seek You. Sing praises to Yahweh, who abides in Zion; Declare among the peoples His acts."
He will never abandon His people, and our delight is found in God alone. God is for us and not against us. He's with us, and He will never forsake us. We delight in His presence, in His very existence. God is. He's the source of all joy, and in His presence—we were reading in Psalm 16—in His presence there is this fullness of joy, and at His right hand there are pleasures forevermore. We find our complete joy, a joy that satisfies the longing soul. It's found in God alone, in Christ our Savior, and the joy of the Lord is our strength.
And that means the joy that finds delight in God brings encouragement. It fortifies the soul in such a way that we are encouraged to, and we are helped as we persevere by the grace of God, as we endure those trials, whatever we're going through. We glory in our God. We glory in His name.
Psalm 105, which was a psalm I thought about reading at the start of the service. Psalm 105, verse 3, “Glory in His holy name; Let the heart of those who seek Yahweh be glad. Seek Yahweh and His strength; Seek His face continually." We glory in the fact of His existence, but we glory in the attributes of God as well. This God is on our side, and He's omnipotent. He's omniscient. He's omnipresent, and when we think about the attributes of God, we can delight in who He is, in His nature, in His attributes.
Spurgeon said, “Every attribute of God should become a fresh ray in this sunlight of delight.” Every attribute of God should become a fresh ray in this sunlight of delight. And he said that “He is wise, should make us glad who know our folly. That He is mighty, should cause us to rejoice who tremble at our own weakness. That He is everlasting, should always be a theme for our music. When we know that we are grass and wither as the green herb. That He is unchanging, should always give us a song, since every hour we change and never long the same. That He is full of grace. That He is overflowing with it. And that this divine grace in the covenant He has given to us, that it's ours. Ours to cleanse us. Ours to keep us. Ours to sanctify us. Ours to perfect us. Ours to bring us to heaven. All this should tend to make us delight ourselves in the Lord.”
We delight in His attributes. He's wise. He's mighty. He's everlasting. He's unchanging. He's the eternal God full of grace and truth. And we delight in who He is. "Delight yourself in Yahweh; And He will give you the desires of your heart." But I want us to think about this text again, what it is not saying. This is one of those texts that is most misunderstood and misinterpreted, misapplied, especially when it comes to the health and wealth and prosperity gospel.
Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart. And I want you to understand this is not a formula to obtain whatever you want. You know, whatever your heart's desire, whatever you dream. You want a new car, you want a new house, whatever, new Mercedes. You know, I just desire that so much. God's going to give it to me. That's not what it's saying. It's not a formula to obtain whatever your heart desires, whatever you dream of or whatever you want, and God will give it to you. I dream of it. I want it. God will give it to me regardless of what it is.
As if God were your genie in the bottle. You just rub the bottle and you make a wish and you ask for these casual desires and God will just give it to you. That's not what this is saying. Or as if God was this divine Santa Claus just granting you everything your heart desires. It's not what the text is saying. And it's not follow your heart. Follow your heart. Just follow your heart and God will give you the desires of your heart.
The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. We don't even know our own hearts at times. We can't trust our own feelings. We can't trust our hearts. John Piper in his book Desiring God, he said, “we delight in what we love. We delight in what we love. And God is not worshipped where He is not treasured and enjoyed. And if Jesus is the source of complete satisfaction, then I must find my joy in Him.” Not in things. Not in material possessions. Not in the stuff of this world.
Man's life consists not in the abundance of things that he possesses, Luke 12:15. Everybody wants to be happy, but so many people are looking in all the wrong places, and we see it every day. They're searching, and they're on a quest, and yet their quest for happiness and joy only leads them to further misery and unrest and frustration and discontent. Man's happiness is often grounded in his circumstances, what's going on in his life, depending on what's going on, whether he's happy or not, joyful or not, what's going on around him, or his happiness is focused on the things that he possesses or can gather from this world, and everybody wants to be happy, but they're looking for happiness and joy in all the wrong places.
So many are unhappy. They end up unhappy in their job, unhappy in their workplace, unhappy in their marriage, unhappy in their home, unhappy in their relationship, because these, as an end in themselves, are not what bring ultimate satisfaction and joy. We must find our joy in Christ, in the Lord. "Delight yourself in the Lord," and man, in his quest for happiness, will never find it in the finite creature comforts of this world. They're all inadequate. The sinful heart of man is never satisfied, and as Augustine reminds us, that our souls are restless and they're empty until they find their rest in Christ, and so we're called to delight ourselves in the Lord.
This is not a formula to say, whatever you want, you desire it, God will give it to you. It's not, follow your heart and you'll have whatever you want. The Christian finds his greatest joy in the Lord, and the word delight here can mean to take pleasure in, and it has the idea of cheering the heart, the heart being enlivened so that you leap for joy or you dance for joy, and I'm not going to do that right now, but that's the idea. Dancing for joy. Your heart is thrilled. It leaps with joy as you think of the pleasure, the satisfaction that is found in God, but the word linguistically also carries the idea of being soft and tender. It has the idea of being delicate or pliable. Pliable as clay in the hands of the potter being molded to be soft and tender of heart towards God, that is pliable, teachable, if you like, in the hands of God.
Delight in God. Be pliable and soft, tender-hearted towards God. Take your pleasure in God. Let the things of God so thrill your soul, and the thought here is of God molding and shaping my desires so that my desires are like His desires. So it's not whatever I want, God will give. It's God putting His desires within me as I delight in Him, as I dwell in Him, so His delights become my delights. His desires become my desires, and the things that I pursue and the things I seek now will please God, and so the thought is of God molding and shaping my desires so they're like His desires.
And really, who best to judge what is truly desirable and good for us? Your heart, your own heart, your own desires, or God? God knows best, and none can satisfy the soul like our God, and we're to delight in Him, and Scripture directs us here to find our joy, our ultimate satisfaction, our pleasure in God, and be one who is shaped by Him.
And not only does Scripture direct us, but remember there is that command. Philippians 4, it's an imperative: "Rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!" And there's Paul, even in prison, he could rejoice. It wasn't anything to do with his circumstances. His circumstances were not easy. They were most difficult. They were trying, but his ultimate source of joy in that dark place was in the Lord, and even in the prison he could sing praise to God. He worshiped, and true joy is not dependent on our circumstances. It's founded in Christ who says, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and are heavy-laden,” – burdened, weighed down, crushed, – “and I will give you rest."
So what is it to delight in God? The Puritan Richard Baxter said, this is the work of our lives. And in his prayer, which is recorded in one of his books, The Saints' Everlasting Rest, Richard Baxter said, “May the living God, who is the portion and rest of the saints, make these carnal minds so spiritual and our earthly hearts so heavenly that loving him and delighting in him may be the work of our lives.” Loving him and delighting in him is the work of our lives.
And Piper picked that up in his book Desiring God, and he said, as we know, that classic statement that sums up the Desiring God ministry, John Piper said, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him”. God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him. And he went on to argue in that book that the overriding concern of the Christian is this, that in all of life, “All of life will be to the praise of the glory of his grace. That in all of life, God will be glorified in the way that he himself has appointed.”
So what is It to delight in God? It's to stand in awe of who He is, to live in the fear of the Lord, as we were considering, and just to submit to His wisdom, to His plans, trusting He knows best, and in grace He is working for my good. He's a God who is graciously disposed to do me good. He sings over His people. He rejoices in His people. They are His portion, and we rejoice in our God, and we trust Him, His sovereign plan. We trust His word. It's completely reliable. He will do as He said.
We delight in God, and there's that spiritual affection, that love for Jesus, who for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross. And we love Him because He first loved us, and so we stand in awe of God. We submit to God. We find our satisfaction and delight in all that Christ is for us, and all that Christ has done for us in His mercy and His grace. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious.
It is this delight in God that lends strength to our work and our ministry. "The joy of the Lord is your strength," and that enables us to persevere to the end, though the way is hard, though there are challenges, though there are obstacles, though there are trials, there may be suffering. But God has not forsaken you. He's with us through it all. God is. It's factoring God into every circumstance, all our situations. It's a but-God kind of mentality. It's a but-God attitude. I'm lost. I'm undone. I'm ruined. But God. I delight in the Lord.
But not only does the pursuit of joy in God give strength to endure, it also breaks the power of sin in our lives, as you were thinking about this morning. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and dwelling in the Lord, dwelling in His Word, being filled with His Word, we are equipped and we are empowered to walk in a way that is pleasing to Him. And the things of earth, as we set our affection on things above, as we delight in the things of God, the things of earth grow dim. They lose their seductive power, and God begins to so work in our hearts that His desires become our desires.
As Piper said, “We delight in what we love.” And we love Christ because He first loved us, and the object of our greatest joy must be Jesus Christ. It is incumbent upon us to find our complete joy and satisfaction in the Lord our God. We are made full or complete in Him. In Him dwells all the fullness of God. It can't get any bigger. It can't get any greater. The fullness of God dwells in Him. And who best knows what is good for us? The all-wise God in whom we delight. And as believers, our delight is in the Lord. But God is not worshipped where He is not treasured and enjoyed.
So what it is not, what it is, but what will this delight in God do for us? Spurgeon said, “Delight in God has a transforming power. It has a transforming power, and it lifts a man above the gross desires of our fallen nature. Delight in Yahweh is not only sweet in itself, but it sweetens the whole soul till the longings of the heart become such that the Lord can safely promise to fulfill them.” And he said this: “Is not that a grand delight which molds our desires till they're like the desires of God?”
As you delight yourself in God, God will mold your desires to be like His desires. And this is God's way. First, delight in God, and such delight has a transforming power. Being filled with God till there is that overflow of worship and delight, we run over with delight and joy. Spurgeon said, “If we let our heart be filled with God till it runs over with delight, then the Lord Himself will take care that we shall not want any good thing. He can do for us far more than all our friends. It is better to be content with God alone than to go about fretting and pining about the paltry trifles of time and sense.”
And that may seem like antiquated words, but when we have God, and if we have nothing else, we have all we need. And we can rest in our God. And that delight in God will do something in you. It will reshape your thinking. Remember, you know, when we're tempted to worry and envy, what we need is to reorient our perspective by focusing on the grace and the glory of our great and majestic God. It will reshape your thinking. It will redirect your love. It will reorient your life towards God and His desires.
And we were hardwired for God. We were made for this purpose, to be worshippers of our God, to live for His glory. And as we delight in the Lord, His delights become our delights. And it will lead you to say, not my will, but Your will be done, O Lord.
Like Job, we can even say in suffering, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, but blessed be the name of the Lord." We can trust the Lord, and all who find their complete satisfaction in the Lord will rest content in His sovereign plan and purposes, His unfailing faithfulness, His sweet provision for us all through life, the sure promises of God that He has given for our guidance and our comfort, and He will keep us to the end. He will never fail His own.
I love that word. We've mentioned it in the past week, Psalm 94. We'll end with this tonight. We'll end with this tonight. Psalm 94, and the verse 19. What a great verse to think about. When you think about this fact that God's grace is written all over your life, He has His hand upon your life, your personal needs, your cares, whatever is going on, He's acquainted with it all.
In Psalm 94:19, "When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul." Your consolations, Your comforts delight my soul, and what are those sweet consolations that cheer the heart of the saint? What are the themes that delight the heart, that cause the heart to leap with joy and to rejoice today? That this God is for me, this God is my God, and He will be my guide even unto death, and He will carry me into glory.
That this God is mindful of me. He thinks of me. He was thinking of me before the foundation of the world. In love, He has redeemed me. He knows me. He made me. The Lord is moved with compassion towards me. He comes to my rescue. He comes to my aid. He strengthens me in my weakness. He gives me understanding in my dullness. All these things that the Lord does, He upholds my life in love. He's with me. He'll never forsake me.
These are sweet consolations that delight the soul when my anxious thoughts are many and intertwined and personal, and you think no one else knows what is going on, and these perplexing things break your heart. Find your joy and delight in the Lord. Let those consolations delight your soul that God is my Father, and He had me in mind even before the foundation of the world. He sent His Son to redeem me, and it is this comfort that this peace that I have, this assurance that I enjoy because I am justified and in a right relationship with God, and I think on the person of Christ. I think of the work of Christ. I think of His redeeming love, His desires towards me, His intercession even now for me. He's pleading my case. He's my advocate before the Father.
I think of this promise of being exalted to glory and the fact that He's coming again to receive me and to receive His own to Himself. Sweet consolations that delight the soul of the believer. As Thomas Horton said, “In a word, they are the comforts which do flow from communion with Him.” Sometimes these old Puritans had a great way of just putting things in words. The comforts of His attributes, the comforts of His promises, the comforts of His gracious presence drawing near to our souls when it pleases Him to shine upon us and to express His goodwill to us and to give us some evidence and assurance of His love and favor towards us. These are my comforts.
"When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul." Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Let's pray.
The people of God take heart in the sure reality that God is faithful. He is for us. He is mindful of us. He cares for us. He knows us. He's acquainted with all our ways, and our life is in His hand. He upholds us, and no one can pluck us out of His hand. And so we don't need to worry or fret.
And we have this exhortation, the first instructive word that we consider together: Do not fret because of evildoers. Do not recoil in fear. Do not worry. It's expressly forbidden. Don't be envious of the unrighteous. The Lord will deal with them in due time. Worry and envy only leads to further problems, as we saw last time in verse 8. We can lose perspective, and our responses to trouble can range from mild unrest to complaining to envy, distrust, lying, discontent, covetousness, and worse still, anger, and anger with God because of our circumstances.
Proverbs 12:25, "Anxiety in a man's heart weighs it down," so guard your heart. These are wrong responses. Rather, trust in the Lord. Do not let your heart envy sinners, but live in the fear of the Lord always. The fear of the Lord, as we've noted already, is that disposition of heart that rests in and recognizes the sovereignty of God over every area of my life. He is God over all, and He knows all about my ways, my life, my needs, and so on, and so I submit to His all-wise plan. My times are in His hand, and I ought to be content to leave them there, to rest in His hand, and so that needs to be the disposition of our heart to God.
Don't fret. Don't worry, but rather, principle number two, verse three, trust in Yahweh and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Trust in God. Do good. Cultivate faithfulness. Oswald Chambers, you will know, is the author of that well-known book, that devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest, and he said, “the one thing that keeps us from worrying is bringing God in as the greatest factor in all our calculations.” We factor God into all our calculations, all our projections, all our plans, all the things that we have to do, and that keeps us from worrying. God is over all. He's in control.
Trust in Yahweh and do good. Hold on to God and continue to do what is right in the eyes of God. Forget the temptation to run away and hide. Sometimes we just want to run away. Oh, that I had wings like a dove that I could fly away and be at peace, Psalmist said. Forget the temptation to run away and hide or to look elsewhere for help or to trust even in yourself for solutions, but keep looking to the Lord. Keep your eyes fixed on God. Trust in Yahweh and continue to do what is right before Him, what you know to be right in His sight.
We're admonished then to look to God. I'm called to look to God for answers to my daily problems. Didn't Christ say that to His disciples? Don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me. Trust in Me. I can guide you and direct you in the way that you should go. Trust God and do good. Cultivate that faithfulness. Trust God for everything, the big things as well as the small things. Should I only look to God and trust Him for the big significant decisions that affect my life or should I trust Him for everything big and small? What about the mundane details of my life? Do I trust God for all things? And we confess sometimes, sometimes I do, but sometimes I don't.
And I lack faith, and I'm like the disciples, ‘O ye of little faith.’ But the psalmist encourages us to do good even when we're not sure what God is doing. Continue to trust God and do good. Hold on to God even when you don't understand His plan. When you can't trace His hand or see what He's doing, you can trust His heart.
We can trust Him even when we don't understand, when we're in the dark, when we're ignorant of what is next. And we can trust our faithful God who keeps His promises. And the answer, as we've discovered here, the answer to unrest or anxiety, which is the result of distrust or distraction, is to seek a fresh perspective of the glory and the grace of our great God. Trust in Yahweh. Do good. Cultivate that faithfulness. Lean on Him. Graze on His faithfulness. Feed securely on His faithfulness. Fix your hope on the living God.
Because God never makes a mistake. He never makes a mistake. He's the all-wise, perfect, all-knowing God. Spurgeon, in his well-known sermon entitled ‘A Happy Christian,’ he said, "God is too wise to err, too good to be unkind." Listen to these words of Spurgeon. He said, "The worldling, the ungodly, blesses God while He gives him plenty. But the Christian blesses Him when He smites him. He believes Him to be too wise to err and too good to be unkind. He trusts Him where he cannot trace Him. He looks up to Him in the darkest hour and believes all is well."
That's the attitude. That's the response. Trust in God and do good. He's too wise to err, too good to be unkind. We trust Him where we cannot trace Him. We look to Him in the darkest hour and we believe it's good—all is well. God is in control. He's on the throne. He's ruling and He's reigning. He's working according to His timetable, His plan, His purposes, and I trust Him. The righteous who trust in the Lord will be sustained to the end. Do we not read that in verse 17. "Yahweh sustains the righteous." Do not fear. We set our hope in Jesus. Faith maintains a right perspective on life by trusting in God for grace to live each day in His service, for His glory, by His grace.
And I love the way the messages dovetail together. Morning and evening. It's by His grace we live and for His glory we live. And so we come to the next principle here, number three: delight yourself in Yahweh. So having commended this trust in God, He takes it further. Delight in God. Can you even delight in God? Can you trust in God? Yes, you can. What about when the way is hard? Yes, you can. He's faithful. What about delighting in Him?
And I want us to think about this tonight in a few ways. First of all, what it is not, what it is, and what delighting in God will do. What it is not, what it is, and what it will do. Delight yourself in the Lord. I suppose what it is, first of all, delight yourself in God. We delight in God, in His very existence. God is, and we need to keep that in mind.
When the world around us would say, there is no God, we say, that's foolish. "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" God is. We are to delight in God. We delight in His very existence because God is, and He's the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And delight in God is the fact that we delight in His very existence. There is a living God.
Remember those words of Hudson Taylor? There is a living God. He has spoken in His word. He means what He says, and He will do all that He has promised. Our God is a living God, and He's intimately acquainted with all my ways. He made me. He knows me. He knows when I sit down, when I rise up, when I go out—going out and coming in. He is. God is. He is there when all else fails. God is there. When all else forsake, God is there. There is a living God.
Paul was able to say, remember in 2 Timothy 4:17, when others abandoned him and left him, "But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me." The Lord is with us as His people. His Spirit dwells in us, and we could say, our God reigns. Let the earth rejoice. Our God reigns. There is a God, and He's ruling in the heavens. He rules and reigns over all the affairs of men. God is, and we delight in the fact of His very existence.
He rules the macro and the micro, both the magnificent and the minute. He rules, and we can trust Him. Psalm 9:10 and 11, the Lord will be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble, “And those who know Your name will put their trust in You, For You, O Yahweh, have not forsaken those who seek You. Sing praises to Yahweh, who abides in Zion; Declare among the peoples His acts."
He will never abandon His people, and our delight is found in God alone. God is for us and not against us. He's with us, and He will never forsake us. We delight in His presence, in His very existence. God is. He's the source of all joy, and in His presence—we were reading in Psalm 16—in His presence there is this fullness of joy, and at His right hand there are pleasures forevermore. We find our complete joy, a joy that satisfies the longing soul. It's found in God alone, in Christ our Savior, and the joy of the Lord is our strength.
And that means the joy that finds delight in God brings encouragement. It fortifies the soul in such a way that we are encouraged to, and we are helped as we persevere by the grace of God, as we endure those trials, whatever we're going through. We glory in our God. We glory in His name.
Psalm 105, which was a psalm I thought about reading at the start of the service. Psalm 105, verse 3, “Glory in His holy name; Let the heart of those who seek Yahweh be glad. Seek Yahweh and His strength; Seek His face continually." We glory in the fact of His existence, but we glory in the attributes of God as well. This God is on our side, and He's omnipotent. He's omniscient. He's omnipresent, and when we think about the attributes of God, we can delight in who He is, in His nature, in His attributes.
Spurgeon said, “Every attribute of God should become a fresh ray in this sunlight of delight.” Every attribute of God should become a fresh ray in this sunlight of delight. And he said that “He is wise, should make us glad who know our folly. That He is mighty, should cause us to rejoice who tremble at our own weakness. That He is everlasting, should always be a theme for our music. When we know that we are grass and wither as the green herb. That He is unchanging, should always give us a song, since every hour we change and never long the same. That He is full of grace. That He is overflowing with it. And that this divine grace in the covenant He has given to us, that it's ours. Ours to cleanse us. Ours to keep us. Ours to sanctify us. Ours to perfect us. Ours to bring us to heaven. All this should tend to make us delight ourselves in the Lord.”
We delight in His attributes. He's wise. He's mighty. He's everlasting. He's unchanging. He's the eternal God full of grace and truth. And we delight in who He is. "Delight yourself in Yahweh; And He will give you the desires of your heart." But I want us to think about this text again, what it is not saying. This is one of those texts that is most misunderstood and misinterpreted, misapplied, especially when it comes to the health and wealth and prosperity gospel.
Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart. And I want you to understand this is not a formula to obtain whatever you want. You know, whatever your heart's desire, whatever you dream. You want a new car, you want a new house, whatever, new Mercedes. You know, I just desire that so much. God's going to give it to me. That's not what it's saying. It's not a formula to obtain whatever your heart desires, whatever you dream of or whatever you want, and God will give it to you. I dream of it. I want it. God will give it to me regardless of what it is.
As if God were your genie in the bottle. You just rub the bottle and you make a wish and you ask for these casual desires and God will just give it to you. That's not what this is saying. Or as if God was this divine Santa Claus just granting you everything your heart desires. It's not what the text is saying. And it's not follow your heart. Follow your heart. Just follow your heart and God will give you the desires of your heart.
The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. We don't even know our own hearts at times. We can't trust our own feelings. We can't trust our hearts. John Piper in his book Desiring God, he said, “we delight in what we love. We delight in what we love. And God is not worshipped where He is not treasured and enjoyed. And if Jesus is the source of complete satisfaction, then I must find my joy in Him.” Not in things. Not in material possessions. Not in the stuff of this world.
Man's life consists not in the abundance of things that he possesses, Luke 12:15. Everybody wants to be happy, but so many people are looking in all the wrong places, and we see it every day. They're searching, and they're on a quest, and yet their quest for happiness and joy only leads them to further misery and unrest and frustration and discontent. Man's happiness is often grounded in his circumstances, what's going on in his life, depending on what's going on, whether he's happy or not, joyful or not, what's going on around him, or his happiness is focused on the things that he possesses or can gather from this world, and everybody wants to be happy, but they're looking for happiness and joy in all the wrong places.
So many are unhappy. They end up unhappy in their job, unhappy in their workplace, unhappy in their marriage, unhappy in their home, unhappy in their relationship, because these, as an end in themselves, are not what bring ultimate satisfaction and joy. We must find our joy in Christ, in the Lord. "Delight yourself in the Lord," and man, in his quest for happiness, will never find it in the finite creature comforts of this world. They're all inadequate. The sinful heart of man is never satisfied, and as Augustine reminds us, that our souls are restless and they're empty until they find their rest in Christ, and so we're called to delight ourselves in the Lord.
This is not a formula to say, whatever you want, you desire it, God will give it to you. It's not, follow your heart and you'll have whatever you want. The Christian finds his greatest joy in the Lord, and the word delight here can mean to take pleasure in, and it has the idea of cheering the heart, the heart being enlivened so that you leap for joy or you dance for joy, and I'm not going to do that right now, but that's the idea. Dancing for joy. Your heart is thrilled. It leaps with joy as you think of the pleasure, the satisfaction that is found in God, but the word linguistically also carries the idea of being soft and tender. It has the idea of being delicate or pliable. Pliable as clay in the hands of the potter being molded to be soft and tender of heart towards God, that is pliable, teachable, if you like, in the hands of God.
Delight in God. Be pliable and soft, tender-hearted towards God. Take your pleasure in God. Let the things of God so thrill your soul, and the thought here is of God molding and shaping my desires so that my desires are like His desires. So it's not whatever I want, God will give. It's God putting His desires within me as I delight in Him, as I dwell in Him, so His delights become my delights. His desires become my desires, and the things that I pursue and the things I seek now will please God, and so the thought is of God molding and shaping my desires so they're like His desires.
And really, who best to judge what is truly desirable and good for us? Your heart, your own heart, your own desires, or God? God knows best, and none can satisfy the soul like our God, and we're to delight in Him, and Scripture directs us here to find our joy, our ultimate satisfaction, our pleasure in God, and be one who is shaped by Him.
And not only does Scripture direct us, but remember there is that command. Philippians 4, it's an imperative: "Rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!" And there's Paul, even in prison, he could rejoice. It wasn't anything to do with his circumstances. His circumstances were not easy. They were most difficult. They were trying, but his ultimate source of joy in that dark place was in the Lord, and even in the prison he could sing praise to God. He worshiped, and true joy is not dependent on our circumstances. It's founded in Christ who says, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and are heavy-laden,” – burdened, weighed down, crushed, – “and I will give you rest."
So what is it to delight in God? The Puritan Richard Baxter said, this is the work of our lives. And in his prayer, which is recorded in one of his books, The Saints' Everlasting Rest, Richard Baxter said, “May the living God, who is the portion and rest of the saints, make these carnal minds so spiritual and our earthly hearts so heavenly that loving him and delighting in him may be the work of our lives.” Loving him and delighting in him is the work of our lives.
And Piper picked that up in his book Desiring God, and he said, as we know, that classic statement that sums up the Desiring God ministry, John Piper said, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him”. God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him. And he went on to argue in that book that the overriding concern of the Christian is this, that in all of life, “All of life will be to the praise of the glory of his grace. That in all of life, God will be glorified in the way that he himself has appointed.”
So what is It to delight in God? It's to stand in awe of who He is, to live in the fear of the Lord, as we were considering, and just to submit to His wisdom, to His plans, trusting He knows best, and in grace He is working for my good. He's a God who is graciously disposed to do me good. He sings over His people. He rejoices in His people. They are His portion, and we rejoice in our God, and we trust Him, His sovereign plan. We trust His word. It's completely reliable. He will do as He said.
We delight in God, and there's that spiritual affection, that love for Jesus, who for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross. And we love Him because He first loved us, and so we stand in awe of God. We submit to God. We find our satisfaction and delight in all that Christ is for us, and all that Christ has done for us in His mercy and His grace. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious.
It is this delight in God that lends strength to our work and our ministry. "The joy of the Lord is your strength," and that enables us to persevere to the end, though the way is hard, though there are challenges, though there are obstacles, though there are trials, there may be suffering. But God has not forsaken you. He's with us through it all. God is. It's factoring God into every circumstance, all our situations. It's a but-God kind of mentality. It's a but-God attitude. I'm lost. I'm undone. I'm ruined. But God. I delight in the Lord.
But not only does the pursuit of joy in God give strength to endure, it also breaks the power of sin in our lives, as you were thinking about this morning. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and dwelling in the Lord, dwelling in His Word, being filled with His Word, we are equipped and we are empowered to walk in a way that is pleasing to Him. And the things of earth, as we set our affection on things above, as we delight in the things of God, the things of earth grow dim. They lose their seductive power, and God begins to so work in our hearts that His desires become our desires.
As Piper said, “We delight in what we love.” And we love Christ because He first loved us, and the object of our greatest joy must be Jesus Christ. It is incumbent upon us to find our complete joy and satisfaction in the Lord our God. We are made full or complete in Him. In Him dwells all the fullness of God. It can't get any bigger. It can't get any greater. The fullness of God dwells in Him. And who best knows what is good for us? The all-wise God in whom we delight. And as believers, our delight is in the Lord. But God is not worshipped where He is not treasured and enjoyed.
So what it is not, what it is, but what will this delight in God do for us? Spurgeon said, “Delight in God has a transforming power. It has a transforming power, and it lifts a man above the gross desires of our fallen nature. Delight in Yahweh is not only sweet in itself, but it sweetens the whole soul till the longings of the heart become such that the Lord can safely promise to fulfill them.” And he said this: “Is not that a grand delight which molds our desires till they're like the desires of God?”
As you delight yourself in God, God will mold your desires to be like His desires. And this is God's way. First, delight in God, and such delight has a transforming power. Being filled with God till there is that overflow of worship and delight, we run over with delight and joy. Spurgeon said, “If we let our heart be filled with God till it runs over with delight, then the Lord Himself will take care that we shall not want any good thing. He can do for us far more than all our friends. It is better to be content with God alone than to go about fretting and pining about the paltry trifles of time and sense.”
And that may seem like antiquated words, but when we have God, and if we have nothing else, we have all we need. And we can rest in our God. And that delight in God will do something in you. It will reshape your thinking. Remember, you know, when we're tempted to worry and envy, what we need is to reorient our perspective by focusing on the grace and the glory of our great and majestic God. It will reshape your thinking. It will redirect your love. It will reorient your life towards God and His desires.
And we were hardwired for God. We were made for this purpose, to be worshippers of our God, to live for His glory. And as we delight in the Lord, His delights become our delights. And it will lead you to say, not my will, but Your will be done, O Lord.
Like Job, we can even say in suffering, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, but blessed be the name of the Lord." We can trust the Lord, and all who find their complete satisfaction in the Lord will rest content in His sovereign plan and purposes, His unfailing faithfulness, His sweet provision for us all through life, the sure promises of God that He has given for our guidance and our comfort, and He will keep us to the end. He will never fail His own.
I love that word. We've mentioned it in the past week, Psalm 94. We'll end with this tonight. We'll end with this tonight. Psalm 94, and the verse 19. What a great verse to think about. When you think about this fact that God's grace is written all over your life, He has His hand upon your life, your personal needs, your cares, whatever is going on, He's acquainted with it all.
In Psalm 94:19, "When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul." Your consolations, Your comforts delight my soul, and what are those sweet consolations that cheer the heart of the saint? What are the themes that delight the heart, that cause the heart to leap with joy and to rejoice today? That this God is for me, this God is my God, and He will be my guide even unto death, and He will carry me into glory.
That this God is mindful of me. He thinks of me. He was thinking of me before the foundation of the world. In love, He has redeemed me. He knows me. He made me. The Lord is moved with compassion towards me. He comes to my rescue. He comes to my aid. He strengthens me in my weakness. He gives me understanding in my dullness. All these things that the Lord does, He upholds my life in love. He's with me. He'll never forsake me.
These are sweet consolations that delight the soul when my anxious thoughts are many and intertwined and personal, and you think no one else knows what is going on, and these perplexing things break your heart. Find your joy and delight in the Lord. Let those consolations delight your soul that God is my Father, and He had me in mind even before the foundation of the world. He sent His Son to redeem me, and it is this comfort that this peace that I have, this assurance that I enjoy because I am justified and in a right relationship with God, and I think on the person of Christ. I think of the work of Christ. I think of His redeeming love, His desires towards me, His intercession even now for me. He's pleading my case. He's my advocate before the Father.
I think of this promise of being exalted to glory and the fact that He's coming again to receive me and to receive His own to Himself. Sweet consolations that delight the soul of the believer. As Thomas Horton said, “In a word, they are the comforts which do flow from communion with Him.” Sometimes these old Puritans had a great way of just putting things in words. The comforts of His attributes, the comforts of His promises, the comforts of His gracious presence drawing near to our souls when it pleases Him to shine upon us and to express His goodwill to us and to give us some evidence and assurance of His love and favor towards us. These are my comforts.
"When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul." Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Let's pray.
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