Proverbs chapter 8, we'll read
in verse 22 through 31. And you tell me who this is speaking
of. If you tell me Christ, I'll say you're right. The Lord possessed
me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting,
from the beginning, or ever the earth was. He was chosen before
the foundation of the world and we were chosen in him. When there
were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no foundations
abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before
the hills was I brought forth. While as yet he had not made
the earth nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust
of the world, when He prepared the heavens, I was there. When He set a compass upon the
face of the depth, when He, God, established the clouds above,
when He strengthened the fountains of the deep, when He gave to
the sea His decree that the water should not pass His commandment,
when He appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by Him. as one brought up with Him. And
this is the phrase I was astounded with. And I was daily His delight,
rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the habitable part
of the earth. And this is the phrase that just
amazed me. And my delights, Christ's delights,
were with the sons of men." Can you even imagine? His delights? His delights? Christ is speaking
how He and the Father was one with the Father, how He was brought
up with Him before the habitation of the world. He's the Alpha,
the Omega. And then He inserts this... He's rejoicing in the habitable
parts of His earth, and His delights were with the sons of men. Who would reject Him? Who would
despise Him? He was brought amongst His own and
His own knew Him not. And I remember years ago, reading
a book, I was just starting to understand, or the Lord was just
starting to reveal His truth to me as we were reading this
book. And the author, after reading
about the sufferings and the death and the and how his visions
was marred more than any man, all these different things. And
one of the concluding remarks is, you, reader, did this to
him. I took that book and I threw
it. I was so mad. I was like, I didn't do that. Yeah, I did. Even so, his delights
were with the sons of men. could be daughters as well, sinners
with the sons of men. Now, if that isn't enough, turn
back with me to Psalm 149. Psalm 149, we'll begin reading
verse one to get to the verse that I want to look at. Praise
ye the Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song and his praise in
the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in Him that
made Him. Let the children of Zion be joyful
in their King. Let them praise His name in the
dance. Let them sing praises unto Him
with the timbrel and harp. And look at this next verse.
For the Lord takes pleasure in His people. The Lord, the Sovereign,
The majestic takes pleasure in his people. I could not quite get over verse
31, my delights were with the sons of men. And that word delights
in the Hebrew is my enjoyments or my pleasure, which is exactly
what This verse here says, which leads me to Psalm 149 verse 4,
where it says, Our God, Jehovah God, the Most Holy One, takes
pleasure with His people. Okay? The Lord takes pleasure in His
people. And that word pleasure literally means, is pleased with. Now, This morning, my mind wanders. I've sinned enough in the last
ten minutes to really question these two statements. But these
two statements are written on the authority of God. Not what I think. Not what I feel. So I'm just
going to look at it. I'm just going to take it. I'm
just going to take it. Take this verse. And I ask, first
thing I ask is how can this be so said? How can it be so said,
the Lord takes pleasure in his people? How can this be true? How can this be true? I'll turn
to Ephesians chapter two. How can this be so said? Ephesians chapter two. Verse
1, and you, Hathe Quicken, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
wherein in time past every one of us walked according to the
course of this world, according to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,
among whom we all, all inclusive, had our conversation in times
past in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature And that's important. By nature, the children of wrath,
even as others. Now, according to the sweet,
precious doctrine of election, we were never the children of
wrath, but we were by nature. Every word of God is pure, Scripture
says. Every word of God is true. And this little phrase, the writers
didn't just put it in there because it sounded nice, every phrase
is It means something. We were the children of wrath
by nature. We were born in sin, just like
every son and daughter of Adam. We didn't seek Him, we didn't
desire Him, we didn't want Him. We may have had what some religious
denomination, some preacher told us who God was. So how can it
be said that the Lord takes pleasure in His people? Romans chapter
3. Verse 10, as it is written, there
is none righteous, no, not one. We weren't righteous. Matter
of fact, we were the worst of the lot. That's what a true child
of God sees. He sees that he is the worst
of the worst. Paul could say I'm less than
the least and actually mean it. Verse 11, there is none that
understand it, there is none that seek it after God. And you
talk to religious people, oh, I was seeking God, I was doing
this. No, not the true God. Maybe our image of God or our
thoughts about God. There's none that understands.
There's none that seeketh after God. From birth, nature, and
practice. David said, I was born in the womb speaking lies. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable.
There is none that doeth good. No, not one. He's just taking this from the
Old Testament. So there's none good. And I know our desire as
parents is that our children would come one day to understand
the Gospel, that God would bless them with the full understanding
of the Gospel. But we're not going to hold back anything.
We're going to tell them that they're sinners in need of a
Savior. We're not going to play games. This is serious, we're
talking about Christ and Him crucified. Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53. Verse six, all we like sheep,
all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. And we looked at this about a
month or so ago. Isaiah 53 verse 6, all we like
sheep have gone astray. God's over here, we're over going
this way. But each sinner has his own peculiar
sins. And I had never seen this like
this until we looked at this. We have turned everyone his own
way. It may be lust, it may be love
of money, Maybe you're just cantankerous.
You have your own specific, and you know what they are. As a
child of God, you know there's areas you need to be careful,
you need to stay clear of, because it's going to be, the flesh is
going to rear up and it's going to be trouble. But not only,
generally, we have gone astray. Universal sin, depravity of man,
we understand that, yeah, we're terrible, but then God, by the
Holy Spirit, He begins to specifically point your sins out to you. You realize the Gospels in this
one verse, just one verse, verse six. And the Lord has laid on
him the iniquity of us all. There's the answer right there.
There it is. He's laid on him our iniquity. So how can it be so said that
the Lord takes pleasure in His people? Well, Christ must be
our only answer. It must be our only answer. Because
without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. And when the three
were, the apostles were at the Mount of Transfiguration, And
in the Shekinah, the glory of God came down and said, this
is my son in whom I am well pleased. And I thought for the longest
time that's the only person he's ever pleased in. But our text
says he delighted us in the son of men and he takes pleasure
in his people. Now, we are good about beating ourselves up, and
that's what a believer does. He gets disgusted, he looks within
instead of looking without and sees so much corruption and vileness
and says, how can the Lord love me? That's why I'm looking at
this passage, because I do that a lot. I'm telling you, if you are the Lord's, if He
has called you, quickened you, and redeemed you by the blood
of Christ and Christ alone, He says, take this verse as like
Spurgeon's promise. Take it and run with it, for
the Lord takes pleasure in His people. I know it sounds unbelievable,
but Christ must be our only answer. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 7.
Deuteronomy chapter 7. I like this couple verses here. Verses 6 through 8. For thou art a holy people unto
the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen
thee to be a special people unto himself, above all the people
that are upon the face of the earth." Now this is specifically
in reference, historically, to the children of Israel. But we
know that all scripture, all scriptures, speak of Christ and
His relationship to all His elect. And so it's speaking to His elect. I didn't know election, yeah,
election is just taught throughout the whole scripture. God hath
chosen thee Well, why does He take pleasure in me? Why does
He delight in me? Why did He choose me? Well, look
at verse 7. The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose
you, because you were more the number than any people. You were
the fewest of all people. Basically, the Lord didn't choose
you because of you. Now there's a, and my cousins
believe this, and they try to justify themselves different,
nor respect their persons. Okay, that's not what he's talking
about, but they kind of tied it in with election. They said,
well, the Lord knew who would choose him, and so he chose them.
Well, that's great, now you got a God of works. You just basically
turn the grace of God and turn it around, and now you get the
glory. the little litmus test that I've always been told by
the scriptures and by great preachers. If it brings glory to man, it's
not the truth. If it brings glory to God, it's
the truth. But because the Lord loved you and because he would
keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord
brought you out from the mighty hand and redeemed you out of
the house of bondmen from the land, from the hand of the pharaoh,
king of Egypt. Isn't that a picture of salvation?
The Lord has done it. The Lord chose us. He calls us
a peculiar people in the New Testament. He's telling us in this passage
in Proverbs that He delights in us and He takes pleasure in
us. But He didn't do that because of anything found in us. Because
there's nothing good in us. There's none good. No, not one.
So the answer must surely be, how can it be so said that the
Lord takes pleasure in his people? Christ must be your only answer.
Which agrees with all scriptures. Go back to Ephesians. Ephesians
chapter 1. Paul. an apostle of Jesus Christ by
the will of God to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the
faithful in Christ Jesus." Now those three words, in Christ
Jesus, are used a lot in this chapter. Grace be to you and
peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,
according as he had chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love. Having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, why, according
to the good pleasure of his will, God's will is paramount, is essential,
is necessary, is the only will responsible for our salvation.
He says in, I guess it's Psalms, he makes his people willing.
I'm not saying God saves you against your will. How come you
hated him one minute, you didn't desire to do good, our throat
is an open sepulcher, and then you hear the truth and it's all
of a sudden and you love him. And you think, well, I love him
now and I'm gonna seek him. Well, that's because he's made
you willing in the day of his power. According to his good pleasure.
Good pleasure of his will. So the answer has to be Christ
and Christ only. We must be clothed, we must be
kept and set apart by our Lord God, our Lord Christ, and God
the Holy Spirit. It cannot be anything else but
with us. We contribute absolutely nothing to our position before
God, nothing towards our standing in Christ, and nothing in regards
to keeping ourselves from falling or daily walking with Jehovah.
Nothing. Like Paul said in Galatians, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh Until He takes
me home, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave Himself for me." That's what Paul says, that's good enough
for me. But we forget it. We forget it
too often. Now, back to our text in Psalms
149. He specifically takes notice,
He directly takes an interest in all our affairs, be them little
are large. The Lord takes pleasure in His
people. And Melinda and I, my wife and
I were talking about this. We set certain things that seem
to be important, are big. And then we don't, I don't, I'm
not going to talk to them about this. No, everything. Bear it all. You know, that's
like the parable of the emperor to the woman. She just kept knocking
and knocking and knocking. It doesn't make any difference.
If you've got pain, or you desire to walk with him closer, or you've
got troubles at work, it doesn't make it, spread it before him.
He takes pleasure in his people. It's like a father and a mother.
They're going to listen to what their kids say. And believe me,
they'll say a lot of different things and you're just like,
oh my word. That's what we were laughing about the other day.
It's going on and on and on. But you sit there and you listen.
You just sit there and you listen and you smile. Because one day
they'll be growing up and you'll miss those times. But our Lord
is not an uninterested spectator in our life. If He sent His Son,
such a tragic, humanly speaking, tragic death, He's interested in everything
about us. Everything about us. Because
of our Redeemer, we have our Father's undivided attention,
undivided care, and undivided particular love. Because of our
Redeemer. That which is set aside for all
His elect, The Church of Jesus Christ, He sets these things
aside and He listens to all of our needs, everything, every
single thing. His dealings with His remnant is as large as the grapes of
Eschar. Do you remember in Numbers 13
when they sent out spies? Joshua and Caleb were among them.
They sent them over to land. And when they went to land of
milk and honey, but then the other spies, they're giants.
And they fenced the walls or fenced the cities up to heaven. What did they say? There's two
men. They brought back, what did they bring back? Do you remember
what they brought back? Two men had to carry One cluster of grapes. Two men. That's how large those grapes
were. And we're going to feed on this
little bitty stuff? No, His grace is sufficient.
Where sin abound, grace does much more abound. His grace is as large, His pleasure
to His people is as large as those grapes. His grace and His pleasure towards
His people is as soothing as the balm in Gilead. Jeremiah
chapter 8, I don't have to turn it, but just in reference. Is
there a balm in Gilead? You better believe it. Is there
a need for healing? You better believe it. He takes pleasure
in His people. He will not leave us nor forsake us. If He's done
all that He's done for us at Calvary's tree and then rose
from the dead and left captivity captive, He will not leave us
to ourselves. But we struggle. We struggle.
Tomorrow we're going to go to work. Something's going to happen.
We're going to get aggravated. And yet it says all things work
together for good. All things. Everything. Everything. Even the bad, so-called
bad. God's pleasure and His grace
towards His people is as plentiful as the manna that fell in the
wilderness. Exodus 16. It was there. And the water that came out of
the rock, it followed them around. And they get to the border and
it's like, we can't do it. They forgot. They forgot that
at his time in history, the Egyptians were probably the largest kingdom
in the world. And he took them out and the
people, the Egyptians, were giving them stuff. How do you think
they made it all the way through? They were giving them cattle, gold, they
were giving them all sorts of stuff. That's how they sustained. The Lord turned the hearts of
the Egyptians towards his people. He did that. And he said, get
out of here. And then he fed them the quail.
and the manna from heaven, and the water out of the rock, and
then they get to this, the Jordan, and say, we can't do it. It's
because they were looking with the flesh. Paul, in the book of Acts, he's
in that ship, and that wind, Euryclodon, came. And the sailors,
people who should know better, they're throwing everything out,
the ship's lost. And they're getting ready to jump overboard,
and Paul says, don't do it. Because there stood an angel
by me this night that said, if you do this, there will be no
loss of life if you stay in the ship. Okay. Was he a sailor? Did Paul know anything about
sailing? No. He had the Word of God. And the Scripture says we have
a more sure word of prophecy. Which means that Paul didn't
have the complete canonization. It wasn't done yet. It is now.
We have it. I say better, same God, same
gospel, but we have this, everything is for His people. And He says
right here, He takes pleasure in His people. Are you going
to get sick? Probably. Are you going to die?
Absolutely. Are you going to struggle? The
believer struggles as much or more than anybody that I know
of. Yes, yes, and yes, but in through it all. That's a pretty big pillow to
lay your head down at night. The Lord takes pleasure in His
people. It's as plentiful as the manna
is from heaven. And it's as complete as our Savior's
very comments from the cross. It is finished. Bookends. I've started that which
the Lord's called. He'll do, He'll perform. He's
faithful and just. He'll perform that which he started,
and he's going to end it. I like to think it's, you know,
no man can pluck you out of the Father's hands. It's His hands. And you're a man, you can't pluck
yourself out. He has us complete. Covered. Northeast, southwest. Good, bad day. Sunny day, rainy
day, cloudy day. Whether you think He's smiling
or He's frowning, the Lord takes pleasure in His people. Why? Because of Christ. He stood in
the gap, like Moses stood in the gap. Christ stood in the
gap. The Lord takes pleasure in his
people. And I close with this. Therefore, let us not be half-hearted. Let
us not be like those in Galatians, lukewarm, or slack in our affections,
slack in our worship, our attitude or actions towards our lovely
and adorable kinsmen redeemer. I'm not going to beat you over
the head with the law, because that won't do any good. Because
I'm flesh like you. But I know Paul says the love
of Christ constrains us. And I said it this morning in
Bible class. Why are you staying with your spouse? If you're staying
with your spouse because of paper, if some preacher signed a paper,
then it's not worth a sheet of paper. But if you're staying
with one another through thick and thin, because you love one
another, it'll work, it'll last. And Christ loves His people,
and His people love Him back. He takes pleasure in His people. So let us not... Let us desire to glorify Him,
whether we're here, or whether we're at work, or whether we're
at play, vacation, whatever. May the Lord have mercy upon
us to singularly worship and obey Him. You may or you may not obey Me.
It's not the issue. Our love for Christ changes us. His love for us. We love Him
because He first loved us. But there's got to be a difference.
We're new creatures in Christ. Old things are passed away. So,
think about these two verses. His delights were with the sons
of men, and the Lord takes pleasure." It's almost hard for me to say
that. He takes pleasure. A sinner saved by the grace of
God. So indeed, that hymn, Hallelujah,
what a Savior. If he fails, We're doomed. But He didn't fail. Where He's at right now, He's
seated at the right hand of God, interceding for us. So He cannot
fail. And He can't fail, because of
who He is. And who He is, He takes pleasure
in us. As the old writers used to say,
the Bible is Christocentric. Christocentric. If you're looking
here to learn history, there's history. If you're looking here
to learn Christ to be your example, yeah, He's your example. But
if you're looking to see Christ, He'll honor that, and you'll
see Him. And boy, the Scriptures just open up and come alive.
They are they which testify of Me, is what He says. The Lord
takes pleasure in His people. Nathan, would you close this
please?