Delight in & Depend on the Lord

Well good morning Church on the Move. It is great to be here in the room with you and of course we have a lot of people that are not in the room, they are watching online. To all of you watching online, welcome to our service today. We also have two churches in prisons. We have Our Lady's Church in Eddie Warrior. We have our men's service happening at Dick Connor. And let me just say this before we applaud them being a part of our church family. I have the privilege of speaking to our men every single month at Dick Connor. And I just have to say, the unbelievable work of God in the lives of those men is staggering to me. It is such an honor and a privilege to have them a part of our church. I know the same goes for Our Lady's. God is moving in the prisons. Can we give God praise for his work across the board in humanity. Welcome to you all. I have the pleasure of diving deeper into Psalm 27. But before I get into that, I feel it's important to remind you of something. I travel and I speak and I often start services this way. I feel it's important to remind you of why you're here. I think we have an idea of why we're here. Many people are connected to the depth of our being here. Sometimes we come as part of our tradition,

as part of our custom. Maybe we were invited, maybe you're new here. We come into the house of God, we worship and we sit and we listen to the word. But there is a greater reality of God's deep desire to move you forward. God is incredibly personal, more personal than I think we often give him credit for. We can see at times the work of God on a grander scale, but we at times cry out for his presence, specifically in our lives and the removing of the obstacles that seem to plague us. And the reality of God's presence is that he is speaking and he is speaking in order to transform us because it is in the power of his word and our reception of that word that changes our life. Often we are waiting for God to move externally, circumstantially. We can see, at least we think we can see the things that are holding us back and so we need this to shift and that to shift. But what God is trying to do more than anything else is he's trying to change us. And he changes us by a revelation of his character and he speaks his word and that's what we're doing here this morning, we are submitting ourselves to the teaching of the word, not just to hear it, but to have a plan to apply it. I wanna read this scripture to you out of James, chapter one, verses 22 through 25.

It says this, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he looks like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. We have an opportunity to hear, but we're meant to do more than passively listen. And if we passively listen, there is minimal effect. The blessing comes when you persevere. And there's a reason why James uses this word, perseveres, under it. It's because the revelation of God's character and his word to us often comes in the form of a confrontation. The word of God confronts us. There are times that people come into the church and they're a little bit alarmed at the confrontation. I don't like what they're saying. And the reason we don't like it is because it causes us to adjust. At least that is the offer, to adjust our preference. It causes us to rethink our schedule, how we spend our time, what we do with our time, what we do in our day-to-day.

And we don't like those changes, especially when we feel those changes are gonna cost us something. This is why the word persevere is used. You persevere, you stand under it, you submit, and then you apply. Apply even when it is difficult. And that's when the blessing comes. The transformation that God desires for you will come as you hear and do. When you do, you'll be blessed. And the blessing, as James says, this word is a perfect law of liberty, freedom. Freedom from what oppresses us internally. It isn't that the world around us changes, it's that the things that plague us begin to change because the words of God received and applied will transform us. And so I want you to keep this in your mind as we hear this word, because there are many times you'll come into the church and you will hear things that you have heard before. But whether or not they have. lasting impact is in your hands. What will you do with what it is that you have heard? And so with that in mind, we'll move into Psalm 27. As I go through this psalm, I want you to ask yourself a question, where do I draw my confidence? And what am I confident? Every single morning, whenever I wake up, my eyes open, the

reality of my life settles in. What is my schedule today? What do I have to manage? What decisions do I have to make? Sometimes what is in front of me seems to be somewhat certain. I know how I'm going to get to the end of my day. I know exactly what I'm going to do here and here and here. Whenever my day is manageable, I find that I approach it with a greater level of confidence. It can fit in my hand, so to speak. There are times whenever what is coming in my day or in the days ahead is a little bit outside of my purview, things that I don't necessarily have all the answers to. But again, it's within my ability to manage it. I may not know exactly what I'm doing, but I know it will be okay because nothing outlandish has happened. We do know, though, that life doesn't always work within our desired management style. There are plenty of times where life throws you a curveball that you can't hit. Sometimes it is quite rattling, the things that come against us, things we were not expecting. Your life changes in a moment. Could be the loss of a job, could be the loss of health, could be the loss of a loved one. Whatever it is that you're facing, wherever it finds itself on the spectrum of challenge, the question is, in what or in who do you draw your confidence? For a lot of us, our confidence exists because our

circumstances stay manageable. It's a circumstantial confidence. When circumstances erode, I find that my confidence erodes with them. For some of us, it's more our self-assurance. My circumstances may pivot, but I can handle it. I am the kind of person that will meet any challenge, but we know that there will come a time where it moves beyond your ability to grip it, and you can no longer fit your life into your hand. It begins to spill over, and in those days, confidence begins to erode. God is not indifferent to this erosion. He just never had the design for us that we would draw our confidence from either our circumstances or from ourselves. Both will eventually collapse, and whenever those things collapse, people lose their confidence in God. But the reality is that confidence is misplaced when we put it in our plan, our strategy, or our ability to walk out that plan or strategy. And what I see in Psalm 27 is a man that has confidence and properly placed confidence. Psalm 27 is a psalm of David. I want to begin in verses 4 and 5. It's the true source of confidence. You see here, David speaks. One thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble. He will conceal me under the cover of his tent. He will lift me high upon a rock. If you've read through the psalms, if you've been with us as we've studied it, you've seen that David has asked many things of the Lord. And here he says, there's one thing that I ask. And what he's saying is there's one thing above all other things that I desire more than anything else. And that is essentially communion with God. To commune with God. To be in his presence, to gaze upon his beauty. It isn't that David is indifferent to God's action in his life or that he does not require it. He goes on to say that God will protect him. He will house him in his shelter. But David says to be in the presence of God is where I draw confidence. My confidence is in the person of God first. My confidence is in the character of God first. Apart from communion with God, I am lost. Jesus speaks of this many times. But in John 15, 5, he says this, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever... communes with me, to commune with me, is to converse with me, to allow me to converse with you, that you will receive what it is that I say.

And the blessing comes from that reception. It is a communion with God that changes things. And so much of this is that we often look at communion and we think of it in the lines of just simply the spiritual discipline, that we get up and we read our Bible or we pray or we come to church and we do good things, but we miss the little nuance of just being with God. And often being with God or our time with God looks more like God, I need you to act on my behalf and God will act on our behalf. Hebrews 11, six says, without faith, it is impossible to please God. Those who come to him must believe that he is and that he rewards. God is, his character is strong, his character is stable. He is and he will move. Apart from our communion with God, to know, to learn the character of God, we will always be rattled. Jesus speaks of this in Matthew seven in a very familiar parable of two builders. He says this in verse 24 of Matthew seven, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man

who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the fall of it. Jesus speaks of your confidence being in circumstance and self. And that if your confidence is in circumstance that the weather is good, your house, your life will stand. If the weather is good, even though your life is built on sand, which is your ability to handle life, it is something other than God, you're fine as long as life just stays predictable, but life does not stay predictable and whenever life and the storms of life blow in, we're rattled. This is true for the believer and the unbeliever alike. There are many who claim belief in Christ who follow Jesus to a degree, but we seem to lose this idea of confidence. It is very prevalent within our younger generations, the anxiety and fear that grip us. I think it's also true for those of us who are a little bit older, we just don't talk about it as frequently, the people around us may not know it as much, but what sits with us, what we just allow to walk with us, fear, anxiety, govern, is because there is an instability and we don't know exactly what to do whenever life comes at us in ways that we are not used to. What David speaks of is an unshakable confidence. What Jesus reiterates is this unshakable confidence,

this confidence that comes through communion and it's more than just spiritual discipline. It's more than just getting up, because if you look at it as just simply spiritual discipline, at least this has been true for me in my life, is discipline is called discipline for a reason, it's not always easy to keep it up. There are times when it's kind of up and down, up and down. Communion with God is just being with God, that you would sit with his word to learn who he is, to see the character of God. This unshakable character of God, David speaks of in Psalm 27 verse one, he says this, the Lord is, I'll pause here, the Lord is. Notice he doesn't say the Lord gives. Now the Lord certainly does give, but he's speaking of who God is. The scripture says Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. The distinction here matters, because who God is, is the rock. Who God is, is the concrete underneath our feet, because his character is unchanging. How God moves, on the other hand, is not always predictable. We get into trouble whenever we try to predict God's movements. We lose confidence whenever we try to determine exactly how God will move. Many people draw their confidence from the movement of God, because it is the movement of God,

it is what God will do for us, that we are depending upon the most, and what we desire more than anything else. But David says, there's one thing that I seek, not that God will move on my behalf, he will, because it's who he is. But there's one thing I desire above all other things, it is God himself. It is communion with God, it is to be in the presence of God. And many people lose faith in God because they have asked God, they have included God in their desire and designed in. And then whenever it doesn't work out the exact way we want it to work out, we feel that the character of God has failed because we have the order wrong. Because our delight is in God's movement, not so much in the character of God. And what I have found and have had to learn is that the character of God is where confidence is. It's the only place confidence can be found because it is unchanging. And whenever you approach your time here, not so much in just, here's what I have to do with this, but it begins with, who is God? Because who God is is what gives us the stability. It's what gives us the confidence to move forward because we know we're not doing it alone. We know God will move on our behalf because it's who He is. How will He do it? I do not know. But He will do it because He is who He says He is. And what is He? David says, the Lord is my light. The Lord is my salvation. The Lord is my stronghold. This is an all-encompassing care. The Lord is exactly what we're looking for. Because what we see in these three descriptors is that God is the answer to spirit, soul, and body. Light being spiritual light that we can see. That we can see anything at all.

The order of God. The one who made all things. That we can see with our eyes, otherwise we are lost. Isaiah 9 speaks prophetically of the coming Messiah. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light that we have vision because the Lord is our light. The fact that we're here at all pursuing God at all is because He has illuminated the path. This is a spiritual response and an answer for our spirit. The Lord is my salvation. The salvation of my soul. That God had ordained Christ's path so that we could be saved at a soul level. Deep within. And He is my stronghold which is a protection for my body, spirit, soul, and body. We seek communion with God because it is communion with God that gives us confidence on all fronts. And David speaks of this confidence in the midst of unbelievable circumstances. Look how he follows this declaration of confidence in verses 2 and 3 of Psalm 27. He says when evil doers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war arise against me, yet I will be confident. None of us have ever been in a place where the armies like physical armies have encamped around us. Unless you've spent time in the military serving. It's just like to be on a battlefield. On a battlefront whenever people who mean you great harm are surrounding you. David speaks of confidence. Circumstantial. Which tells us that theologically when we commune with God that God is such a confidence and a rock. That when our world around us, out here, just falls apart. We do not. This is a mark of the follower of Christ. That we commune with God to the point where his character is revealed. And our world may look bleak but we are not rattled.

We have confidence. David speaks of confidence when circumstances erode. But he also speaks in verses 7 through 10 of confidence when his character, he falls short. You see it here in verse 7. It says, hear O Lord when I cry aloud. Be gracious to me and answer me. Grace is unmerited favor. It means I'm asking you for something that I don't deserve and I know it. Verse 8 says, you have said seek my face. My heart says to you, your face Lord do I seek. Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger. David isn't speaking of the mercurial God. He's just like some days he's loving and some days just keep it a distance. He's saying I know that I deserve at times the anger of the Lord. He says, O you who have been my help, cast me not off. Forsake me not O God of my salvation. For my father and my mother have forsaken me but the Lord will take me in. It's still confidence even when I fail. For many of us whenever we fall short we lose our way. We lose our way. confidence. We do what our ancestors did. We retreat from the presence of God and we go hide and the bush is trying to find a way to cover ourselves apart from God. It is within our fleshly nature to resist communion because we fall short. But God says I will be faithful even when you are unfaithful and we can depend upon his character. Jesus said I'll never leave you. I will never forsake you which changes our response because when we fall short often that's why anxiety persists, fear persists because we feel unworthy and we are unworthy. But he by his goodwill has called us worthy and whenever you stand in the presence of his character and you let it wash over you and you pursue it your confidence isn't shaken. We disconnect the fact that we lack confidence from communion. We think that confidence has to do with us just the way we

are. We see some people they seem to be filled with confidence. I wish I could be more like this person. They don't second guess themselves all the time. I wish I could be more like them or if I were in this place then I would approach life differently with more confidence. We disconnect the fact that we lack it, that we have fear and anxiety and it is an indicator that there is not enough communion. We are looking at the wrong things, focused on the wrong things more frequently because to be in the presence of God as David said is to gaze upon his beauty. To allow who God is to penetrate your existence will inevitably lead you to a place where you say I find him to be beautiful. I can say this because I was raised in this church and believed my whole life but I have not always found God to be beautiful. There have been plenty of times where I have felt an inner apathy towards God. I believe God. I know that I depend upon you. I know that I need you but why do I feel distant? I feel distant because my focus is elsewhere and it's just one of the spiritual realities. When you spend time with God you cannot help but to change and your heart cannot help but to be directed towards him. Whenever you find God to be beautiful you'll know because whenever you find God to be beautiful you cannot help but to declare it. You cannot help but to boldly shout it out. We see it here in Psalm 27 verse 6. David says there's one thing that I seek. One thing I ask that I dwell in the house of the Lord forever and then in verse 5 he speaks of how the Lord will cover me. He will protect me and then he says this in verse 6. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy. I will sing and make melody to the Lord. David is known as a worshiper and he's a worshiper because he can't help it. It's not just his discipline although no doubt there are plenty of times where he says I do not feel it. I do not feel close but I'm going to do it anyway. But David is a worshiper of God and not just a worshiper. One who shouts. It's a sacrifice to shout. It's not just because the strain on your vocal cord. Unless you are incredibly alone shouting draws attention and we don't like it. We're okay to shout as long as everyone else around us is shouting. But there are some places where we do not mind shouting even if we stand alone and we shout because we can't help it. I am a college football fan recovering and I'm a Sooner fan. I've learned my lesson the hard way. I've divided this church by my passions and so whoever your team is God bless you. I'm a Sooner fan okay. And I'm a passionate Sooner fan. I'm working at this. I'm working to control my passion and my zeal. I'm getting better and better as I age. I'm learning that it's not wise to put

your confidence in the hands of 20 to 23 year old young men playing a game. But there are times when I can't really seem to help myself. I am so passionate about it that I can't help but to shout. In 2018 we lived in in Southern California in the Pasadena area, and for Christmas that year, my wife, Summer, sacrificed and bought me two tickets to the Rose Bowl game where OU played Georgia in the college football playoff. I was elated. They weren't just seats in the place, they were like the best seats you could get. It was like at the 45-yard line, 20 rows up, it was incredible. I'd always wanted to go to the Rose Bowl, and this was just perfect because it was the Rose Bowl, and it was my team, and it was the playoff, and it meant everything, and as soon as I got those tickets on Christmas Day, I could just feel it. I could feel it pulsating through my body, just this like, just getting a little bit nervous about it, like I could just feel it. I watched all the games, and some of them seemed to mean more than others, and this one meant everything, and I'm just like, I'm jittery, and I'm just like, all right, I cannot wait to go, and my wife bought two tickets, one for me and one for a friend of mine we were to go together,

and about an hour before the game started, I get a call from a friend, and he says, hey, I have two tickets to the game. I don't want them. Do you want them? Like, yes. Yes, I want them. What am I gonna do with them? My first thought was sell them and retire. That's what I thought. I'm like, I absolutely want them. I'll figure out what to do with them. Summer comes up to me. She says, take the kids. They would love this. Take the kids. I'm like, that's a great idea. I thought it was a great idea. It ended up being about half a great idea, and I'll tell you why. I told them, they got so excited. We go to the game. Their seats are on the OU side. They're not where my seats were, but they were a little bit up into the right behind me, and in the middle of the first quarter, it was so bizarre. There were two guys next to us, right next to us, and they just got up, and I heard them say, hey, we're gonna go find some other seats.

They told some people around that they knew, and they were gonna go find somewhere else to sit, and I'm looking around at this stadium that is at capacity. It's overflowing. I'm like, I don't even know what that means, find other seats. There are no other seats. There's nowhere else to go. You have great seats, and you're leaving, and I remember thinking, this is so strange, but I really hope they mean what they say because my kids, they can come right down here. It just felt like God is orchestrating this so that my children can sit with me during this moment when OU is gonna storm the gates and beat Georgia, it didn't happen. Anyway, that's what I'm thinking. God is on my side, and I waited till the end of the first quarter to see if these guys came back. They didn't come back. I called Jane and Charlie and said, come down here. Come down to where I am. They made their way down, and they're sitting there, and I thought, this is so special, until it wasn't as special, and it wasn't as special because I can't help myself during these games. I sit there, and I'm crying.

I just go, gosh, I can't do this. Come on, come on, come on, and then I just, I can't help but to shout, and I don't mean cheer, and I'm not necessarily talking about breaking the boundary of Christian propriety, but the law of kindness was not on my tongue, right? I'm yelling. I'm yelling at the other team. I'm yelling at our team. I'm yelling at the fans, but I'm also a leader in that environment, and by the time the fourth quarter runs around, like, I've got a whole group of people. I'm standing on the arms of the chair. I am leading a charge. All inhibition goes out the window, and I am screaming at the top of my lungs. My kids are looking at me proud and horrified about what they're seeing. They just come back home, and like, Mom, you wouldn't believe what Dad did. You wouldn't believe who he is in that environment, and I'm like, I don't want to do it, but I can't help myself. You know where I'm going with this. To know God is to shout. You can't help it. Jesus said to those who have been forgiven little, they love little.

The reality of who God is will change you. You can't help but to be grateful when you see him as he is. You can't help but to shout, and it doesn't just mean that you have to come into this place from now on and just shout, and if you don't, then it's some sort of indicator that you don't know God at all, but my question is, is there anywhere in your life and your space where you do? I remember being a kid and going to West Texas to visit my grandparents. Loved going out there, visit my mom's mom and dad, and I remember so many days being there and getting up early and always going into the kitchen where most of the time my granny would be in there making something delicious, and so I wanted to go in there and eat whatever it was that she had prepared, but there were many times I would go in there and she wouldn't be in there. She would be in her room, and I would walk down to where her bedroom was, and the door would be closed. And I would hear her in there shouting, praising, crying out to God every morning. If I was up early enough, she would be in there crying out to God, and when I was really little, she would come out, and she had tears in her eyes, and I'm like, what's wrong? What is Pawpaw doing to you?

Like, I don't know what's happening. But as I grew, I learned she just is praising God and she would do it religiously. Every morning, you would just hear her in there crying out to God, thanking God, praising God, because she couldn't help it. She couldn't help but to delight in Him. The scripture says, delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Delight and depend. A lot of us depend, but we struggle to delight. And if we struggle to delight, it's because we struggle to commune. That we're too busy, that we're just moving about our day and life, and we want God to act, and we want Him to remove obstacles, but we don't necessarily care to know Him. But He is personal. He wants to be personal with you, and He wants us to be personal with Him. This message is not unbelievably revelatory. It is a reminder that God is sitting and He's waiting. He cares about you more than you realize, but He wants to reveal Himself to you, because that's heaven, Him. Everything we seek is found in Him. And when we commune, we build brick by brick by brick a foundation that cannot be shaken, a confidence that is immovable. We will not be rattled to our foundation

to the point that our life will crumble. We will stand strong in any storm, because we know our God, and He is who He says He is. The last verse of Psalm 27 says this, wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. Will you bow your heads, please? Dear Heavenly Father, thank you, thank you. Thank you for being who you are so constantly and faithfully. We submit to that reality this morning. Lord, forgive us for the areas of our lives where we have drifted away from you, where we have been more dependent on our own strength, our own ability to handle our life. Lord, may we come back into your presence. May we find comfort. This is the Spirit of God, your presence, our comforter. May we be comforted by your presence. May we find confidence in your character. May we seek you. May we delight in you. We can always depend on you, God, because you never fail. Thank you for this word, it is seed sown. May it find good soil in the hearts of men and women, whether in this room or watching online. May we be moved to action by what we hear. May this faith stir in us and produce much fruit. This is your will. We thank you for it.

Thank you for loving us so well. Thank you for being faithful. Thank you for moving on our behalf. We pray this prayer in the name of Jesus, our Savior, who you sent to this earth to live for us, to die on that cross for us. You resurrected him so we could have life. May we pursue you so fervently, Lord, because you have pursued us so fervently. Thank you. In Jesus' mighty name, and everyone said, amen. Will you do this before we go? Will you stand to your feet? Before you start moving around, just one second. Let's just practice. What do you say we shout? Okay. God has been good. God is good. He is who he says he is. So just shout. Thank you, Lord God, for your goodness to us. You are so good. We love you. Now, that's enough. We don't want it to get crazy. Put the flags away. Amen. We'll have prayer partners down front. We would love for you to come forward if you have a need,

if you have questions about your walk with God, salvation, you want to know more, we have a resource we would love to give you. You'll get it down here. Our prayer partners, thank you so much for being with us. I will pronounce the blessing over you. We'll put it on the screen. You can say it with me if you like. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. God bless you. You are dismissed. Thank you so much for watching this message from Church on the Move Tulsa. We really hope it encouraged you to take a step toward Jesus. Church on the Move is a family of churches in Northeast Oklahoma, each with its own in-person pastor. We love our Bibles, learning and community, and taking steps toward Jesus. If you live in the area, we would love for you to join us in person. For more information, check out our website at churchonthemove.com or we've got a few videos we think you might like. Check them out here.