Address—G. Berry
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Could we begin our meeting this afternoon by singing one we know very well?
#172.
Hymn #172.
Oh, teach us more of Thy blessed ways, Thou holy Lamb of God, and fix and root us in Thy grace as those redeemed by blood.
Engraved this deeply on our hearts with an eternal pen, that we may in some small degree return thy love again.
#172.
With some.
Small.
Our heads in.
We're all here.
In this room together with.
Several things in common, but there is one thing that we all have in common.
And that is that we are living today.
This month of October 1982 and we have.
A little time, perhaps before us. We don't know whether it'll be days or weeks or years. We leave that to God, but we do have that short time that is before us.
For many of us in this room, we have also in common.
The fact that we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been redeemed by Him and we belong to Him, and He has a claim on us.
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We have also liberty. We have God has given us the liberty to choose.
But along with that liberty, along with any privilege, there is responsibility, isn't there?
And so.
Dear young people.
As you lookout over the time that may be left to you.
What's the best advice we can give you?
Do it in the presence of the Lord who loves you.
And do it conscious of the claim that he has on you because of his love.
There will be consequences in your life for the choices you make, and in our lives I believe there sometimes comes a point at which we make a major choice.
To live for the Lord.
To give our time to him.
To simply respond to Him. But there are also in our lives many choices to be made and we need each time to make such choices, don't we? With those same.
Measurements before us under those same conditions.
So I'd like to turn now to a well known passage in Ephesians chapter 2.
To see what God has to say about the rest of our lives.
Before we read.
This verse.
Could we just say this, that there are two words that we hear often and they're very important for a Christian too, especially a Christian, a young Christian, and they are outlook and viewpoint. Now outlook is that which we see when we look out, isn't it? We see all around us something that is there. That's the outlook.
The other side of it is viewpoint and that is the point from which we look at it.
And we don't have to think very long before we realize that our outlook depends on our viewpoint, doesn't it? What we see when we look out depends upon the point from which we look out upon it.
And one of the most serious dangers for any Christian, and especially young Christians, is our viewpoint. The point from which you look out on your life, the point from which you look out on the world around you, the point from which you look out on your family, others in your assembly.
In the church.
Throughout the world, the point from which you lookout upon all of this is going to influence and color what you see when you look out.
Then how important it is for us to be sure that we are at the right point generally as we look out on our lives and especially when some issue is before us, whether it's personal or whether it has to do with our families or relationships with others, whether it has to do with the assembly and matters that may come up there. Why is it that we may have different opinions?
On some matters, simply because we're not looking at it from the same point, what is the point, then, from which we ought to look out? That point is the presence of God, the presence of the Lord.
Just to illustrate very simply.
How many times has something happened to you?
Someone, maybe a friend has said something to you, done something that.
Hurt something that didn't please you, something that produced a reaction in you that perhaps was even forced you to say or made you say, resulted in your saying things that you really shouldn't have said. But then you go on from that point. There's that initial reaction, and then the next thing naturally to do is what we know very well. The next thing to do is to seek out someone who'll look upon that.
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Thing that happened the same way we will.
And we'll tell them about that person and we'll share our displeasure with them, and we'll say things again that we may discover later are not according to the Scripture and not in the spirit of Christ. So what do we do? What is the right thing to do in such a case? Before we go and talk to anyone else, go first. Before you talk to anyone, go first.
Quietly, alone and talk to the Lord. Go right into the presence of God. Spend 5 minutes, maybe half an hour, maybe longer in the presence of God about that matter and about that person. What will happen? You know, we've all had that experience when we come away from that place of having been in the light of the presence of God. We see that person and we see that matter very differently than we first did, don't we?
So that's just a little example that we've all experienced of how important viewpoint is, how important it is then to put ourselves to go deliberately and simply into the presence of God and to be in the company of our Lord Jesus and to begin to see things and people through his eyes. We begin to see them as He does. And that makes all the difference. And so in considering for a few moments this afternoon, your life.
That may yet be before you how important even as we're sitting in this room where the scriptures before us, not only to have the instruction of the Bible as it were, but to be recognizing that it is indeed the word of God. It is what the Lord Jesus would say to you and we want to receive it as in his presence and then having listened to it, having.
Been under the sound and influence of the scriptures to go away.
With this that we may have heard and to take it back personally into His presence.
And to allow Him to apply it by His Spirit to our hearts. It doesn't always happen that way, does it?
We like to talk this way and act as if it always happened that way, but we know it isn't so. But oh how blessed, how happy it is when it does happen that way, and how we need the exhortation that we would do just that in the simplicity of what we know is right. But oh, how we need to be reminded to do what we already know is right now. Let's look then at Ephesians chapter 2.
And verse 10.
For we are his workmanship.
Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.
Now this subject of works and good works and doing is one that we need to be careful about. It's one that perhaps sometimes, because we know that devotion to the Lord and communion with Him comes before going out and doing, as we've often heard, it's we must go in first before we go out to serve. But because of that, sometimes we may neglect this other side.
That is so clearly in the scriptures.
If we dare to take it up out of context or out of balance and without understanding and appreciating the necessity of only looking at this.
With an understanding of the need for communion, well, if we don't do that, we're going to be in trouble. But if we do?
Take it up, conscious of the need to be in communion with the Lord.
Continually, then, we do well to heed these exhortations that are there for us for the rest of the time that God has left us here. He has left us here, hasn't He? He hasn't taken us into the Father's house the moment He saved us. And He's left us each here yet a little longer because He has something for us to do as well as something for us to learn from Him during our life here. Some He takes home earlier in life than others.
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That's his choice in his wisdom.
If He has left you and me here a little longer, then let us discover, Let us want to know in an ongoing way why He's done that. Let's read that verse again. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God has before ordained, that we should walk in them.
So were His creation. Anything that we can do for the Lord is only the result of what He has made of us, what He has made us, and therefore what He will produce in us or through us.
But there is that responsibility on our part to respond.
To this that he tells us here. But there is a word here that is one of the earliest we learn by experience, and it's the word walk.
Life and our living it for the Lord isn't one great step, is it?
It isn't one act, it isn't one big thing that we may do, one big service we may perform for the Lord. It is walking and it says which God is before ordained that we should walk in them, not even run. Notice it says walk here. And so walking involves several things. It involves taking one step and then another. It involves direction, doesn't it? Because if we're walking, we're going somewhere.
And so direction is very important, and it also involves a third thing, and that is balance. We have two feet that the Lord has given us in the wisdom of His creation. They provide balance, don't they?
And so walking for the Lord also requires that balance, and we find that balance.
All through the scriptures and it's to be applied to our lives as we walk through the various aspects of our lives.
There are many verses in the Scripture which the cynic would say are contradictions, but we who have come to trust the Word of God and to know that it is the Word of God and that we rely upon it, we know that they're not contradictions. Those verses complement each other. They go together. One example that we find in the last chapter of Galatians where we find the two right together in the same chapter.
Or you know what?
Every man shall bear his own burden. And then just a few verses away.
Bury one another's burdens. Just an example of that balance that is there.
So we need that balance, don't we? We need constantly to be going to the wisdom of the Scriptures that we might be walking in the right direction and with that balance.
Now we have in the Scriptures some examples of those who walked in such a way, and I suppose the greatest New Testament example, apart from the Lord Himself, is the Apostle Paul. Could we turn before we go any further to the end of his walk in this world? Second Timothy.
Chapter 4.
Verses 6:00 and 7:00.
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course. I believe those that's a little more accurate translation. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but to all them also that love His appearing.
So here then, at the end of the life of this apostle, the one that God called and to whom he gave a very particular ministry.
Here's the end of his life.
And you know, that brings up a point, doesn't it, that we particularly as young people, you young people need especially to have before you because one of the dangers as young people, and this is.
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A difficulty that arises.
When older ones speak to younger ones, people around us speak of the generation gap, and it exists and can exist if we're not careful among us who know the Lord too. That is that when we get to middle age and older.
Especially now that we see things developing as they are in the world, we older ones are inclined to say, well, the worst is over, the Lord is coming soon, and I just have the rest of my life to live. And we'll trust the Lord for that. That's a danger for us older ones. But it also presents a difficulty when we endeavor to speak to you young ones, because if we remember what it was like when we were young, we know that when you're in your teens or your early 20s.
You have the zeal for life, you have life stretching out before you. And though you may not have a plan for your life, some do, yet you do perhaps unconsciously have the thought that you have still the whole of life stretching out before you. And there are so many opportunities and so many things to do. And you know what I mean. As you lookout now, it requires for the young Christian.
Great care lest he should be caught up. And it happened so easily in the same outlook as all those other young people that you're with every day. And so we go back to comment earlier about viewpoint. You have the same outlook. You look out as every other young person does on your life that's before you. And unless you're careful of your viewpoint, then even what your life may hold for you the way you look at the rest of your life.
Is just naturally, unless it's done on the basis of Scripture and in the presence of the Lord, you're going to look at it just the same way as those around you. And even if you have the desire to look out on it the right way, the influences of this world and of your friends are going to be brought to bear on you constantly and repeatedly. And so how important it is then right from this point to look out on your life and say here, here's the viewpoint that the scriptures give me.
Concerning the rest of my life, whether you're 25 or 20 or 15 or 12.
And you know the Lord, This is the way the Lord would have you lookout. Let's read it again now against that background.
We are his workmanship.
Created. That's in Ephesians 2.
In Christ Jesus unto good works. But now having said that, let's consider the apostle Paul. We've seen how he finished his course. And as we think of his life, and we have, we're sitting in a meeting now this afternoon. We're not distracted by those other influences. And no doubt most of us do have a sincere desire to please the Lord with the rest of our life.
And so when we turn to this little statement by the apostle at the end of his life, we would all like, as we look down to the end of our life, we like to be able to say the same words, wouldn't we? We really have that desire. The Lord knows that sincere desire that's in our hearts, that we would at the end of our course, be able to say the same thing as he did. He was a man like we are.
But it doesn't just happen. It doesn't just happen.
Could we look just for a moment now at what happened at the beginning of this man's life to see one of the things that contributed to his being able to say this at the end? Turned to Acts Chapter 9.
We know the story well, so we won't take time to read it. How the apostle was on the way with his heart filled with an objective. He had an object, he had an objective, and all he could think of was that nothing distracted him from that objective to deal with those who had taken the name of Jesus. He hated them. He hated the name of Jesus, and he hated that person who bore the name of Jesus, the Lord himself. He was.
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Obsessed, we might say, with this objective.
Could the Lord do anything with such a man? He did.
And so we know, as he went on that road, the great light shone, and he fell to the ground, and he heard a voice. Let's just read it.
Verse four. And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord?
Let's just stop there.
This is Saul on the way to Damascus, and his mind and heart are filled.
With this hatred and enmity and purpose. And the light arrests him, and he recognizes it, and he falls to the ground. But the next thing is that he hears a voice. He hears a voice.
And I know that the Lord doesn't always address each one of us in such a striking way as He did in the life of Paul, but nonetheless, the voice is there. Sooner or later, the Lord Himself will speak right to you. He will. I'm sure He has already. What have you done when you heard that voice speak to you?
What was Paul's or Saul's reaction when he heard that voice? First reaction was.
It's the Lord. It's the voice of authority, the voice of authority, and I must bow to it. When you've heard that voice speak to you in whatever way He has chosen to speak to you, have you begun there? Have you recognized the authority of that voice?
And so he responds, calls him Lord, but he says more. He says, Who art thou, Lord?
Now I feel that.
Saul may have at that instant begun to wonder if after all, this voice that spoke with such authority and whom he know to be Lord, wasn't Jesus, the very one whose name he hated. But he still asked, Who art thou, Lord? And you know that's where it all begins. That's where the change began. In Paul's case, his life was changed from that moment.
What changed it that question and the sincere desire that went with the question to have the answer, Who art thou, Lord?
He dared to ask that question, though he may have wondered if it was Jesus. He dared to ask that question, knowing that the answer that came back would come back with just as much authority.
Would you, can I say it? Would you dare? Have you dared to ask the Lord, your Lord, that same question? Who art thou, Lord? Do you really want to know who the Lord is? Do you really want to know not only that He's Jesus, your Savior, but do you want Him to tell you that he's also your Lord? He'll do it lovingly. The problem is not with Him. We know The problem is with us, isn't it?
For reasons of our own, those selfish reasons something.
Keeps us back from asking that question openly and sincerely. Who art thou, Lord? Who art thou Lord?
That's what He wants you to do. And I know, I'm sure that that has been a hindrance in so many of our lives from our youth on through as we get older, we are afraid to ask the Lord that question. Who art thou, Lord?
Well, he got his answer.
And the answer was simple, wasn't it? I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.
Now it was a two fold answer. I am Jesus. So it was settled quickly and simply. It was Jesus, this name that he had hated. But more than that, attached to it was something else, a message directed to that man. I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. And as we've often heard in that little clause that was added.
Was the message from the heart of the Lord Jesus concerning those that belong to him. And when the this man saw persecuted the redeemed of the Lord, the members of his body, as they already were, they were persecuting, he was persecuting the Lord.
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And so he said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. And so when the Lord speaks to us, he'll tell us who he is. But there will be more connected with it, more connected with it. And we want to hear what he has to say, don't we? Along that line? But now it can't stop there. No sooner has the Lord answered what to say, don't we along that line, but now it can't stop there. No sooner has the Lord answered him and said.
I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. But there is a further question.
It prompts the next question.
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
And that question came because he had received that first answer. Think of what transpired in those few brief moments. We don't know how long it took between the time he got the answer to his first question and he asked his second question. We don't know. But in that short space of time, think of the change that took place in him. Think of what had to happen to that.
Collection.
Of thoughts and emotions and feelings and so on that were so totally his life. They all had to change. They all had to go and they did. And so when he asked the second question, he wasn't asking it carelessly. He asked it out of the the fruit that the Lord had produced in him through his answer to the first question.
Who art thou, Lord? And he got his answer. And then came the next question. Lord.
What wilt thou have me to do now? Sometimes we ask the question that Paul asked the second question, but we leave out part of it, don't we? How often have we gone in prayer when we have a problem and asked God to guide us? We've asked for guidance, we've asked for help, and perhaps we've even used the name of the Lord and said, Lord, what should I do?
But I believe there's more to it than that.
Paul, when he used the name of the Lord at the beginning of his second question, didn't do it carelessly.
He did it as the one who had just learned who that Lord was.
And in all the power of that.
He asked the second question, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And so?
Then at this point, this very day, as you lookout on your life, would you ask those two questions, though you may know the Lord already as your Savior, would you ask him who art thou Lord? And really be open for Him to tell you all He has to say about Himself in relationship to you and to the others, because that's what He did here. I am Jesus whom thou persecute. And then.
Would you also go to Him again, and in all the meaning of His name ask, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do now? Notice 2 pronouns.
Connected with the doing Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And 1St is the Lord's will. What wilt thou? That comes first, doesn't it? His will, His will. Now His will encompasses all His purposes, all those things that are going to happen in this world, but also all those things that He has for you and me to do. Those works that He is before ordained, that we should walk in them.
And so it begins with his will. It's not a question.
Of the Lord adjusting his will to suit us? No, it begins with His will.
The adjustment must be made by him to us. And So what wilt thou, What wilt thou? But there's a danger sometimes when we recognize that the Lord has purposes, He has plans, there is a danger, isn't there, that we say, What wilt thou? And we look, searching the Scriptures, and we listen as we sit in meetings and talk to others, and we learn what God's purposes are, and we think of what the Lord's will is as he sends one and another to do various things, perhaps at home or far from home.
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But there is that shrinking back on the part of most of us from that second part. We know the Lord has purposes. We know the Lord has His will, and He has His will for each and all. But when it comes to what He wants me to do?
We shrink.
I know as I lookout on you that we've all experienced that. But now Paul asks this question. Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
Now that takes getting a loan with the Lord, doesn't it?
Because this is the very personal side we know. There is that which we must do in harmony and along with the rest of the Lords people, especially in the assembly where the Lord may have put us. But there is also that which He has for you and me to do. They fit together. But there is that side of of our life which is between the Lord and me, the Lord and you. And so this question, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?
So we'll leave the that beginning of the Apostle Paul. Now we'll go to the to the middle of his life. We had it mentioned yesterday in Colossians chapter one.
In his particular case.
Colossians one and 24.
Just the end of verse 23, preaching the gospel whereof I Paul and made a minister, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the church. Whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you to fulfill the word of God. Even the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his Saints.
And so on. But here is Paul in the middle of his life or going through his life and he is conscious here of what God had given him to do to carry the word of God and indeed to be the the the channel through whom God would indeed complete fill up the word of God, especially concerning the Lord's body, the body of Christ, the church. And he hasn't lost this from view.
And he is going on conscious, as we heard yesterday of this, that the Lord had given him to do, and that the Lord might do the work through him. So how important it is to not only have a beginning and then think of the ending, but there is that going on all the way through, conscious of what the Lord may have for us. We remember also in the life of the Lord Jesus, don't we? How?
At the age of 12, just beginning.
He could say when he stayed in Jerusalem and his parents came back to find him and he said, wish ye not that I must be about my father's business, the life of the Lord. Now we know, and we would be very careful in referring to the life of our blessed Lord that we don't just use his life as an example like others in the Scriptures, but nonetheless we have that perfection there in him, don't we? And so he could say, I must be about my father's business.
And then as he went through his ministry, he could say, I do always those things that please the Father.
Oh, how happy it would be if we could even begin to approach that, but at least in our desire, in an ongoing daily way to desire to do always the things that please the Father. How different our lives would be. And then at the end, in his prayer in the 17th of John, he could say, I have finished the work which Thou gave us to me to do, and again, the work that was given to our blessed Lord.
Stands alone, of course, but nonetheless in that perfection. It could not be otherwise, but it was.
And he said, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do, and all against that perfection of his life. He would have us now in the newness of life that He's given us. And as the apostle Paul could say, not I, but Christ liveth in me. He would have us to go on, and in the strength of that life and in the power of the Holy Spirit to please the Father, to begin by having that desire to please the Father daily.
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As the Lord said, I do always those things that please the Father.
So how important it is then to have this objective, this outlook, and this viewpoint, and then to have it on the basis of the Scripture and in communion with our blessed Lord. Now I'd like to turn in connection with these things to a verse in John chapter 12.
Concerning the claims because when we do this, when we desire to serve the Lord, when we desire to please Him.
We do it because we know it's the path of happiness. And when we've done it, we have been happy. And we've seen others around us who have given their lives so freely to serve the Lord. And we know. We know that they're happy. We know that that's the happy pathway. But there's another side to it. That's not the only reason we want to serve the Lord, is it? We serve them because we know it's the happy way. But we serve Him because He asks it of us. He claims it from us. We owe it to Him.
In response to His love, not just as a duty to be performed, but in response to the love in which He saved us and the love which we can, which he continues to surround us with and to display in his ways in our life. So now in John chapter 12.
And verse 25 He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it.
Onto life eternal.
He that loveth his life shall lose it.
This is one of those verses that cut so deep, isn't it? But we need verses like this. How far short we may fall. We know how far short at best we fall. We're also conscious of it. And sometimes because of that weakness, because of our consciousness that I'll never be able to do it like this verse says, we say that's not for me. That's for the few who may choose to go off to some other land and preach the gospel, but it's not for me.
That's for other Christians. Oh young Christian, this is for all of us. It's for all of us. The Lord would hold it out to each one of us. And what does he say? He that loveth his life shall lose it. He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, him will my father honor. And So what are we saying?
We know going back again to the way young people lookout on life.
And you must, as we're told by those around us, you've got to prepare for it. You have to make the most of your life.
Do what you can to make the most of that life of yours, and do it perhaps with a plan, but at least press on.
To make the most of your life. It's your life. It's the only one you've got. Oh, that's the thinking of the world, isn't it? But how easy it is for us, especially when we're young, to think that same way. How hard it is to turn away from that kind of thought and to say my life is not my own. My life belongs to my Lord. Having asked the question, who art thou, Lord And Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? We must go on then and look and allow.
These words of our Lord.
To speak right to our hearts. And what does he say? Don't call your life your own. If you do, and he says the choice is there, what does it say? He that loveth his life shall lose it. Is it just men of the world who love their life? No. How many Christians, how many of us lose the value of our lives because we love them for what we want them to be, instead of allowing the Lord to do what He wants with us and with our lives? Whatever is left of them, young people.
Allow. Let us allow together.
The truth of these words from the lips of our Lord.
Reach us.
Now we've spoken then of the truth like this, we could read other verses. There isn't time.
But we know we've recognized the truth of this, that the Lord is saying His claims upon us.
And the results of living for him or otherwise. And we've talked about the apostle who could say, speak the way he did at the end of his life. We've spoken a little of the Lord and his perfection, of course. But what about the failure? What about me if I failed? What about me if I've wasted part of my life? What can the Lord do with me? What can he do with you? What can he do with you? Has he made provision for that kind of failure? We had it. We were reminded of it yesterday, weren't we, when he said.
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To Peter.
Satan hath desired to have you. That's all of them. Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But but I have prayed for thee.
That thy faith fail not. I have prayed for thee. That thy faith fail not. Oh, how thankful we can be. You can be. The Lord hasn't given you up. You may have failed. Peter failed, as we know, and we won't dwell on it, but he failed. And how the Lord took him up and used him so mightily in the rest of his life. And you young people, perhaps there have been things that in your life, or just a general outlook, your way of life thus far has not been according to what we've been speaking about.
And so you say it's too late for me. No, it's not. The Lord can do for you. He says, but I but I have prayed for you. And also that other verse in first Corinthians 10. The Lord will not suffer you, God will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that you're able but there's another but in there, but will with the temptation. Let's read that verse. It's important First Corinthians 10.
One Corinthians 10.
And verse 13.
There hath no temptation taken you, but such is common to man. But God, but God is faithful. Oh, what promises we have in the Scripture for those of us who are tripped it may be, and who are tempted, and who have difficulties or failures of various kinds. How many places in the Scriptures we have that? But not only do we have it in Ephesians 2 Concerning our salvation, but God who is rich in mercy, Where would we be had He not, had that verse not been there, but even for us as Christians?
There is that promise, those many promises to hang on to but God, and as we had it in the case of the Lord to Peter. But I have prayed for you. And so, but God is faithful who will not suffer you or allow you to be tempted above that you're able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. Notice what he does, as we were reminded yesterday, He may not take the trial away, but He has made provision for us in that trial.
And now I'd like to add this thought. It's so important. He has, it's true, allowed you to have trials of various kinds. They may be just troubles. They may be tests, real tests. They may be temptations that Satan has brought into your pathway. The Lord has made, God has made provision for you in this. So is that all we need then? And we can say, but it's all right because God has made provision. No, dear young person, it's not the case.
It is not the case. He still gives you the choice to take up that provision that He has made for you or not. And how many times we've looked around upon others who have had problems in their lives or upon our own lives and we know the truth of that verse, that God has provided a way of escape. And yet the trouble went on and we may sink deeper into the trouble. Why? Because we haven't recognized and taken up that provision.
And and, and gone on in that provision that God has made for us in that difficulty. Oh, how important. As we said before, in walking, it's step by step. And so it rests with us to do this, to run to him constantly and repeatedly. We need this. I'd like now to turn to the Psalms and just read a few verses there before we're through.
In connection with this.
Life that is before you, some of the precious things that He has made for you and me so that it is possible for us to go on this way, conscious of His claims. And yet, even though I may have come to that point in my life, perhaps today some of you may be saying, yes, I want to serve the Lord. Maybe just recently some of you have come to that point. The Lord has put His hand on your shoulder.
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And you felt his touch.
You know it.
But is that enough for the rest of your life? No, it's not. You need to go on daily.
And he's provided for that daily walk, step after step. Here are some of those little things he's given to us.
Turn to Psalm 24.
We'll just pick out several verses and Passover them quickly before we stop.
Psalm 24.
Show me at verse 4. Show me thy ways, O Lord.
Teach me Thy paths, lead me in Thy truth, and teach me, for Thou art the God of my salvation on Thee Do I wait all the day? Even as we ask the Lord to show us more, we constantly go back in thankfulness to the fact that He has saved us. Why am I where I am today? Why am I here with all these Christians today having a happy time? Because He saved me.
Oh, is there a response in my heart, thankfulness for that which he has done in my salvation, in delivering me from my sin and from the consequence of it. Then let me go on in the in these verses. Now go down to verse 9. The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way. There is a danger in and I want to speak of this just a moment. There's a danger especially when we speak of.
Serving the Lord.
And of wanting to be in His will, and of going on in His will, and of doing it as servant to his Lord. There is a danger of becoming willful in it and of becoming independent in that pathway without regard to those around us, the other members of the Lord's body, of the body of Christ, the others in the assembly to whom we're told to be subject both to the elders and to one another. Oh, there's a balance there, isn't there?
And so if we're going to learn the ways of the Lord and not get off on a tangent and feel I know the way of the Lord.
No, it's to the meek He shows His way. Let us keep that in mind. Verse 10. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.
On to such as keep his covenant and testimonies. So there is the question of obedience in small details as well as the big things of our life. This is the context in which we can expect to go on before the Lord and the ways we've been speaking. Now verse 12, what man is he that feareth the Lord him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose? You want to know. Maybe you've come to a fork in your road and you say, I don't know which way I've got to choose. There's a choice.
I don't know whether to go this way or that way, and I'm afraid of it. Oh, he says, fear the Lord.
Fear the Lord, don't dare to make that choice.
Without doing it in the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord to the extent that it takes you into His presence long enough for Him to tell you what His choice for you is.
Verse 14 The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and he will show them his covenant.
Turn to the next song.
Psalm 27.
Verse four. One thing have I desired 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 behold the beauty of the Lord.
And to inquire in his temple. Now this was written by the psalmist long ago, and he desired to go into the temple and into the presence of God personally. But here now in our day, we can go personally into the presence of God. How important it is that we do it regularly. But also we need to be where the Lord teaches, where the Lord will instruct us together in the assembly. This is His provision.
Not our arrangement. And there is a special blessing. There is a special kind of way in which the Lord instructs us even as individuals but also together, the way He would have us to go on together as we come together in the assembly. Even if it's in much weakness, there's a blessing connected with it. Now go down to verse 8.
When thou said, St. seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek? Thy face, Lord, will I seek? Or will you say that? Now that's not casual, is it? Sometimes we can be in a room and we hear someone talking to us. Our door may be shut. We hear their voice calling to us telling us what to do. It may be that as a young person, your parents are telling you just to before you leave in the morning and you're in your room getting ready and the door is closed and your mother may be giving you a list of instructions and you'll listen to them.
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But it's not the same as when the door opens and your mother stands right there, or your father and says, now here's what I'd like you to do. And you're looking face to face and you see more than what just the voice tells you. And so the Lord wants us to do the same, not just from a distance to hear and to recognize what He may be saying to us, but to take the time to go into His presence, to seek His face, knowing that first of all, He wants to see ours. He wants to see ours. And now just one thought.
As we stop.
Do you know the hardest thing is to get started? Isn't it? The hardest thing is to get started? How many of us say, yes, I want to serve the Lord in a big way every day. It may be I want to serve the Lord, but it's hard to get started. It's the beginning.
And we may have mentioned before those two words that go together, when the Lord is going to send us somewhere, there's another verse, another word that goes first. He says arise and go. When the Spirit of God would take Philip into the desert from Samaria, he said arise and go unto Gaza, which is desert. Before there can ever be any going, there must be a rising. And I believe that arising is the response in our hearts when we hear the Lord speaking to us. Arise and go. Are we willing? Are we prepared to go?
Being prepared to go or to do for the Lord.
Is more difficult than the doing of it. That's what he asks first. Arise and go, The prodigal. What did he say? I will arise and go to my father. As long as he sat there in the pig pen, his steps weren't taking him to his father. He had to arise first before he could ever take the first step. And then it tells us when the fact came. He arose and went. It's repeated. He arose and went. Oh, may the Lord teach us to arise in response to what he says to us. Now here's a little secret.
As to that arising, if we want a beginning in our life in general, there must be a beginning, and we can have it every day. The beginning to every day. Psalm 5.
And verse 3.
Psalm 5 and verse 3.
My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord.
In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
It works. It really does. How many of us, for how long in our lives, may have neglected that simple key, that simple secret? But it works.
Why does it work? It works because we need it. Yes, it works because it's a nice way to begin a day and it gives us thoughts throughout the day. That's true, it does. But you know, I think there's something more than that and I wouldn't take away from what has just been said by what's following. But there is another thought to it. Maybe you've experienced it. To begin the day with the Lord, even if it's just a short time, means that you have already that day.
Given to him the first part, and having done that, it sets the pattern for the rest of the day you've given him the first part.
Oh, may we do that then. And in our desire to please Him in response to what He has done for us as the object of our lives, may we do it going in first into His presence, looking out over our life, and then doing it all in the context of the Scripture and within all the provisions that He's made for us. Could we sing in closing?
Hymn #46 in the appendix.
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The last verse.