Three words to remember in that last song: moment by moment. If you couldn’t say the words, that’s the message: moment by moment.
Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 9.
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
—1 Corinthians 1:9
Called into fellowship.
Then, just two verses in 1 John. First John 1, verse 3:
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
—1 John 1:3
And verse 7:
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
—1 John 1:7
And just one more verse in John 15. John 15, verse 5:
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from Me ye can do nothing.
—John 15:5
Then, just in preparing our hearts, turn over to Jeremiah 45. I’m not going to scare you, but let’s read the whole chapter. It’s a very short chapter, but it’s a great summary of the entire book of Jeremiah. There is judgment, there is overcoming, and, of course, there is God’s blessing.
Jeremiah 45:
This is the message which Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch:
Thou didst say, Woe is me now! for the Lord hath added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.
Thus shalt thou say unto him, Thus saith the Lord: Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up; and this in the whole land.
And seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not; for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the Lord: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.
—Jeremiah 45:1-5
There is a way in this day of darkness. It’s delineated right there. But it’s not about thinking about ourselves. Baruch, die to yourself. Don’t be thinking about yourself. Don’t think about your preservation. Think about Me. I’ll take care of the rest.
Let’s prepare our hearts.
Father, thank You for this weekend. Particularly, thank You for Your table, again inviting us, lame Mephibosheth, to Your table and saying, “Eat daily, hourly, moment by moment.”
May we learn this lesson. Lord, we need an anointing even right now for speaking. We need an anointing for listening. Give us Your anointing. Speak, for Your servants are listening. In Christ’s name, amen.
I have been mentioning, really over and over, the day and age in which we live. I think one of the diversion tactics of the enemy is to cause us to look at Washington. That has caused such a distraction, particularly this past year.
Just one event—the election—to say nothing of terrorist events and all the happenings that go on around the world.
Now, you and I have a full-time job: learning a new habit, moment by moment. It’s always been there.
I believe the enemy, coupled with our flesh and the world, has counterfeited and camouflaged God’s intention with all types of things—stuff that steals this intimacy with the Lord.
We’re very thankful that we have a time of worship, we call it. It has become a method, a formula, a standard: before a service, from a house church to the largest megachurch, there is this time of worship. We thank the Lord for that.
But it has suddenly taken the place of twenty-four-seven. We don’t think of worship necessarily as changing diapers, doing dishes, or driving on the freeway—all the mundane things that we do.
And it doesn’t matter—I’ll say this to you younger people—it doesn’t matter what job you think would be the ideal job. There are tedious things in it. There are mundane things. Those are actually our salvation.
Tradition is good, provided there is reality. We need that tradition that Ben mentioned this morning. In 1 Corinthians 11, we have an anchor.
I may just add to something that Ben said. When it comes to the table, we haven’t heard it all. The table is Christ, and it is infinite. We will never plumb the depth.
A thousand brothers could get up for a thousand years and never touch on the same thing in the same way, because He is infinite. Just like the astronomers are finding out: there are billions of galaxies, and all of a sudden, two weeks ago, wow—they’ve upped that. There are trillions.
Two? But most likely four—and, as a scientist went on, probably more. We know the answer to that, don’t we? There’s no way of getting out there.
And if you go the other direction, to the microscopic, you cannot plumb the depth of that either. Infinite, infinite. Who is the Creator of all that? The One whom we just remembered. Is there an end? There is no end.
And so, speaking to the brothers for a minute: when you have the privilege, or the Lord lays something on your heart, or someone asks you to open the Lord’s table, just ask the Lord.
Don’t run to a commentary on 1 Corinthians 11. Ask the Lord for some other facet of this glorious King, this glorious Creator. He’ll show you something that you have never seen before, and refresh it to you.
And when it’s fresh to you, it’ll be fresh to everyone else. That’s the secret.
This is our calling. We’ve been called into fellowship. The Bible uses this word many, many times: called, calling. There are different facets of it.
We’ve been called into salvation: “Come unto Me.” That’s our first calling.
Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
—Matthew 11:28
We have been looking at this koinonia: called into fellowship, called into oneness, called into communion with the Lord, called to abide in Him.
There is being called into His kingdom. It is a holy calling. Called to minister; called out of this world. What’s that Greek word? Ekklesia—called out.
That’s the word I always think of with our brother Abraham: called out, crossing the river. Or Hebrews—true Hebrews, true Jews, the true sons of Abraham—called out. That ekklesia, and called into glory.
But the God of all grace has called us into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus.
This morning, for the few minutes that we have, we want to discuss recovery and the fruit of fellowship.
In one word, we could say the recovery is quite simple: God does it. He does it all.
This has been prayed by many of you this weekend. You have experienced this in the past. We’ve all failed, and we keep failing, and it brings us back to this: God has to do it. Because we try to do something on our own; that is just the tendency of man.
Our failure actually becomes one of the allies God uses. Because we fail, we fail, we fail. Finally, being dull, we wake up: that doesn’t work. I’m going to let God do that.
So we let God handle our marriage. We let God change the spirit of our children. As children, there are things that we can do. As parents, we can do certain things to a certain age. Then all of a sudden, that will rises up.
It can be at ten days old. There are little disciplines that a parent does that relate to the age and temperament of that person, to deal with that will.
As the child grows older, there comes a time when the parent says, “They’re Yours, Lord.” Nowadays, it can be ten years old—very young. A parent can do some limited things, but one thing a parent cannot do to a one-day-old baby or a twenty-one-year-old son is touch the will.
It’s one of the mistakes we parents often make. We show our disapproval, trying to correct children with our frustrations. I mentioned the other day: scolding.
But none of that changes that spirit. In fact, it can provoke the child to anger. It can break the child’s spirit. So we’re again backed into a corner as parents, and we have to look to the Lord.
And learn to pray fervently, standing on holy ground. We have to be pure ourselves. Husband and wife have to be one, and then stand. And again stand, and stand.
This will never end. It goes from children to grandchildren to great-grandchildren. The same thing in our fellowship: we stand, and we stand, and we stand.
It’s not by preaching. If the artillery hasn’t gone out first and done the job—prayer—all the preaching in the world does no good. It is God who softens the heart. It is God who prepares our heart. It is God who causes conviction. It is God who gives light.
It is God who knows where the lodged thing is in our child’s life, and can expose it and deal with it at all times. So it is God who does this work.
God, first of all, does this in this way: He gives us an example. It is the Lord—we saw this even when He was on earth—who is the perfect Teacher.
I’m sure there are many things about teaching, just from observing the Lord, that we as parents can learn. Or we can learn everything just from observing the Lord.
When we observe the Lord, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, we see exactly what fellowship is all about. In John 17, read it in this light.
There are over forty times in those twenty-some verses that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are referred to, or inferred, as one—as a unit, as one. It also, over forty times, shows the relationship between the Godhead and man.
So we see right there in this wonderful prayer of Jesus that He is concerned about two things: His relationship with the Father, and that we might be one with Him.
He knows He has His toughest test ahead of Him—the cross—and He is praying for that which is utmost on His heart: that we might be one with Him. And that oneness is only going to occur by constant communication.
An OB-GYN has a number of concerns about a mother carrying a baby. But there is one particular concern that often comes up toward the end of the gestation period: the cord wrapped around the baby. Why? It can sever the life.
That baby cannot go along if that cord is tied off or cut off in some way. And it’s absolutely no different spiritually.
Death, we’ve already been talking about it, is in our inner man. It is crouching at the door. Self wants to rise. Self wants to defend itself.
And the enemy, using the world—he is the great puppeteer—uses the world to squeeze us and to keep that lifeline from functioning.
But that lifeline is simply this: “Lord. Lord, thank You.” Inquire. Supplicate. Praise. Praise breaks down so many barriers.
Why does the Apostle Paul say, in 1 Thessalonians 5:16, “Rejoice always”? Do you think the Apostle Paul learned that lesson when he wrote it? Do you think it was real?
What’s one of your favorite stories? The Philippian jailhouse. At midnight, in a hellish environment, praising the Lord. A lot different than the way we had it around the table this morning, as far as the environment. But it was in here.
The lifeline, though Satan attempted to use beatings, physical and mental abuse, accusation, false accusation, and being locked in—what was the answer for breaking those chains, mental and physical?
Rejoice always;
pray without ceasing;
in everything give thanks.
—1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Paul practiced what he preached. We have these beautiful four chapters in Philippians about joy, written from jail.
We are incarcerated in a very sinful world, and the Lord has given us a way. As we sang earlier today, “The chains came off.” Don’t you love that? We’re not talking about just salvation. We’re talking about Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
No, we’re actually talking about this afternoon, because already the enemy is not going to take any time off. He will be about his work, and he has a lot of help from our flesh, from our self-life.
So Jesus and the Father are our example of how to recover. They were in constant communion.
If we look at Jesus, I’m just going to take a few minutes to read a few Scriptures without comment. Just let the Scripture speak.
Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing: for what things soever He doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner.
—John 5:19
This is the Son of God. This is the Creator of the universe, who can do nothing of Himself unless it is something He sees the Father doing.
I can of Myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and My judgment is righteous; because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.
—John 5:30
How does God judge? That’s the way we are to judge.
I don’t know about you, but I have to repent around the Lord’s table, and this morning was no exception—probably one of the most concentrated times of repentance in my life. I look up: “Why are they doing that?” Then I have to repent, and through repentance begin to pray for that person, if there is something seemingly out of line.
But the Lord Jesus judges the way the Father judges. This is why it’s so important to know how He judges, to become familiar with it, so that we can judge because He is in us. Let Him do the judging.
He does it with light. He does it with compassion. He does it with all the facts. Normally, we don’t. That is why we just take that person, that situation, to the Lord.
John 8:28-29:
I do nothing of Myself, but as the Father taught Me, I speak these things. And He that sent Me is with Me; He hath not left Me alone; for I do always the things that are pleasing to Him.
—John 8:28-29
As the Father teaches us to speak kindly, gently—do you know where we learn that? In our home.
If we cannot speak kindly in our home, outside, when we speak, it might seem to be kind, but it is hypocrisy. The test is right in our own family, and then this family.
Because the world sees otherwise, they’re not affected. Our evangelism isn’t this; it’s this. Big difference. And this penetrates when our heart is compassionate, when our spirit is right.
We often use this word: “Good morning. Good evening.” That’s the day of blessing. Like everything else, often it just becomes a perfunctory thing. Or we want them to think highly of us, but we’re not concerned.
It is a blessing. We want you to have a good day. That is the heart of a Christian. We have that opportunity many times a day.
A simple little example: we walk by a clerk in the supermarket. Her name is there; his name is there. We see it plainly. But we’re thinking, “Wait, did I get everything on my list? I’ve got to get home. I’ve got to go. I’ve got to get this done.”
That person is a blur. And if we have to wait a minute, we see no opportunity at all. It just frustrates us because the person in front can’t find their card.
All of these are opportunities to continue this communion, and then say, “Trudy, how are you doing today?” And she’ll tell you. She’ll tell you.
It gives a wonderful opportunity, in one minute, just to say something to her.
But we’re so wrapped up in ourselves. We’ve got the umbilical cord, the lifeline, severed, and we see none of this.
Then we go to the meeting and say, “We’ve got to have some classes on evangelism. We need to have a seminar on evangelism.” It’s right here.
When we are communing with the Lord, we are evangelists automatically. We don’t have to be taught. We don’t have to have the Four Spiritual Laws. Go through that—not saying anything against it.
It’s kind of interesting. I know one person who didn’t use the Four Spiritual Laws. I’ve been in his home: Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade, and the originator of the Four Spiritual Laws.
But Bill was just a walking, effervescent brother in Christ. He sat down on a plane, but he prayed about it before: “Lord, You know who I’m going to sit by on the plane.” And they would hear the gospel.
Many times they were saved, going and coming. He never pulled out the Four Spiritual Laws. It was there in him. He loved them and had compassion for the lost. Gifted evangelist.
For I spake not from Myself; but the Father that sent Me, He hath given Me commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
—John 12:49
But when He spoke, the sea was calm. When He spoke, water was turned to wine. But remember: “Woman, Mine hour is not yet come.” What was He doing? He had to have permission.
See how impulsive we are, impetuous compared to the Lord. This is why we live in this severed-life experience, groping in darkness, trying to be Christians.
The very thing that we need, we have dismissed or scorned. One of the things we said was ignorance. This is why we have a time of fellowship like that: to remind us, what does God want? And the way is through Christ.
One last verse:
Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I say unto you I speak not from Myself: but the Father abiding in Me doeth His works.
—John 14:10
Abide in Me, and you shall bear much fruit. Now there’s the example. That’s the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Now we come to the epistles. What do the epistles say? Christ, who is our life. That relationship established—God and His Son, tightly one—has never been broken, not once.
God then comes and puts Christ in us by the Holy Spirit.
When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory.
—Colossians 3:4
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
—Colossians 1:27
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.
—Galatians 2:20
This was our point. That’s the main point: Christ—God does it. They have shown us how they did it those thirty-three and a half years, just those thirty years of submissiveness. Oh, we could learn a lesson from that. Wonderful.
Clothed with power from on high—Luke 24:49. The connection is there. We cannot do it. It is spiritual.
Now, I’m not going to go into it, because I’ve inferred this and it has come up in many of your prayers: what is our part?
We have to see our condition. We have to desire to change. This humbling aspect—if we look at Jesus, we’re again taken back to the source of humility.
If we will humble ourselves, the Lord will receive us. He will come in. The communication is restored. But we don’t even have the humility.
We could go through the verses in Philippians 2:8: Jesus emptying Himself, becoming humble. So He is our humility. He is the source. It’s not something we have to cook up.
It’s not something where we sit in the back row. Brother Awaye—I love his testimony. I was with him in Houston for a number of years. He’s the father of our daughter-in-law, Gloria, and went to the Lord in 2013 after a wonderful ministry.
But in his testimony, he got so excited when he found the Lord. He saw something about humility, and he thought humility was sitting on the front row. So he would go down there and sit very piously.
Then he thought, “No, if the first will be last, I need to sit on the back row.” So then he went to the back row. And the whole time that I knew him, he sat in the middle row. He became a brother.
We have to pay a price. There is something sacrificial. We sang it this morning: “I surrender all.” We sing that at baptism, at most services, and at gospel meetings. It is something you and I have to sing every day.
That’s the secret. There is this yielding in us. And when we don’t yield, we repent. Another part of this, on our part, is repenting.
The more we go on with the Lord, the more we’re walking in the light. What does light do? It exposes. And where do we have to respond? Repent.
The more we go on with the Lord, the more we will have to say to ourselves, “Forgive me,” because the Lord is shining greater light. And how great is that light? Infinite.
It gets brighter and brighter and brighter. So it is a never-ending thing until we are changed from glory to glory.
All the pieces of the puzzle come together to do this wonderful thing. There is the asking; there is the intentional, specific inquiring of the Lord.
Confessing with our mouth—I love that. Romans 10:9-10:
If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
—Romans 10:9
Again, this is a continual thing all through the day. There is this type of response to the Lord. This is a key verse. We need to become familiar with it so that it becomes real to us.
Obedience. Taking every thought captive.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
—Philippians 4:8
This is a great barometer of what we watch and what we hear—what goes into our being, what we expose ourselves to, what our children are exposed to. That is Philippians 4:8.
Idle talk. Wandering eyes. You say, “Okay, well, I don’t watch pornography.” It can be the newspaper. It can be a good magazine. It can be Good Housekeeping.
In our mind: “Look at this recipe. Look at this home.” And it takes us away. The most subtle thing—the enemy meets us wherever we are.
We all have different personalities, certain preferences, predilections, propensities. The enemy has his little dossier on each one of us. He keeps track of those things, and now, four years down the line: “Do this, do this, do this, and Dale will go off the rails here.”
Now, we have to be alarmed. Take it right back to the public—or hidden in Christ. Get in touch. But it is the only way through, only.
It is not going to Bible school. It is not going to a retreat. You can go to five retreats a year and conferences. These are, as we said last night, wonderful opportunities to refocus, set our compass, and see what is on the Lord’s heart.
But it is learned and carried out, and becomes a testimony, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, throughout the week.
We walk in the light as He is in the light. There is prayer and fasting, praising sacrificially, abiding in Him, and not forsaking the assembly.
That is when we get into the corporate aspect. Here is one of our greatest protections: there is encouragement, there is accountability, there is covering, and there is building together. A key word: building.
Is there building? There is only one way we can build. First of all, Dale has to be having communion with the Lord. Then I am building material.
To the degree that another person in our vicinity—my family—is connected with the Lord, then there can be building. Because building is very simple: God’s love in Dale, and God’s love in another brother.
Starting even with my wife: God’s love in Helen, agape love, forgiving love. Then there can be building. Without it, there is absolutely no building.
It will always be like taking the same poles of a magnet: they resist. There is only one thing that attracts: Christ with Christ, God with Christ.
We saw the relationship: Christ in me, Christ in you. If Christ is not in the other person and resistance comes, we fall on our knees. We pray. We are not critical; we pray for that person.
I want to sum this up—there is so much more that can be said—by using the gospel according to David: Psalm 23.
It is in those six verses. It’s so interesting that David, probably as a lad, not necessarily an old man, had so wonderfully—and only the Holy Spirit could do it—put the full-orbed gospel in those six verses.
The Lord reminds me of Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God.” The Lord is my Shepherd. He is the only One who will bring us into this intimacy.
We are dumb sheep. We will always be dumb sheep. What makes us sheep that produce fruit and a lot of wool is hearing the voice of the Shepherd.
Otherwise, we will be like—not the ninety-nine, but the one—right off the precipice. And that’s where most of us live: falling off or having to be picked up.
A lot of our trouble is self-induced because we’re not hearing. We get ourselves into health issues, job-problem issues, marriage problems, because we do not know, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”
The Shepherd knows everything, and the sheep know nothing. As long as we keep that awareness, moment by moment, we don’t try to get twenty-four hours into a day.
There is plenty of time. The word “busy”—“I’m so busy”—that word just evaporates. Jesus was never busy. But in Mark, we see He was immediate. He redeemed the time, but He wasn’t out of breath because He was on God’s timetable.
One of the most beautiful examples of God’s timetable is a tide table. You could do a tide table for 2050. You could take a particular place on the East Coast or West Coast and say, “Where will the tide be on January 1, 2050?”
The astronomer would say, “Well, it will be at this foot right there.” That’s God’s timetable. If it is that for the tide, do you think there’s enough time for us? Do you think God can order our steps if we let Him order our steps?
There He is: “I shall not want.”
Now, that is a mouthful. Where does rejoicing come from? By not wanting. Where does peace come from? Not wanting. How does loving one another and patience come? There is no want.
The Shepherd has everything. What does He have? First, He has rest.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
—Psalm 23:2
Sometimes it takes a long time for us to come to that place of rest. Rest is where we start the Christian life.
That’s why God initiated it in the Old Testament. Stop. Or when He created, He stopped everything. He said, “I rested,” to give us the lesson right there: “I’ve done the work. Now you’re to rest.”
Come into the land. Your shoes won’t wear out. You don’t need anything. Don’t worry about the water. Don’t worry. I will give you perfect whole food. Nothing Whole Foods has ever come up with is even like it.
Rest. Green pastures. There is food there. There is protection there. There is rest in the mind, rest in the soul.
Still waters. We constantly need resurrection life. It is to be a well of water—well enough. It’s supposed to be rivers.
I love the way Lance says, “Rivers.” Rivers of living water. When? At conference? No. Wednesday. Thursday. Rivers of living water—perpetual resurrection life for our bodies.
Romans 8:11. He gives life, resurrection life, for our mortal bodies. This isn’t eternity yet. He does not always give healing, but He always gives life in the midst of that problem.
So there is a joy in our heart, though there might be severe pain. The Lord reigns. I might not even ever say it because of the pain, but the Lord lives.
I shared with you before: I grew up in a home where my mother was an invalid. She raised seven children from the couch and instructed all of us what to do from the couch, Bibles all lying around there.
When people would come to visit her, they came to console her. They all went away blessed. Who was the consoling, and who was the consoler? Because she could be there in bed, happy, because she was filled with living water.
He restores our soul. We just spoke about it: repentance. We talk about fellowship there. It is mentioned two or three times in the first seven verses.
What’s the ninth verse in 1 John?
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
—1 John 1:9
He restores our soul. No condemnation. We sang it. It’s done; it’s back. Don’t go back there. It’s over. No condemnation.
We confess. The lifeline—communion—has been restored.
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
—Psalm 23:3
How many of you have tried to find the path of righteousness? What’s the result? If you find it—if you find the path—what’s the result? Self-righteousness, if you find it.
Every time: self. “I can. I’m going to write a book on this. I know how to raise kids.”
Someone came to me at CFC. In fact, I was walking in the auditorium, and she said, “You need to write a book on raising kids.” I said to her, “I already have.”
“You have?” I got down—she was in the front row—I got down on my knees. I said, “It has one picture in it. It’s of me, kneeling. That’s it.”
There is only one way for us in this day.
The children—at least my grandchildren—the twelve-year-old has to have his own computer. He gets his assignments; his assignments come home on the computer. This is a Christian school. I’m not saying this isn’t fine. They do it all through high school.
Something has to guard against that, and you can’t guard that all the time. God can. No, we have to be prudent as parents. He gives us ways, things that we need to do at each age.
But then when they’re sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen—there’s one page in the book: fall on our knees and pray.
This will make a husband and wife come together, because prayer isn’t just, “Lord, help,” while we’re living unholy lives, and I’m barking at my wife, and she’s nagging me.
There has to be oneness. And when that oneness is there, we are led in the paths of righteousness.
The Bible tells us, for ourselves, for our children, and for their children. We have to see those promises in Isaiah, and the Bible is filled with those. When we pray, it gives us power—meaning determination.
That is the only way we’re going to go through, because we go through the valley of the shadow of death. Death encroaches all around us: depressing things in our own life, health issues.
When you’re told that something is terminal, that can be a depressing thing, unless the Lord says, “I take you through that.”
Every time, He takes us through, even if we die. A brother says it’s just like walking from one room to another. That’s what death is all about: absent from this body, present with the Lord.
Being ready right now, so we can make that step. Paul couldn’t tell the difference. To die, I’ll be present with the Lord. Nothing wrong with that, because, of course, self has to be dealt with.
I said to the Lord, “Lord, You gave me so many promises about my wife living.” Dana wrote, and Ernie wrote, and they had promises—not just encouragements out of the Scripture when they were having a quiet time regarding her.
About a week after Helen died, I said, “Lord, how about those promises?” And the Lord almost audibly spoke.
I asked the question, “Yeah, I thought You were going to take her through that.” And He said, “I did. She’s with Me.”
And it forever settled it right there. Done. Oh, I see. Oh, what was I thinking? Earth. Physical. Temporal. Or in a heavenly kingdom?
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
for Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
—Psalm 23:4
Now, this rod and staff is what He is going to nudge us with tomorrow. This staff: a little encouragement here. Black hair—oh, what things. Why am I uptight? Why am I sweating in traffic, waiting for this traffic light? Why am I getting impatient?
In the old days, we had to put it in clutch, so you just—mm, mm, mm. Can’t do that anymore.
The rod and the staff. Colossians 3:15: we are to be at peace. When we get a little tight, a little sweaty, that’s the Lord saying, “You’re not at rest. Come back to the pasture. Come back here.”
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.
—Psalm 23:5
The children of Israel, as we saw this morning, said cynically in Psalm 78:19, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” Yes, He can.
We are in a greater wilderness than those children of Israel ever were—much more subtle. It’s incredible. But the Lord, as you see, is putting the last parts on His church.
There are a lot of intricate things that He never could do in the Old Testament. Tests. Prosperity tests. That’s a big test.
The biggest test Joseph had, probably in Egypt, was Potiphar putting him as head of the house. “I’m going. I’m taking off. You take over.” Joseph could have said, “Hey, I’m chief around here.” But he didn’t.
He passed that test. Then he passed Potiphar’s wife’s test, then the prison test, and then the throne. That’s where the Lord wants each one of us: on the throne.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness shall follow me all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
—Psalm 23:6
The Lord, the Alpha—the Father—goodness and mercy, the Omega, following us. We’re boxed in. These are the bookends.
Stay within that parameter of the full gospel and Psalm 23, and we’ll live and abide in the presence of the Lord.
Father, we’re thankful that Your Son did just that. We’re thankful that now the Holy Spirit has been given back to us, to indwell us, to guide us, to lead us, to stop us, to keep us.
Lord, in Christ, save us from trying to save ourselves, because You’ve already saved us. We take Your word.
Again, I thank You, Father, for each one of these brothers and sisters. Now, as we all go back to our homes, our own gatherings, where there are a lot of woes, You know them better than we do, and You have the answer.
May we cooperate with You as we walk with You in the light. In Jesus’ name, amen.