We were originally planning to hear Psalm 7 this week, but God has sovereignly changed our plans, and so we will look forward to that sermon another time. But in the meantime, I want to challenge us out of something that is dear to my heart. It is, I would say, a precious truth that I wish I had known sooner in my Christian life. So if you're not there, please open your Bibles to Psalm 37. As the Hebrew title indicates, this is once again a psalm of David. And Psalm 37 could be classified as one of the wisdom psalms because of its instructional nature. I mean, just take a look at it and you'll notice all the commands which run throughout the psalm. Three times in the first eight verses of the psalm, we find the command, do not fret. And fret comes from an old English word that means to gnaw, to consume, to devour, to eat away. And so it's clear that the overarching theme, the greater theme of this psalm is trusting God in spite of our worries and fears. Don't let worries gnaw away at your soul, but rest in the Lord. That's the big idea of this entire psalm. But we're only gonna be focusing on verse four this morning. And I don't typically prefer to preach from so small a text, but I believe that this sort of focus is needful because there's an entire world of biblical truth that resonates with this simple statement in verse four. And so let's stand together, if you're able, out of respect for the reading of God's word. And to get a feel for the context, let's read verses 1 through 6. Psalm 37, 1 through 6. A Psalm of David. Do not fret because of evildoers. Be not envious toward wrongdoers, for they will quickly wither like the grass and fade like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in him and he will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday. That's the reading of God's word. You may be seated. Let's pray. Our God and Father, Lord of all, pure delights, we are seeking a word from you this morning. We are asking this day that you would give us our daily bread, the bread that we cannot live without, the bread that comes from your mouth. We ask that you would feed the hungry, that you would fill the empty, that you would quench the thirsty, that where there is no thirst or hunger, you would create that thirst or hunger, that we might find and enjoy our satisfaction in you. We ask that you would give us humility to hear what it is you have to say to us in your holy word. And we ask that you would leave none of us the same. Father, I confess I stand in the place of great weakness. I need your strength. So we pray for the power of your spirit to communicate your truth as I ought, and to communicate to each and every heart listening as they must hear it. Lord, give us hearts to receive your truth. In Jesus' name, amen. What do you enjoy most in life? What do you enjoy most in life? It's still the summertime and so perhaps one thing that comes to the top of the list is vacation. A nice vacation. You know, few things are as enjoyable as a nice and long vacation where no one, no boss can tell you what to do. You're not running on any particular time frame. No one else's time. You have No work that you've got to get done, no place you've got to be, but you can simply rest and relax and just enjoy yourself, however you like. The whole point of a vacation is that at least you're supposed to try and relax, try and enjoy yourself. And at least normal people don't have a problem doing this. We don't have a problem enjoying vacations. But let me ask you a question. Do you enjoy God? Do you enjoy him? Now, we know we're supposed to fear God and we're supposed to love God, but do you enjoy God? And that question might strike you as odd and even perhaps inappropriate, as if I were likening God to ice cream or a night at the movies or something else. But according to scripture, what is truly more bizarre and inappropriate is claiming a relationship with God through his son, Jesus Christ, and not enjoying God, not enjoying that relationship. More unbecoming than even a round circle or fried ice would be a Christian, a believer, one of the people of God who does not delight in the Lord. One who considers Sunday worship an inconvenience. Or who considers God's laws repressive. Because it keeps me from, it forbids me from indulging in sinful pleasure. You know it's strange when we find that someone doesn't enjoy a nice vacation. Especially if that vacation includes some kind of tropical island getaway. But even more odd, even more strange is a true Christian who's not enjoying God. Many, especially many Christian young people, will be seduced into thinking that this godless world around them is a vacation. It's a resort, it's a place to find pleasure and joy. A place where they may enjoy themselves. And so they look at the materialistic, sensual, celebrity-driven world, and they look at it as a fountain of forbidden pleasures. They covet taking a vacation from God as if everything this world has to offer was a dream vacation. And this is one reason I believe so many Christian young people throw the book upon leaving home. It's that They are simply living under the boss. And they're tired of living under the boss. And the fruit is pleasant to the eyes. As it was to Eve in the beginning. And so they believe that this is where pleasure is to be found. It's outside of the will of God. It's outside of God's law. God is withholding something good from me. Do you ever feel that way? That God is withholding something from you that you need? God is withholding the best from your life? Maybe you just wish there was no more boss, nobody to tell you what to do. We might tell a Christian who felt this way, well, just deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus. That's the key, self-denial, discipline. But as our text shows, there's far, far more to a relationship with God than simply discipline, than simply self-denial. We must ask ourselves, do we genuinely enjoy God? And here's the bottom line of this text. We are most satisfied in life when we are most satisfied in God. We are most satisfied in life when we are most satisfied in God. And the Bible here advances two poetic lines that advance this reality. Notice verse four is specifically comprised of two parts. First a precept and then a promise. So let's look at the precept in the first line of verse four. That's how our text begins. The first thing I want you to see is that you are commanded to pursue satisfaction in the Lord. You are commanded to pursue satisfaction in the Lord. First word here in our text is an imperative. It's issuing a command. Now, what does it mean to delight yourself in the Lord? Actually, if you look down with me at verse 11, there we see David uses the same word, delight, where he says, the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity. Here, the object is different. It's abundant prosperity, but it's the same word. It's the same idea of taking pleasure in, of enjoying, delighting in. And of course, to enjoy oneself, to delight oneself in abundant prosperity, to take pleasure in your abundance, that's not a difficult concept to understand. We all do that. We don't need any coaxing in that. And in the same way, David's saying, to delight yourself in the Lord, verse four, means to take pleasure, don't miss it, in the Lord. That is, we are to enjoy God in no less real a way than we enjoy good food, good music, or anything else we enjoy in life. Joy to be found in the Lord is no less real. And by the way, when David says delight yourself in the Lord, all caps, he's using here the unique covenant name of God. In the Hebrew, Texas would be the name Yahweh. In other words, he's saying this isn't delighting. You're not commanded to delight in just any God. You are commanded to delight in the Lord God. This is delighting in the Lord God who revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, to Jacob, to Moses, to David, and ultimately revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ. That's the God we are commanded to delight in. Of course, most of us don't need to be told how to enjoy a nice vacation or a delicious steak dinner. We just do. It's our nature. But what exactly does this look like? To delight yourself in God. God is a spirit after all. So how are we to pursue delight in God? Well, let me give you three ways from the Bible that we must pursue delight in God if we are to obey this precept. First, we must exercise our will. And we must consciously choose to pursue delight in God. This is playing for the fact that we are looking at a command here. God hasn't left us a choice in the matter. He's not asking you, how do you feel about this? He is commanding you, you delight in me. So God is appealing to our will. It is our moral duty to delight in God. But we meet with a problem here. We can't really make ourselves enjoy anything, can we? We can't really choose joy or delight, can we? I mean, for instance, just tell yourself right now, be joyful. And you could say to your soul, be joyful. And you could say to yourself, be joyful a thousand times, but that itself will not make you joyful. Joy Emotions itself are not, they are not things that we directly control. We already know this. We don't have direct control over what we delight in. You just have delight in some things and in other things you don't. There are some foods that you just enjoy and there are others that you just don't. Have you ever thought about why it is that you have a taste for, at least most normal people have a taste for ice cream, but we don't have a taste for shaving cream. Might look the same, right? Put a cherry on top or whatever. But thank God, although our flesh and our sinful heart desires many things and has an appetite for many things that are harmful and will destroy us, thank God that many things that are harmful for us and would destroy us and would destroy others, we just don't have an appetite for. Bless God. And the reason is, is you were not designed for that. You weren't designed to ingest shaving cream. But now if we can't directly control our emotions and what we delight in, then how on earth are we supposed to choose to delight in God? Well, Sam Storms has written an excellent article on this, really standing on the shoulders of Jonathan Edwards. And he writes, Jonathan Edwards says that our responsibility is to lay ourselves in the way of allurement. In other words, to posture our lives in those activities, in those places, at those moments in the life of the body of Christ, when it is far more likely that we will encounter the power of the Spirit in a life-changing way. It is God's responsibility to allure. We can't do that. It is our responsibility to lay ourselves in the way of allurement. That's very helpful if you'll think about that. While God allures us, we must choose to lay ourselves in the way of his allurement. And let's just consider what this looks like. we can't control our encounter with God. We can't draw out God to meet us any more than we can choose to lay ourselves in the path of lightning. Both cases are not in our direct control. However, while we can't directly control the path of lightning, We can choose to lay ourselves in the path of lightning, and I'm not suggesting you do this, but if you wanna increase your chances of meeting with lightning, you could go and find an open field where you are the by far tallest object anywhere around for a while, and then you can lift to the sky a very tall metal pole and just wait. And you will increase your chances of being struck by lightning. That's laying yourself in the path of lightning. Laying yourself in the path of God's allurement would be to humble yourself, maybe for someone here to get on the phone and to call someone up that you have wronged, you have sinned against them. And you humble yourself and you confess your faults one to another. Or maybe say instead of spending 16 hours on YouTube this week, you choose to take time and humble yourself and open the revelation of God on your knees and seek the Lord in his word. Draw near to God, James 4, 8 says. Draw near to God. That's your responsibility. And he will draw near to you. as we lay ourself in the path of God's allurement, we find God is so faithful. He is so good. Time and time again to draw near to us and meet with us. We may not be able to simply fill ourselves with delight in God like we fill ourselves with the delicious food we enjoy, but we can choose to pursue delight in God. We must choose to pursue delight in God. When David commands, delight yourself in the Lord, he's not saying, make yourself happy in God, so much as he's saying, pursue your happiness in God. By choosing to reorder your life, to draw near to God, and then waiting on him to draw near to you. You will seek for him and find him when you search for him with all your heart. Jeremiah 29, 13. We could say, Lord, I love you. I love you, Lord. We could say that all we want. But Jesus said, if you love me, you will choose to keep my commandments. John 14, 15. If we're pursuing delight in God, guess what? Our choices will prove this. And by the way, this is one of the surest proofs someone is not a genuine child of God. That they've never been truly born again, regenerated to new life. It's that, namely, they do not have any real desire to go deeper with God, to pursue delight in the Lord. But they are quite content to keep God at a safe distance while they remain enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season. A regenerate soul, the scriptures teaches us over and over again, will be restless without pursuing delight in God because you're away from home. and you need fellowship with your father. If we are to delight in God, you must exercise your will. You must make a choice to pursue delight in the Lord. But a second way from the Bible you must pursue delight in God is, we see, we must exercise our mind for a deeper delight in God. Now you might say, pastor, I've already tried that. I've already tried to pursue delight in God by taking time in his word and reading the Bible. Maybe you say, I spend daily time in devotions praying and reading scripture, but my mind just keeps wandering off in a million directions. I don't seem to be getting anywhere. Ever felt like that? Well, one serious problem with our approach to God is often that we approach God with so little of our mind. We don't give God enough of our brain. Are you familiar with that myth? Surely you've heard it from somewhere that human beings only use 10% of their brain. That's quite a popular myth. It's been around for a long time. But actually science proves the contrary. That we use relatively all of our brain in some way. But many Christians are loathe to engage all their brain. Many times, many of us would prefer to give God 10% of our brain as opposed to give all of our mind to seeking God. For instance, you might pick up a Bible and begin to read it. And of course, this itself requires some effort, but then you begin to encounter some details you don't understand in scripture. And you begin to encounter some things that are not so familiar to you. In fact, you begin to ask yourself, why on earth is this in God's word? And rather than engaging more of your mind to better understand God and his word, you simply close the book, frustrated. Frustrated as if expecting that somehow studying and pursuing God with the mind were to be easier than watching your favorite show. But beloved, the study of God is not a 10% brain task. The Bible is deeper than you will ever plummet. And so we need to get busy digging and exploring like an archaeologist at times. We need to come to the Bible with a magnifying glass and with a brush and we need to comb the fine details of God's Word. And at other times we need to step back like an astronomer and gaze at the immensity and expanse of what is before us in God's Word and get the big picture. It would be sad if we were discovered to be experts on celebrities, pop culture, sports, food, and politics, and all these things when we are not experts on our Lord and Savior, our Creator. A.W. Tozer said, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. But really now, just how important do you consider an understanding of God and His ways? How important is a knowledge of God? We could say that your love or your delight in God will only be as deep as your knowledge of God. We could say your love for God will only be as deep as your theology. And now at this point, some evangelicals will be quick to point out some dear saint who is very They were very simple, but they were very near to God. Very basic in their theology, yet very close to God. But I want to challenge us this morning with this. I want to bring us back to reality here, if I can. We're not talking about that dear, simple saint who never had the opportunity to study God's Word deeper. We're talking about us here now. You've got a brain. You have an understanding of the English language. You have multiple translations of the Bible, the complete Word of God available in your tongue. You've got religious freedom to study God's word. You've got a church that loves and teaches the word of God. What are you doing with all this? What are you doing with the knowledge of God? Are you pursuing God with the life of the mind? It's sad. Today's evangelicals, many belittle an intellectual pursuit of God as if this were somehow counterproductive to true spirituality. And I fear that those who do so understand neither theology nor spirituality. because the God who has revealed himself to us has done so in scripture. Just consider what our minds do occupy. What commands your attention? What captivates your thoughts? Whoever you are, however simple or complex of mind, there is something to which you give your mind. David said in Psalm 119, 97, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation. all the day. David wanted to gaze at the Lord, to meditate upon his beauty. In fact, he tells us that when he was on his bed in the night watches, he's still thinking upon God. God was central to the life of David's mind. Second Peter 3.18, some of Peter's very last words we have. Scripture commands us to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grow in knowing God. Exercise your mind to know the Lord. We must exercise our mind to delight ourselves in the Lord. And if we do so, the payoff will be delightful. Pun intended. If you are to delight in God, you must exercise your will and you must exercise your mind. But a third way from the Bible that we must pursue delight in God is we must exercise our affections. We must exercise our affections for a deeper delight in God. The very word delight describes the state of our affection toward God. So this should not be surprising. What kind of a marriage would we have if husband and wife were committed to serving one another and were committed to studying and learning about one another, but were void of any affection, no true affection for one another? For instance, men, how would your wife like it if you told her, honey, I'm committed to you and I want to learn more about you, but I have no feelings for you. And I don't have a concern about that. I don't think that would go over very well. That's not a true, delightful, loving relationship. There's no affection. And when God commands our affection, it should be obvious to us that this matters to God. So what should our affection for God look like? Well, you might read for one Psalm 63 and see how David pours out his heart describing his affection toward God. Oh God, you are my God. I shall seek you earnestly. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh yearns for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Do you desire God with that intensity? And we see the same sort of holy affection in the New Testament. In 1 Peter 1, 8, and 9, Peter writes to suffering Christians and says, and though you have not seen him, that is Jesus Christ, you love him. This is a giving love, a selfless agape love. He says you love him. And though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. Obtaining is the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Man, if you've never been born again, some of that stuff in the Bible about affection for God and joy and expressible full of glory in God might just sound like a foreign language. It's just like Christian jargon. What's the point? But this is a true inner expression of one's genuine relationship with God. And if you are a true believer in God and you've tasted and seen the Lord is good, then with these texts of scripture, you could say amen and amen. Or perhaps, Lord, oh Lord, restore to me, restore to me that joy of my salvation. Jesus once gave a couple of parables to illustrate what true affection for him would look like and he said it's like a man who found a treasure hidden in a field or like a man who found this pearl of great price and upon finding that he goes and sells all he has and then for joy goes his way rejoicing. Jesus is saying those who truly find me find the greatest treasure of their life. It's the joy of our souls desiring And so the man who finds Christ and lays hold of Him doesn't go away second-guessing himself, trying to reassure himself he's gotten a good deal over against all that the world has to offer. No, this man goes his way greatly rejoicing because as far as his affections are concerned, there is no alternative. There is no other. There's no competition with Christ. Do you enjoy Christ? Do you treasure Him like that? How can you actually exercise your affections to delight in God like that? Well, if you're a true child of God, the good news is the Holy Spirit will, will give you affection for God. That's just what he does. Galatians 5 tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, all these things. And guess what? That love and joy and peace and so forth has first and foremost to do with our relationship toward God Himself. Well, It's just the nature of a tree to grow fruit, right? Well, the Holy Spirit is the one who just changes our nature. He gives us a new heart so that we cannot help but to grow those affections toward God. So there's really only one of two basic reasons why you lack affection for God. If you lack affection for the Lord Jesus this morning, there's only really one of two simple reasons why that's the case. First, in the first case, we won't have affection for God unless God first regenerates our hearts. It's impossible for unregenerate sinners to love the supernatural God. We can't love the supernatural God we can't see unless that supernatural God does a supernatural work in our heart. This was clear in the Bible as old as the Torah itself. In Deuteronomy 30 verse 6, God made it plain that he desired to perform a surgical operation in the hearts of his people so that they could genuinely love him from the inside out. And this idea of an inner heart work of God is carried forward in what is called the New Covenant. In Jeremiah and Ezekiel, God promises to give his people a new heart so that we can genuinely love and desire God. Well, do you desire God? If you don't, it may be that you don't have that new heart and you need to receive the Lord Jesus Christ. You need the Spirit of God to make you alive. But the other reason, quite often, and this would be the case for any believers, that we lack affection for God is that we've given our affection to something else. We've simply given our appetite to something else. Sure, you might have a great appetite for a steak dinner. If we put some New York strip before you, it'd just be gone. And you'd need no encouragement and all that, but what about this? If you had consumed a whole carton or two of ice cream, and then we put that same steak before you, you're probably not gonna be feeling so hungry. In fact, you won't have the same appetite. Junk food will steal your appetite for real food. And in the same way, if you have no appetite, you have no affection for the one true God, and you're a true child of God, there's only one reason why. It's that you have given your appetite to something else. You are filling yourself with something else. Where are your affections? Are you delighting yourself in the pleasures of sin? If you do, you will not have a desire for God. Not like you ought. To be human is to have affection. To be human is to love, is to have the power of making choices. But that doesn't mean we're going to all choose God. Where is our affection? In some, pursuing delight in God involves our whole being. It's clear in scripture. Our mind, our will, our affection. And I want to briefly look at the promise in the second half of this verse but before we do you must realize how critical this precept is to the whole Christian life. Just remember that this text is commanding us to pursue satisfaction in the Lord which proves on some level this is important to God. So just how important is this or we might ask what difference does this make to pursue delight in God. Well, it's the difference, I'll give you three things here. First of all, it's the difference between pleasing God and displeasing Him. It's the difference between pleasing God by obeying Him or sinning against Him by disobeying this command for one. And I can't possibly overstate how important this precept is because it lies at the heart of the greatest commandment. Jesus taught the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all of your being. And here's why that is. How is loving God with all of your being the greatest commandment of all? Because any commandment you obey for any reason other than out of true love to God is not pleasing to God. Do you understand, beloved? Do you see it? God doesn't want your unwilling, begrudging, unenthusiastic, reluctant, undelighted, half-hearted service. He doesn't want that. He wants you to delight in him. What satisfaction does a parent gain from knowing my child fears me? My child obeys me when all the while they know my child does not love me. My child does not delight in me. Say what you will, that's a tragedy. That is tragic. You see, any child can do this. They can do what their parents say with a reluctant and rebellious heart. And as satisfying as it may be for our children to fear and obey us, there's nothing that satisfies a father or mother's heart more than to know, my child loves and delights in me. They enjoy me. My child enjoys me. Nothing. could be more beautiful than that to a parent. And I'm afraid if you miss then this precept with respect to your service to God, you are missing the entire point of God's law. You are drawing nigh to God with your lips while your heart is far from Him and God is not pleased. Because first and foremost, before He wants anything from you, He wants you. He wants your heart. So where's your heart? God created you to love him. This is why you exist. Not so you could serve God in some sort of miserly way. God created you with the power of choice so that you might genuinely choose to love him. What is the chief end of man? The Westminster Catechism rightly answers, man's chief end is to glorify and enjoy God forever. And you can't have the former without the latter or vice versa. You can't enjoy God without glorifying Him. You can't glorify God without enjoying Him. Delight yourself in the Lord. It's a command. We are commanded to pursue our delight in the Lord. And in addition to this fact that this is why God made you and this is the heart of all God's commandments, do you realize secondly that you can't resist temptation as you ought without delighting in God. Oh, discipline might take you long ways, some of the way, but only delight in God will keep you. This is because we all do what we love, ultimately. Ultimately, we all pursue our delight. And if you don't learn how to actually delight yourself in God, I don't care how disciplined you are, the delights of sin will eventually, at some level, lead you away. If you don't learn how to delight yourself in God, sin will lead you away. The best defense against sin is true delight in the Lord. The more we taste delight in God, the more we will see that He is good, and the more we will frequently find ourselves in the same mindset as the prodigal son, who suddenly came to and realized, in disgust at himself, why am I eating with a swine? Why am I eating the food of the swine of this world when I could be dining and enjoying life in my Father's house? Where are you dining? Where is your heart tonight? True delight in God inoculates us to sin's allurements. But thirdly and lastly, I would say, how does this make a difference? Delighting in the Lord makes all the difference in our own lives, in our Christian life, in the state of our lives, period, and how others perceive our life to the testimony of the glory of God. And I think we'll see this now in the second half of our verse. So we've seen we must pursue satisfaction in God because we are commanded to do so. That's the precept. But as we do so, praise God, we are guaranteed to find satisfaction in the Lord. That's the promise. The second half of this verse, the second line of this poem is that He will give you the desires of your heart. You are guaranteed to find satisfaction in the Lord. Our text says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Now to appreciate this promise, please notice briefly a few qualifiers. First, God is only promising to satisfy the soul that delights in him. Everyone can especially enjoy the latter half of this verse. It's a beautiful promise. He will give you the desires of your heart. But don't take the promise out of context. God isn't promising to just give you anything you want without any qualification. This is conditioned. It is preceded by and even conditioned by the precept, delight yourself in the Lord. So this promise isn't given to just anyone, it's given specifically to those who pursue their satisfaction in the Lord. And they will find He gives the desires of their hearts. So God is only promising to satisfy the soul that delights in Him. But also, a second qualification is that God satisfies the soul that delights in Him by purifying its desires. purifying its desires. Scripture teaches this truth about us. And I would say this qualification is abundantly plain throughout all the scripture, although it may not be explicitly explained in this text. But scripture, for one, teaches the truth about us. It tells us that our hearts are evil. Our hearts are corrupt. And part of the problem is then that your heart will desire things that are harmful to you and even harmful to others, that if granted those wishes, you would destroy yourself and others. We know that. And so there's many desires of our heart then that God does not wish to give you. And so the question is, how is God going to give you the desires of your heart when he also tells you that your heart desires so much that is harmful for you? And that your heart desires so much that is evil? The answer is this. God intends to transform our hearts. God intends to transform our desires. As we pursue delight in God, God is going to work on us. He's sanctifying us. He's killing our desires for what is sinful and harmful and He is generating in us holy desires. Desires for what are good and helpful. The text is not saying, come to God and he will fulfill all your wishes like a genie in the lamp. No, this text is saying, come to God and he will transform you from the inside out. He will change your heart and you will not be disappointed. He will give you the desires of your heart. I'm not preaching, come to Jesus and get what you want. I'm preaching, come to Jesus and find he is everything you want. He will give you the desires of your heart. And lastly, as a qualification here to this promise, God is promising to always satisfy the soul that delights in him. Nothing or no one can give you the desires of your heart like God, the God who made you. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. That's the only kind of satisfaction this world without God can afford you. It is a temporary thirst quencher. It is something that will give you a pick-me-up and then you will be back where you were needing more. But Jesus had the audacity to tell this woman, and you and I, but whoever, whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst, but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. Jesus could say that because Jesus is the one who quenches thirst, because he's the God who creates thirst. He's a God who created us and designed us for a relationship with him. We will find ultimate satisfaction in nothing else. When I was first surrendering my life to pursuing the work of the ministry, I was so moved by Matthew 16, 24. Jesus says to his disciples, whoever will come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. And it seemed to me at that time that my whole life of pursuing God would be a life of miserable suffering. And I saw it as the cross, plainly, strictly. But thank God that he opened my understanding to the next verse, Matthew 16, 25. Jesus explains, for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Christ is not saying that your life in following Him will be reduced to misery and self-denial. He's saying that you must deny your desires for an even greater, more lasting, more fulfilling, more ultimate and wonderful desire. Desire, capital D. And so it is that when a man, woman, or child loses all for the sake of Christ, they find life. They find satisfaction where God intends it to be. We are most satisfied in life when we are most satisfied in God. Do you believe that? If that's so difficult to imagine, just consider God truly knows a lot more about joy and delight and satisfaction than we do. Maybe you're listening and you realize you need to take that very first step of delighting in the Lord. And you've never turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, turning from your sin, turning to Him and entrusting your soul to Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Or maybe you're listening and you've already come to Christ for salvation, but you're trying to satisfy yourselves with the pleasures of the world. Whatever our relationship to God this morning, the prophet Isaiah warned us that to go on seeking satisfaction outside of the one true God is like to become a hungry man who dreams. Behold, he's eating and he awakens and his hunger is not satisfied. Or as a thirsty man who dreams and behold, he is drinking but when he awakens, behold, he is faint and his thirst is not quenched. This is the delusion of all who pursue temporal delights of this world without God. You know, the world needs a fresh demonstration of true Christianity, true spirituality, not the sort of religion that is heartless and joyless, that is going through the motions. People need to see a God who is real and they need to see that He is real in the heart of His people. They need to see the people of God who delight in the Lord. May God help us. May He be our greatest joy. Let's pray.