Discipline and Delight - Pastor Brad DeLong

Some of you are wondering what in the world that thing's doing here. We'll get to that. Don't worry. For that time, I just want to affirm what you're feeling right now. If you're a guest with us, what you're feeling, of course, is the presence of God. And you've probably felt it before, but maybe you haven't. And you're wondering what what is this drawing that I feel the Lord is drawing us. Whether it's your first time or you've been here your entire life, I believe the Lord is pulling at us right now. We're going to respond and we're going to leave this place closer to him than when we came. Can we make that commitment together right now that by the time I leave those doors or that one, whatever door I leave today, I'm going to leave closer to Jesus than when I came. And to all of our guests, we welcome you again. Thank you for joining us at Apostolic Pentecostal Church. It's not lost on us that you're spending part of your Labor Day with us. And we've got some family members that have uh just come home and we've got others that walked in the door not knowing what to expect. And here we are. And we want you to feel right at home here today worshiping the Lord with us. And we also invite you to join us on a journey. This entire summer, the Lord has been drawing us. He's been removing things from our lives. He's been adding things to our lives. And I believe that today is going to fall in that same vein. We have a vision as a church. That vision, if you know it, you can say it with me. Is to be a thriving apostolic church, faithfully connecting, growing, and serving others. We define thriving as healthy, growing, and full of love. The Lord wants his church to be healthy, growing, and full of love. We're going to continue that journey today.

Turn with me to Psalm 37, verse one. It's a chapter chalk full of powerful truths and encouragements for the journey, for the way of life that we're traveling. You're going to recognize some of them. Verse one says, "Don't fret because of evildoers. Don't be envious of the workers of iniquity." He just starts right out the gate. He's preaching. They'll soon be cut down like the grass and they'll wither as a green herb. Got some herbs in my house that have withered pretty quickly. Trust in the Lord, it says, "And do good. Dwell in the land and feed on God's faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord and he'll give you the desires of your heart. Let me just say when you delight in the Lord, your desires change and your desires start to become his. This isn't Lord, I love you so much. Give me a new car. He can do that. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he'll bring it to pass. He'll bring forth your righteousness as the light, your justice as the noon day. Rest in the Lord. Wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger. Forsake wrath. These are the the the fundamentals of life. Don't fret. It just causes harm. Evildoers will be cut off. But those who wait on the Lord, they'll inherit the earth. For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more indeed. You'll look carefully for his place, but it will be no more. But the meek will inherit the earth and shall, there's a word again, delight themselves in the abundance of peace. And they'll do that. They'll delight in the Lord. They'll delight in God's peace as they commit their way to the Lord. Do good while they wait on him. And as they follow the writings of the writer of Hebrews who said this, that we should lay aside every weight. We should run with endurance, with patience, with discipline the race that's set before us as we look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We're in a race today. Anyone feel like you're winning the race? Anyone feel like you're losing or you're running behind? Anybody? We're all in it. We're in it today. It requires two fundamental things we're going to talk about from this title today. Discipline and delight. discipline and delight. We can have both. We should have both.

I'm going to ask you to pray with me right now that you would allow the Lord to draw you closer to him. Would you lift your hands and voices in his presence? Jesus, I'm so thankful that you're here today. I'm thankful for all these wonderful people who had the discipline to show up to the house of God. They came even early. They showed up, Lord, and they've come and they've worshiped you. They've exercised another spiritual discipline. And I pray that you would help us to get both of these things and that by the time we leave again, that we would be closer to you than when we came. That we'd be built up and we'd be better and we'd be more like you than we were this morning when we woke up. We pray it in Jesus' name. Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

Would you thank my friends who helped me put this random stationary bike up here. They did a great job. And before you're seated to buy me about 30 seconds, why don't you greet someone around you while I change into these other shoes? All right, you might know where I'm going. Oh, you can be seated. I should have untied these before I try to put them on. You can be seated after you greet somebody. How's that? You can test my balance this morning. And you might know where I'm going with my title. I got paint on these shoes. I think the second day I own them. So, I'm just living with them now.

At the end of the year of our Lord 2022, I was in pretty rough shape. And I realized I needed to add something to my life that had been non-existent for far too long. And based on some of the conversations I've had uh with several of late, I think a lot of us are realizing we need to add some things to our life. We talked about addition a couple weeks ago that Peter tells us we should add to our faith virtue and virtue brotherly kindness that the Lord's trying to add some things to our lives that are going to help us and strengthen us. And I just felt that sense at the end of 2022. And uh the thing that I needed to add at that time and the thing I still need to add is exercise. Oh, exercise. Problem was I hated exercise and I was not good at it at all. I had not had this discipline in any way, shape or form for quite some time. So, I did what any reasonable person would do. I got on Facebook Marketplace. I found a $100 stationary bike. I met a m a guy I didn't know. I went into his garage. Yeah, I'm crazy. You ever think about how wild that is? Went into his garage. I picked up this stationary bike. I put it in my basement where there were no excuses whatsoever. And it was just automatic from there. There was just nothing else to it or not. I remember the early days. And it's not just the early days. It's recent days. But I got on this bike. It had a much smaller seat. I've upgraded to the Cadillac version now. I made it about five minutes and I was dying. I think I might I think this bike is generous when it comes to miles. I probably only ride one and it tells me I rode four, but I got like two. So, half a mile. All right, if you do the math, right? No, third of a mile. Okay. I couldn't breathe. Everything hurt. I couldn't stand. I couldn't ride for very long. I just hated everything about it. It was a discipline in every sense of the word. Now that word discipline is defined. Now don't let don't be distracted by my writing. Okay, key in. It's defined as a practice, a training regimen, a code of behavior. But someone else defined discipline as punishment in order to correct an unwanted behavior. That's what this is. It's not the first one. It's punishment. Or at least it was. It was. We're not going to use that definition today. We're going to talk about discipline as a code of behavior, a code of conduct. It was nowhere near a delight. Okay? My lungs hurt, my legs hurt, my ego hurt. I I dreaded it, but I just knew I needed it. So, I would drag myself back downstairs again. I couldn't blame the weather. I couldn't blame time. It was down in my basement. I had to take 20 steps to get there. I'd drag myself down there and I would get on the bike and I would endure the torture. It was the opposite of fun. But how many you know and can honestly say that not all discipline is fun, right? Sister Kiana's got a shirt on today. It says do what makes you and it has crossed out and it says holy. Right? It doesn't always make us happy. Right. Sister Kiana doesn't always feed our flesh disciplines like paying the bills and going to bed at a timely hour and waking up at a timely hour and and eating right and making sure we got things like oil changes and rotated tires and going to the doctor. They're they're seldom fun. But we all know and understand that life itself is built upon the foundation of disciplines, especially the ones we're going to talk about today. And no one may be running the aisles just yet. You'd be joining me in our exercise. We're going to get our calories in today or burn calories in. You might not be running the aisles, but the fact of the matter is that this Christian walk and faith and life in general, it is built upon the often unexciting groundwork of discipline.

This came full circle for me recently. I was at a youth event and we had a Q&A session and uh there was some young men and women that were asking me about waking up early and reading the Bible. And a couple of the questions came through. They were asking, not all of them, but some of them went like this, "Brother Brad, how do we make this more fun? How do we make it more entertaining? H how do we make it interesting so we don't fall asleep?" Now, I knew what they were getting at. They were trying to instill some discipline, but but I I really I I landed on this uh age-old response. I told them, "Not all discipline is fun." Now, it shouldn't be a drudgery. All right? Right? Some of the things we're going to talk about shouldn't be a dread, but not all of it is fun. Not all of it appeals to our flesh. Not every meal I sit down to eat has me jumping up and running for seconds. And probably discipline would keep me from that, right? Typically though, think about it. The meal the meals that nourish me the most are not the ones that overtly appeal to my flesh and my taste buds anyway, right? Point is that the things that make for health and growth and eternal pursuits, they may not always appeal to my flesh. It's not always fun. It's not always entertaining. But disciplines like reading the word of God and praying daily and often and fasting food and and other cravings and listening for the voice of God and meditating on God's word and fighting the good fight. I'm listing more than just prayer and Bible reading and fasting. We kind of box our disciplines into that. But all of these things I'm going to talk about require these spiritual disciplines. Running the race with patience and assembling ourselves together regularly and often like we're doing this morning. maintaining unity and connection. That's a discipline. Forgiving others as we want to be forgiven. Giving sacrificially to the kingdom. These are the stuff of life in eternity itself. And they may not be flashy and they may not be fun and and always entertaining, but they build up the body of Christ. If you want to leave here better, you want to change your ways, you can do that through these disciplines and the presence of God.

Case in point is no one in the room today outside of my wife, maybe my kids, knew that I was in the basement of my house gasping for air. Had no idea. In fact, one day I was finishing a some exercises. I'm not a pro at this. Please don't ask me what I do because I don't even know, but I'm just trying to do something. All right. So, finishing one of my exercises and I'm like trying to and my kids are all worried and they come over and I told them, I'm enduring some pain now so I don't have to endure far more in the future. Discipline, it'll change you. And others may not notice and they may not see what you're doing day in and day out, but the Lord sees it. The Lord recognizes it. And when you take steps towards God, he honors those steps. Same is true for our hidden and spiritual daily disciplines. No one else may see them enacted, but they form such a foundation that the growth is going to be evident to the Lord and to all. And it leads me to say this today that if you show me a spiritually disciplined life, I believe I can show you someone who is healthy and growing and full of love. Show me someone who is walking with God daily and has a walk with God and has a spiritually disciplined life. I believe it's not always automatic. It's not always that we're on cloud nine. It's not always that every day is perfect and peachy and the sun always shines. But if you show me someone who has that those spiritual disciplines, I will show you someone who is healthy and growing and full of love. When we commit our way into the Lord and we follow him and we run this race with endurance and patience and discipline, when we commit to attain to the measure of his stature, it just works. him and we stand on the age-old foundation of discipline, the one that the biblical writers stressed again and again and again. This is why this is how the Christian faith was designed to work.

1 Corinthians 9, this is Paul. He says, "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but but one receives the prize. So run in such a way that you might obtain that prize." We believe that prize is eternal life. We believe that prize is all the good things God has for us. He says everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Another translation says they go into strict training in their life. Another says they exercise self-control in all things. They are disciplined in all things. We all have disciplines. We all have things that we've figured out. Most of us brush our teeth, right? That's a discipline. I want to excel in the things that make for eternal life. If I'm going to excel in something, I want it to be in something that is going to sustain me for eternal life. Paul says why we do it. He says they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we do it for an imperishable crown. Therefore, I run in this way. I don't run with uncertainty. I I fight in this way. I don't fight as one who just beats at the air. He says, "But I discipline my body. I bring it into subjection, lest when I preach to others, I myself should become disqualified." Paul preached and lived on discipline, a word derived from the same Latin term as disciple. Both pointing to growth and learning at the root and discipline at the root. Paul uses this boxing analogy, the foundation of discipline to to bring himself and his body under subjection to make sure he qualifies for and wins the race of life and eternity. I cannot stress to you this. We're playing for keeps today. This is for all of life and this is for life in eternity. The two are hand in hand. So when you're talking about your disciplines and things that you're doing and your regimen and your routine, we're playing and we're we're disciplining ourselves for something far beyond this day. Paul uses the same terminology. He says to Timothy, I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I kept the faith. All of this was built upon the practice of discipline. The one the writer of Proverbs addressed when he said this. He said, "Whoever loves discipline," and he's meaning even correction here, loves knowledge. But whoever hates correction is well kids, close your ears. So if you hate it, you're stupid. That's Paul or that's Proverbs. Sorry, not me. Okay? But it is me. It's true. Proverbs 6 says, "For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light and the reproofs of discipline. They are the way of life." life. In other words, discipline is painful, but it helps keep a person on the right path. It leads us in the way of life. And the inverse is even more painful. Proverbs 25, whoever has no rule over his own spirit, no discipline, no self-control in their life is like a city broken down without walls, that doesn't mean a ton in our 21st century. But if you had a city that was broken down and without walls in that day, it was useless. This is part of the reason why we're told to train our children, to teach them discipline.

It's also why we read about the Lord doing the same in Hebrews 12. I want you to notice this. He says, "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline. The Lord's trying to instill discipline in us and even in doing that in correction." Don't lose heart when God rebukes you because the Lord disciplines the one he loves. He chasens everyone he accepts as his son. So endure hardship and do it as discipline. We didn't realize that was a spiritual discipline. Longsuffering enduring hardship. The Lord allows us to help us in our discipline. He says if you're not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline, then you're not legitimate. You're not true sons or daughters from the Lord. Verse nine, moreover, we've all had human fathers who discipline us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the father of spirits and live? They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good in order that we may share in his holiness. What a goal. Verse 11. No discipline seems pleasant at the time. It's painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. There's a reason Paul keeps using this analogy and the writer of Hebrews uses this analogy. What we're doing, we don't do it half-hazardly. We can't. It takes discipline. Deuteronomy 8, know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. Why? Because he he hates us or he doesn't like. No, because we're his children. Observe. He says the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. I think we get the point by now. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it produces a harvest of righteousness, especially these that we're talking about, these spiritual disciplines. Some may be uncomfortable, some are painful, but they're always necessary. Paul describes him as dealing a blow to his body. None of us are waking up in the morning and punching ourselves. Hopefully, that doesn't sound fun at all. He's saying, "I'm bringing my body into subjection." And that typically, like I said, doesn't make us jump up and run the aisles and have a praise break. But it's powerful nonetheless. If we want to be healthy and growing and full of love, it requires, you guessed it, discipline. If we want to be growing in Christ, we've got to have self-control, a fruit of the spirit. If we want to be full of love, it requires attaining to the measure of his stature. If we want to be like Jesus, who is probably one of the most disciplined persons to walk the earth, we must be his true disciples of discipline. If we want to receive the crown, we've got to fight the good fight, run the race with endurance, keep the faith. They're all built on discipline. everything we want to be as Christians as the church requires faithfulness, consistency, self-control, and discipline. It's the stuff in the way of life. And it may not be the message that gets us all excited, but as I said, it's powerful and effectual nonetheless. It's foundational.

And it's the very foundation that the second element in our title and message today can and should be built upon. In other words, that often unexciting foundation of discipline can and should lead to and include the word used time and time again in the scriptures, the sentiment that follows it, delight. Put another way, our pursuit of Christ and his stature, it has to include discipline. There's no way around it. All right? But it does not have to stop and cease there. It can and also include delight. It should include delight. I know I just talked about the fact that we don't need to be constantly entertained and and that has its detriments and and we we can pursue things that that will do that. I'm not trying to cut the legs of discipline out from under it. I want to build on it instead because the truth is that our spiritual disciplines, prayer, Bible reading, fasting, sacrificial giving, pursuing holiness, pursuing peace and unity with all men, sharing the gospel, running the race with patience, walking with God. These can become if you if you allow them to, these can become far more than something that we do to just check a box or something we do because it's on the counter or something we do because we feel guilty if we don't or something we do because it's time for quarterly prayer and fast. If we do it right, if we do it with Christ as our aim, they can and should become something we delight in. Spiritual disciplines can also become spiritual delights. And I think where some of us get stuck is that they're only ever viewed as a discipline and we just view it as a drudgery and well I just got to do this because I know that I'm supposed to do it. And if that's the case, I believe that we're missing it. I believe we're missing an entire fundamental building block of what it means to truly follow and live with and emulate Christ. We may be missing the true aim of all those disciplines. It's the discipline isn't the aim. I don't get on this bike because, well, this is the goal right here. I get on this bike because I want to be healthy and growing and full of love and the reason I follow Christ is Christ himself. And if I'm missing that and I'm missing the joy that comes with following Jesus, I am missing it. Instead, walking with Jesus, being a disciplined disciple, imitating Christ's teachings, these are not a drudgery. These are not just another chore. These are not something I do to just check a box. Hear me. These can actually become the central joy and expectation and delight of my entire life. I should enjoy Jesus and my pursuit of Jesus. I believe this is why the psalmist mentions the word delight at least 10 times in Psalm 119 when he talks about following the word of God, hiding the word of God in his heart. What is it always fun? Was it always entertaining? Maybe not. Did it always appeal to his flesh like the reals we had today? No. No. But what a joy and what a delight to know the truth of the word of God and to walk with our God. And

I quote from Psalm 119. He says, "I'll meditate on your precepts and I'll contemplate your ways. I will delight myself in your statutes." Does this sound like someone who's dragging himself? Says, "I won't forget your word. Your testimonies are also my delight. Your testimonies are my counselors. Verse 33. Teach me, oh Lord, the way of your statutes, and I'll keep it to the end. And give me understanding, and I'll keep your law. Indeed, I'll observe it with my whole heart. Make me walk in the paths of your commandments. I delight in it. So shall I keep your law continually forever and ever. And I'll walk at liberty, for I seek your precepts. I'll speak of your testimonies before kings. And and I won't be ashamed. I'll delight myself in your commandments. I love those commandments. My hands also I lift up to your commandments which I love. He says it again. And I'll meditate on your statute. Psalm 63. Oh God, you're my God. Early will I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you. In a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So, so I've looked for you in the sanctuary. I want to see your power. I want to see your glory because your loving kindness is better than life. Do we believe that today? God's loving kindness, his grace, his mercies. It's better than life. I can't go anywhere else and receive what I receive from him. He says, "My lips will praise you. I'll bless you while I live. I'll lift up my hands in your name. My soul will be satisfied with marrow and fatness and and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. I'm not going to offer a praise with pursed lips and an obligatory response, but but I will seek you with joy, and I'll abide in your presence where there's fullness of joy, and I'll follow your princ uh principles with joy, and I'll pursue righteousness and holiness, and I'll do it with joy, and I'll I'll meet you each morning with joy instead of drudgery and disappointment. And I will exercise discipline, but I will do it in a disposition of joy and delight and gratitude. And not just to check a box or to say that I gutted or gritted my way through it. I will delight myself in the Lord all the days of my life. I'll delight in his presence. I'll delight in his goodness. I'll delight in his mercy. I'll delight in the discipline of following him, which is my life's pursuit. And delight. My discipline doesn't have to be a dread. It can be and should be accompanied by a delight in the presence and the goodness of God.

Psalm one is a reminder of this. This is a life first of mind. Says, "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. He doesn't stand in the way of sinners. He doesn't sit in the seat of the scornful." Let me just be honest here. I know that's some uh maybe some King James or New King James language, but he's talking about is is being around people, bad company basically, but that can be fun sometimes. sin. Pleasure is a sin the Bible talks about. But the person who doesn't do that instead instead his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law. He meditates day and night. I want you to notice he meditates day and night. He's got discipline. Two things can be true at one time. He has discipline and he also is having a blast. He delights in it. I know some may hear that and okay, how can that be? How can he enjoy that so much? Let me just encourage you. Try it and you'll find out why. He delights in the law of the Lord. And the promises of God continue. He'll be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. It brings forth its fruit and its season. Its leaf will not wither. Whatever he does will prosper. Hear me today. Discipline can and should lead to delight both in the moment and in the aftermath. Discipline can be the foundation upon which delight and your entire health is founded. Spiritual disciplines can and should lead to delight.

And one of the wildest examples of this is this death machine right here. I have a lovehate relationship with it. I don't even know how to pronounce this. Demason de I don't know. We have we're not on a firstname basis. Unless you think I'm one of those crazy exercise people that are in the room, one of those exercise addicts, I'm not. I'm just thankful to make it through a set. All right. Just so glad when it gets to whatever mile marker I'm trying to get to or time and I'm like, "Oh, thank God." All right, let's get off this thing. Never in my life did I think that this stationary bike would be something I looked forward to. There are days it still isn't something I look for. But in a strange turn of events, my time on this squeaky bike. Oh, it squeaks. It's turned into what exercise enthusiasts call, and I love this, joyful movement. How in the world can exercise be joyful? I love that phrase, joyful movement, because I thought I enjoyed not moving. Until I started moving, until I started walking with Jesus every day, I thought I had it made appeasing and appealing to and feeding just my flesh. But then I got in step with Jesus and his regimen and his discipline, and I have been enjoying Jesus ever since. Turns out that doing things like jumping on this exercise bike and ride it for a while releases endorphins into your brain. They give you a joyful hap. I'm This is the science. All right. It's crazy. I know. They actually give you a feeling of delight and fulfillment. Causes you to be more focused and attain better cognition and rest. It increases cardiovascular health over long term and and things like muscle mass and strength endurance and lung capacity. It gives you enhanced coordination and balance. Lowers your risk of chronic disease. It sounds like an infomercial, but it's all true. It enhances your mood. It reduces stress and anxiety. It can even help improve your sleep. Some of you are going to go on Facebook Marketplace while I'm preaching. I want you to hear me. The discipline that I dreaded and I had to drag myself to do became something that incited joy and delight and health. And this morning, the question I have for myself and for all of us, if I could get all of that on a $100 stationary bike death machine, how much more should my spiritual disciplines produce a delight and a joy and a health? How much more should walking with Jesus and spending time with Jesus and grow into the measure of his stature, adding faith and virtue and love and self-control? What what should studying and reading the word do to my spirit? Yeah, go ahead, brother John. What should sacrificing and giving to God's people and kingdom do? What would pursuing righteousness and holiness do in my life? How much more should I enjoy Jesus and enjoy walking with him? This is not a dread what we're talking about today. This is the delight of our lives. This is our birthright. This is what's been promised to us. Self-control is the fruit of the spirit. Yes, it is. Longsuffering. We don't really like those. But I also need to remind you joy is one of those fruits of the spirit. Peace is one. Kindness is one of those. We ought to enjoy the discipline of walking in the spirit.

Psalm 16 says, "I've set the Lord always before me. Because he's at my right hand, I won't be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad. I set him before me all the time, and because of it, my heart is glad. My glory rejoices. My flesh will rest in hope. For you won't leave my my soul in the depths and in sh. You won't allow me to seek corruption. You'll show me the path of life. This is the path of life today. And your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forever more. I'm just trying to salt someone's oats today. I'm trying to inspire you. These got to be something more than a dreaded discipline. These can and should be the delight of your life. Delight yourself in the Lord. Delight yourself in him. Oh, someone let that joy rise up in you again. Philippians 4, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, rejoice. He didn't write that from a polished palace. He wrote that from a prison cell where he exercised contentment, a spiritual discipline. And he says, "Rejoice in the Lord always, even when it ain't fun. Even when it's brutal, even when you're struggling, even when you're discouraged, rejoice and delight in your communication with him. Rejoice in his word and hiding his word in his heart, in your heart. Enjoy his goodness and his mercy and his presence. Enjoy being closer and nearer to Jesus. You ought to rejoice with every step that gets you closer to Jesus and to his stature." And while we're at it, just in case it isn't obvious, we ought to enjoy the spiritual discipline of coming to the Lord's house and being together. Hebrews says, "Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Don't abandon coming to church and so much the more as you see the day approaching." I think sometimes we take that solely without any other scripture. Okay. I just all I have to do my relationship with the church and church services and assembling together. I just shouldn't forsake it and I should just be faithful. And you should and I do not diminish I do not diminish anybody's faithfulness. But what if it wasn't just a discipline? What if it was a delight? What if I woke up on a Sunday morning and I said, "Thank you, Jesus." And I get to go to the house of the Lord and I get to be with the people of God. What if I got dressed on a Wednesday night when I'm tired and I've had a full day of work and said, "Oh man, I get to go hear the word of truth. I get to be a part of the body of Christ." What if I was glad when they said unto me, "Let us go to the house of the Lord. What if there was a spring in my step walking into the house? What if I walked in the doors with praise on my lips and and rejoicing in my What if I expected God to do something miraculous? What if I took the tack to the sons of Kora who said this? How lovely is your tabernacle, oh Lord of hosts. My soul longs and even faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. What if we were delighted and not just discipline? I love discipline. We have to have it. But what if it was a delight and not a dread? What are you getting at, pastor? What are you asking from us today?

Full disclosure, musicians, you can come. There are some in the room who don't have the discipline yet. I'm not just talking about church attendance. And I encourage you anytime those doors are open to be here. Some don't have the discipline yet in in multiple areas and you're beating yourself up over it and you're thinking, man, I just I have to do these because it's an obligation. That's true. You should. If you don't pay your bills, that's a discipline. You're going to end up in some trouble. All right. Some don't have the discipline yet and the Lord is after you because these disciplines affect everything. They are not the end goal. As I said, Jesus is the end goal. But if you don't have any discipline in your life, especially some that we talked about reading the word of God, the words of his mouth are more necessary than my daily bread. Job said the Lord's after you to establish the discipline. And then there are others who have the discipline, but you've either lost or never found the delight. You don't even know what it means. This isn't diminishing you and this isn't put but maybe you're hearing me talk and you're like wait I can sit in the presence of God without the people of God and I can that can be the most fulfilling thing I've ever felt in my life and I can have joy and I can I can wake up earlier but still have joy. Yes, maybe you got the discipline and you're walking through but you're going through some motions and you don't delight. God is not a God that forces you to to just walk endlessly and aimlessly and never strengthen you and never encourage you and never let you feel his joy and his peace. He's not cruel like that. Some are missing both. Without spiritual discipline, there's hardly ever delight except for when you come into the presence of God on a Sunday and you feel the glory of God and you feel the Lord drawing you. Others are missing the treasure of being enveloped in the goodness of God. And I get it, okay? I get it. I remember the early days of discipline. I remember waking up earlier before school and then before work and I open my Bible and I make it one chapter into the bread reading program, King James version of Genesis 1, and I'd hit Leviticus like a buzzsaw. I love Leviticus now. I remember falling asleep. Just be real. I remember being to pray, starting to pray for three minutes or four minutes, and then I'd fall asleep. It get me tested, you know, falling asleep uh spontaneously. I remember my mind wandering, still does sometimes. Fasting one meal, I'm like, I can't do this. I can't feel hunger. I still don't always get it right. I got small kids. They wake me up. God love them. I don't always get it right. Please don't see this as some kind of pastor perfectionism. I'm not talking about some unattainable goal, something lofty that you just can't fulfill. I don't always get it right. It's not always easy to just spring out of bed when you've been up through the night with kids or you've been up through the night. Sometimes that alarm clock is a dread. All right. But can I tell you that usually lasts about 10 minutes? And like many of you, I'll wake up overwhelmed or I'll wake up with this and this and this and this and those thoughts flood my mind. That'll last for just a couple minutes. And it lasts until I get into the living room and I sit with my coffee and my Bible and my friend. It changes everything. My discipline is what gets me out of bed, but the light is what puts me in that chair and lets me linger and stay in the presence of God. I know that this church, if you've been here six months or a year, you've heard me talk about this over and over and over again. One of the reasons is because the Lord has asked me and told me to talk about it over and over again. But the second I'm so passionate about it is because I would not be here. How many of you wouldn't be here without Jesus, your time with him? We wouldn't be here. And I want someone else not just to get the discipline. I want you to have it. I'm telling you, it's it's wonderful. But I also want you to have that delight in the presence and in the goodness of God. And his presence is fullness of joy. I wish I could impart it to somebody who may be skeptical right now thinking, "No, that's not me. That's just a pastor thing." No, it is not. cuz I got flesh, too. But if you'll try it and if you'll lay a foundation of discipline, I can tell you that delight will follow shortly. Discipline makes it possible. Delight makes it enjoyable. And we were never supposed to walk with God like this in drudgery and dread. We were supposed to walk with him in joy and in peace and in goodness and mercy flanking us. And the Lord is calling and drawing us to his side today. I want you to stand with me right now. Couple about a week and a half ago, sitting in the living room just laying the foundation of discipline. Nothing too crazy that morning. I wasn't running in the house. So, it wasn't it was just sitting with the Lord. Mr. Wesley walks in. I got to observe his first interactions with the world that morning. That's just one way of putting it. If you've never been around Wesley, he's just funny. Whether he tries to be or not, he's a funny guy. He's probably hearing what I'm saying. I don't even remember what all he was doing, but it was making me laugh. I was sitting across the room from him and he just has this innate innocent humor and his manurisms, all the things. And again, just him, his interaction with the sun that morning and the the world was struck my attention. In that moment, I felt the Lord just break in like he wants to do in someone's life today. Broke in. I just felt the Lord speak to me and asked me, he said, "Do you enjoy your son spending time with him?" Yes. He said, "I do too. I enjoy our time together. Have to excuse the vulnerable conversation I had with the Lord. That sobered me. The God of heaven delights in me. Later in the Psalm 37, it would tell us he delights in our way. Later Psalms will talk about how God takes pleasure in his people. Your discipline paves the way for you to delight in the Lord, but it also paves the way for him to delight in you. So when you miss it, you're not just short changing yourself. But there's a God in heaven waiting on you every day. Doesn't have to be in the morning. That's just my time waiting on you every day because he wants to talk to you and he wants to spend time with you.

And today I'm after two groups of people. Okay? The first is a group of people who've been struggling in your discipline. This is not in any way to pile on guilt. This is just to start again. You can come in just a moment and lay a foundation of discipline and that can be the foundation the Lord meets with you and strengthens you every single day. You can just start. You don't have to get all 100 of them from the jump. You can start with one. You can start with praying and reading your Bible. You can come and and ask the Lord for his help and commit to him. Lord, I'm going to get the discipline. If you're a guest with us today and this is your first time, maybe you don't even really know how to pray or maybe this is foreign to you and you're like, "Wait, we're going to come to the front of the the building." Yes. In just a moment, if you're comfortable, we invite everybody to come. And what this does, it's just a step of faith. It's a discipline getting you out of your seat. You can come and just say, "Lord, I need your help. I want to spend time with you and I want to be in your presence and you can repent of your sins and God will forgive you this morning." That's the first group that you just need the discipline and the help with it. Second is those who have lost the delight or maybe you never found it. Here's what I felt the Lord deal with me about this week. God wants to baptize someone with joy again. I met a lady two weeks ago, an elder in the church. She said, "I didn't even know it, but I had lost all joy in my life. And in one service, the Lord restored joy to her heart." He is not intended for you to live without joy. I don't know who exactly I'm talking to, but God wants you to delight in his presence. He wants to baptize you again with joy and with peace. He wants you to leave here with joy unspeakable and full of glory. If you've lost the delight or you want to gain it, I'm after you today and more specifically, the Lord is. So, if you're in those two groups, you need help with the discipline and you want to start in your journey with God and you're a guest today and you want to start your journey with him or you just need the Lord's joy and you want to delight in him. I wonder if you just step out of where you are right now and come and find a place to talk to the Lord and spend some time with him until you commit to those disciplines or until that joy starts to rise in your spirit. Would you just if you're needing the Lord's help with that discipline or you needing the Lord's help with his joy, would you step out right now and come and find a place to commit to the Lord of God? Oh God, we hear your word today. Uh we hear you calling us. We feel you drawing us. If you want to respond to the drawing of the Lord right now that he's trying to get you closer to him and trying to get you nearer to his side, if you want to draw nearer to the Lord, if you want to draw nearer to him, would you come and lift your hands right now and lift your voices? Oh God, I've been waning in my discipline. I I've struggled, Lord. There's mornings I just don't make it. There's entire weeks I've gone, but you're not here to condemn me. You're not here to put me down. You're not here to shame me in any way. I commit to you right now that I'm going to have the discipline. I'm going to spend the time with you. I'm going to walk with you, Lord. And I know that that joy is going to follow. That the peace of God is going to follow. That anytime I get in your presence, there's a fullness of joy. Ah, there's such a joy, Lord, that this world cannot give. That no other means or no other mechanism or no other entity can give. Jesus, we want to walk with you, Lord. Help us to have discipline, but also help us to have delight. Oh, lot of fire in us, Lord of joy. I pray you'd baptize someone with your joy again in the name of Jesus. All my praise. I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. In the secret place of the most high, it's where I abide. It's where I abide. More and more I long to be by your side. It's where I hide. I desire you in all I do. My soul thirsts for you. I give my all to you forever. All my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise. I give my all. I give my all. In the secret place of the most high, it's where I abide. It's where I abide. More and more I long to be by your side. It's where I hide. I desire you in all I do. My soul thirsts for you. I give my all to you forever. Oh my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise. I give my all. I give my all. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your holy name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your holy name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your holy name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your holy name. Oh my worship. Oh my praise, I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your holy name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your holy name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your holy name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your name. Lord, I praise your holy name. All my worship, all my praise, I give my all. I give my all. All my worship, all my praise. I give my all. I give my own.

Throughout the congregation, I've just felt the need to pray for the joy of the Lord. I know that we often pray for peace and we should. Sometimes I think we might take joy for granted or that we just always have it. David was found to saying, "Restore to me the joy of your salvation." I believe that the Lord wants to restore joy in someone's life. Maybe you didn't even know you were lacking it until this moment. And if you're lacking it in any way, God wants you to walk in it and to enjoy it. If you'd like to pray for the Lord's joy in your life and you're just open and vulnerable today and say, you know what? Yeah, I'll take a little more joy. Would you just lift your hand right now? I can't make it to everybody, church, but I don't have to. There's hands all across this room. It's probably something we need to pray for more. Keep that hand up if you wouldn't mind. Church family, would you stand right now and would you just mobilize and go to these people who have their hand lifted? Lift that hand again and we're going to pray. Would you just pray until they feel joy or the joy of the Lord comes over them right now? I'm going to turn this mic off and go pray myself. Would you go and lay hands and let's pray for that fruit of the spirit that's pro

We take a moment right now and thank the Lord for his goodness and for his joy. Oh, if you've got the joy of the Lord, would you just thank him for it, Jesus? We don't take it for granted. And we've got your joy. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus, for your wonderful and powerful and sweet presence. It's here where there's fullness of joy, oh God. We believe there's fullness of joy here. We're leaving here with that joy. Thank you, Jesus. We thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. We know that joy is different from happiness. Happiness is fleeting. Joy is promised to you. Joy is promised. It's our birthright, church. We ought to have the joy of the Lord. So, wherever God's presence is, there's joy. It just requires us to make our way to his presence, which is where discipline comes in. And the Lord wants us to delight in him.