5 Requirements for the Christian

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to a podcast by Lance Lambert Ministries. For more information on this ministry, visit lancelambert.org or follow us on social media to receive all of our updates. In today's episode, lance preaches about five requirements shown in Psalm 27 that are necessary for a Christian to grow in the Lord and to begin the process toward maturity in Christ. Lance shares how David, a man after God's heart, demonstrates other each each of these five qualities in the midst of a great trial in his life. Let's listen to five requirements for the Christian. [00:00:39] Speaker B: Father we dare not come to thy word Thy word which is living and active, without first bowing before thee and saying, Lord, that whether in preaching the word or whether in hearing the Word, we need thee. For, Lord, Thy word says that the natural man receiveth not the things of God, because they are foolishness unto him. We pray, Lord, that we may not understand with our natural mind, but Lord, in our spirit we may receive of thee. Give that spirit of wisdom and revelation, and the knowledge of thee, Lord, this morning open our eyes, break thou the bread of life to us. We take the anointing upon the head both for speaking and hearing, and pray that every single one of us may receive something, Lord, from thyself, from Thy hand. We ask it with much praise and thanksgiving, remembering all who suffer, those who are laid aside. We thank Thee for bringing through Mrs. Penhaligon for bringing through Mrs. Lambert. Lord, we praise Thee for answer to prayer in both these lives we look to Thee to continue many others, Lord, in need meet them, Lord, according to thy promise. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. I want to read the 27th Psalm. We've sung the first verse, 20:7th Psalm the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers came upon me to eat up my flesh, even mine adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell. Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear, Though war should rise against me, even then will I be confident. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple for in the day of trouble he will keep me secretly in his pavilion, in the COVID of his tabernacle will he hide me he will lift me up upon a rock, and now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies, Round about me and I will offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. Yea, I will sing. Yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer me. When thou saidst seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face from me. Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Cast me in honor. Neither forsake me, O God, of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the will of mine adversaries. For false witnesses arisen up against me and such as breathe out cruelty. I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let thy heart take courage. Yea, wait thou for the Lord. Well, now, we haven't a lot of time left to us this morning, but there are just five strands in this psalm which really all I can do is take and leave with you. Just take out of the psalm and underline five strands which I think must be found in every single child of God and in every single one who would serve the Lord. And the first is very simple. This psalmist, the one who wrote this psalm, David was a man of faith. A man of faith. Listen to his words. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? You see, there is a consequence here. First, there is living faith. And the consequence, Whom shall I fear? In exactly the same way, the moment we change our position and say, oh, may the Lord be my light, we start to fear. His was a simple declaration of faith. The just shall live on the principle of faith. All that is not of faith is sin. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't pray, that we shouldn't inquire of the Lord, that we shouldn't seek the Lord. This psalm says, when thou didst say, seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee. Thy face, O Lord, will I seek. But here is a position of faith which is fundamental to every single question. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Now, evidently this dear man was facing a lot of darkness. All the way through the psalm, we get the impression that it's a wonderful psalm of triumph. And so it is. But it is set in the midst of very great conflict and darkness. We read of evildoers, verse two, eating up his flesh. That was the Purpose of these evildoers to eat up his flesh, to consume him, to swallow him up altogether, to make a meal of him. Verse 3. A host should encamp against me also. Verse 3. The war should rise against me again. A little further on in verse 6. Above mine enemies, round about me in the day of trouble. Verse 5. My father and my mother forsaking me. False witnesses breathing out cruelty. What a background. What circumstances this man has got. He. We would have. Well, we would have forgiven him a thousand times from our own experience if he said, o Lord, be my light and my salvation, O Lord, be the strength of my life. This we would have forgiven him. We would have understood it. We have said it again and again. And that's why we've been filled with fear and have retreated and have often known defeat. In the thick of the battle. This man knew triumph, he knew victory. He even knew praise and worship. Now why? Simply because he was a man of God given faith. Faith is not something we can work up from ourselves. It is God given faith. God given faith. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. He probably felt never more weak than when he said that. He probably never felt more the powers of darkness all around him when he said, the Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is the strength of my life. Now that is the word of our testimony by which we overcome the enemy. The word of our testimony is not saying, 20 years ago I was saved. The word of our testimony is when we say, he is my life, he is my strength, he is my light, he is my love, he is my triumph. That is the word of testimony. You are not asking for something, you are not even seeking something. You are stating a fact. And it doesn't matter how much the devil breathes down your neck, he cannot get over the fact. The fact is a fact. The fact is a fact, he can't undo the fact. And therefore, when you speak out a fact, it's as if the enemy is paralyzed instantly. It's truth. And you know, in the last analysis, the whole battle is the battle between the truth and the lie, light and darkness. And we believers, we have to speak out. What is faith? Faith isn't screwing up some feeling inside where you feel rosy and sort of warm and lovely. That's not faith, that's sentiment. And sentiment was never faith. Faith is to declare the unseen, invisible facts. That's all. And what is the unseen and invisible fact? The Lord is my light and my salvation. This darkness is a Lie. This weakness is a lie in one sense. The truth is that the Lord is my light and my salvation. We've got it everywhere here, you see. He says, though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. What a position of faith. Let the enemy take up his positions all around me, train all his guns on me. I'm not going to fear, though war should rise against me. Though he makes a solemn declaration of war to drive me into the sea and finish me altogether, even then will I be confident. It's a position of faith. He's a man of faith. He's not sort of saying, oh, oh, my goodness, we'll have to have a month of prayer. Look. Look at that great array. Look at the army that's against me. Oh, this is terrible. Now, again, I'm not saying that prayer is wrong or a month of prayer is wrong, but it's what lies behind it. If we think that by much prayer we're going to win the battle, we're done before we started praying. It is the finished work of Jesus Christ. Now, if that's the basis of our prayer, if our prayer is to declare the fact. If our prayer is executive prayer in this matter, then we may well have a week. We may have to go around like they did round the walls of Jericho for a whole week before the walls come down. But they'll come down because the basis of our prayer is absolute faith. The Lord is my light and my salvation. We find it everywhere. He says, here is his declaration again. In the day of trouble, he will keep me, you see, it's all will. He will. He will. He will. First he says, the Lord is, then he says, he will. The Lord is. He will. Do you know that wonderful consequence in your life? Can you say, he is, therefore he will? He is, therefore I will. You see, he says in part of it in verse five, for in the day of trouble he will keep me secretly in the COVID of his tabernacle will he hide me. He will lift me up upon a rock. Now shall my head be lifted up above my nose. And I will offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing. Yeah, I will sing. So you see, there's a marvelous consequence here from a position of faith. Now, I've never yet met a person who's a worshiping believer who isn't a person of faith. I've never met anyone who's all the time saying, oh, dear, maybe perhaps I should. I know what. I know what I ought to be, and I know what I've got and I'm seeking. They're never worshipers, but real worshippers are those who can say in the midst of the battle, the Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is the strength of my life. Because he is. He will in the day of trouble, he will hide me, keep me secretly in the COVID of his tabernacle. Will he hide me. He will lift me up upon a rock. I will offer sacrifices of joy, yea, I will sing praises. You see, there's a consequence. Faith always, as it were, connects us up with our provision in God. A man of faith. I wish we could stay for a long time on that, but the time's already nearly gone. So the second thing is, this is a man of patience. Now, I think this is what finds a lot of us out. We can be people of faith, but not patience. Now, this man was not only a man of faith, he was also a man of patience. Listen. Listen to it. You would have thought you read the first. No wonder some of these modernists and liberals looking at this psalm are quite sure that it's a hotch potch. They say the same man couldn't have written the whole thing. It's obviously part two. Some clumsy scribe has brought together two. Two pieces from different sources and sort of jammed them together. Because how could the same man who's talking about not fearing and all of us say like this, I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let thy heart take courage. Ye wait thou for the Lord. In other words, the situation was by no means over. The circumstances, by the time he'd finished the psalm were just the same as he'd begun. He was different. He had taken a position. Now, we have to be men and women of patience. Now, what is patience? Well, some of you have in your margins a nice little alternative rendering endurance, steadfast endurance. And really, that's what patience is. It is the ability to endure, believing that the thing God has promised is going to come to pass. Now, if you turn to Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 12, we're told that ye be not sluggish, but imitators of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Now, many people, once they've taken a position of faith on the word of God, believe that unless it immediately happens, something's terribly wrong with them. So if God says something to you, take a position on it. And unless it instantaneously happens, literally within hours, or at least within, within that day or two, then something's terribly wrong. But patience can sometimes mean that on some promises of God, we have to wait a lifetime. Indeed, one of the most moving facts of all is that all those Old Testament saints all died in faith, not having received the promise. And yet we're told we are to imitate those who, through faith and patience, inherit. In the end, they have inherited every one of them. James, with his very practical way of looking at things, says in. In chapter one, verse two, count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into manifold temptations or trials, knowing that the proving of your faith will worketh patience. And let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be made perfect and entire, lacking in nothing. Is this the key to the psalmist's experience? How do we get patience? You've all heard the story of the lady who went to Watchman Knee and asked. She said. He said, well, what is it you want, Idea? And she said, I need more faith. And so he said, well, shall we pray about it? Yes. She said, would you, brother? Would you pray? And they got down their knees, and brother, he began praying, said, lord, send my sister much tribulation. Many, many trials. And she stopped him halfway through and said, brother, faith. It was faith you were asking for. And he said, that's right. Much tribulation worketh patience. The fact of the matter is, it may be the key to this psalm that this psalmist is going through all these trials and tribulations. He seems to be learning the lesson. He has learned a simple lesson upon which many of us fail. Wait for the Lord. Better rendering than wait on the Lord. Wait for the Lord. Patience. I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. You see, you can have faith, but even with faith you can collapse unless you have patience. And as James says, patience is. Let it have its perfect work. You may be perfect, complete and entire, lacking nothing. If any person's really got patience, the Bible says they are mature, they're complete. It's the crown in Christian experience. This was a man of patience in all this. He had taken his position. The Lord is my light and my salvation. I will not budge from it. I shall steadfastly endure here. The Lord is the strength of my life. Let them all come up against me. Let them declare war. Let them encamp all around me. Let them train their guns upon me, let them bring up all their great sort of weapons and everything else. I take up my position of faith and I am staying Here, by the grace of God, until I see the Lord work. That's the second thing. And then the third thing is that he is a man who is utterly centered. Rather, he's a man of real experience. Now again, all the way through this psalm we have experience. This is not a man who's just theorizing. Here is someone of real experience. And you know, faith can in fact only lead us into experience. Living faith always leads us into experience, never into theories. You don't just become a person of ideals, you become a person of experience. Even when what God has finally fully promised has not yet yours, you are still a person of experience. For whilst he may withhold the actual details of the fulfillment he gives himself to you so that you experience him. And that's much better than the details. And that's why again, the psalmist says, the Lord is my light. That's better than anything else. All the light of this world, the light in all the universities of the world, the light in every educational establishment, is nothing to be compared with the light that is God. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. The Lord is my light and my soul. He's a man of experience, but also on the one hand, of real experience of the Lord. He's a man of real experience, of trial. He speaks of the Lord lifting him up upon the rock. He speaks of his head being lifted up above his enemies is real experience. He is also a man of worship. I will offer sacrifices of joy, I will praise, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. It's a man of worship. That's experience. Some people seem to have made a very unfortunate sort of contradistinction, they say. They seem to think that either you are a prayer or a practicer. You're either a worshipper or a get along with the work. Wherever did they get such a difference? Of course, I'm quite sure there are some people's prayers who are it's nothing but wind. And in the same way some people's praise is nothing but the mouthing of a theory or two. But the true man of prayer is a man of practice. And the true worshiper is always the person who is experiencing the Lord. You can't really worship the Lord. We all know how inhibitions. You can't really worship the Lord really let yourself go and adore the Lord unless you're experiencing the Lord. A little voice at the back of your mind says, don't be such a hypocrite. We know that even when we are experiencing the Lord, we put up with enough of it from the enemy, accusing them. Real worshipers are people who are experiencing the Lord. This is the testimony of the psalmist. He's someone who's finding the Lord is his light, his salvation, the strength of his life. So much more. And then he's also a man of human experience. Evidently he knew something of trouble with other people. Most of us have troubles with other human beings. I suppose the majority of our problems come from personality clashes or collisions or the rest of it, you know, at home and office, marriage, relationship or whatever it is. It's there that we have all our problems. He evidently had something too, along those lines. He speaks of people rising up against him, false witnesses breathing out cruelty. He speaks so interestingly of his mother and his father forsaking him behind the psalm. Then there is hidden experience, human experience. And I don't think anyone can be a worshipper who hasn't human experience. Even our Lord Jesus. We see him as the perfect example of humanity. When he burst into tears at Lazarus's grave, when he was touched with compassion, when he saw the leper. There's a humanity there, man of human experience as well as of spiritual experience. And then I say, he's a man centered in Christ. Look in verse four. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord. Here is a man who is centered in Christ. He hasn't got some great sort of doctrine about the church or about experience or about the Christian life, or about sanctification or about the Holy Spirit that is filling his whole view. He is a man filled with the beauty of the Lord his God. A man whose vision is filled with a person not with experiences and not with things, but with a person centered in Christ. Faith must always lead us to that. Otherwise faith itself becomes somehow or other just an inoperative thing. You know, we get faith from the author and finisher of faith. And now we can only get faith by looking unto him. When we look unto him, we get faith when we look away to the things, even good things, biblical things. We lose our faith. But the moment we have a vision of our risen, glorified, ascended Christ, that moment faith is born in our hearts. You only need faith as a grain of mustard seed to do some things, to do anything, actually. I mean, shift and epirus, that's something. You only need faith as a grain of mustard seed to do it. And you get it the same way that all the rest have got it by looking unto him when you see him, when your vision is filled with him. The psalmist, it seems to me, is someone who is filled with the Lord. Listen to him in verse five. For in the day of trouble, he will keep me not. My experience will stand me in good stead. Not what happened to me in the convention last summer that's going to take me through. Poor you, poor you. If that's the truth of the matter. No, it's the Lord, you see. He says, for in the day of trouble he will keep me secretly in his pavilion. In the COVID of his tabernacle will he hide me. He will lift me up upon the rock. It's the Lord. He's centered in the Lord. The key to his whole life is the Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is the strength of my life. He is a man centered in the Lord. How that finds us all out, doesn't it? I like very much too. In verse 8, where it says here, when thou saidst seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. And then he says, hide not thy face from me. Now the face speaks of the person. In Scripture, face always speaks of the personality of the person. Indeed, in Hebrew, where the whole thought of this idea of face comes from this word. Panim just means. Means presence. And you speak of the presence of somebody. You say, since I spoke of Ron's presence, I speak of Ron's face. If I speak of Rodney's presence, I speak of his face. Literally in Hebrew I say, rodney's face is here. Ron's face is here. When thou saidst unto me, seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee thy face, O Lord, when I seek, hide not thy face from me. The faith speaks not only of the presence of the Lord, but of the intimacy of the Lord. Here's a man centered in Christ. He's getting to know his God. He's getting to know his Lord. He is walking with him. He is experiencing him. He is wholly centered in his Lord. Lastly, he is a man with a real understanding of God's purpose. One thing have I asked of the Lord, verse 4. That will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. He's got hold of the purpose of God. And what is the purpose of God? It is more than that you and I should just be centered in Christ. It is that we should be built together in him as a holy habitation for God in the Spirit. The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, the temple of the living God, the holy city, the bride of the Lamb. However you put it, what is, is Christ. But it is not just Christ personally, but you and I in him, becoming, as it were, part of him, and therefore part of one another. Is that not what it says in Romans 12, verses 4 and 5? Members of Christ and of one another. Just as I become a member of Christ, a limb of Christ, a part of Christ, I become part of you, and you become part of me. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Me. [00:31:29] Speaker B: That is the purpose of God. That is the house of God. That is the church of God. That is the thing that all down through the ages there's been this tremendous contention with God on the part of the devil over this very thing. And it was the Lord Jesus who died that he might raise, as we heard in our study on Thursday, that he might raise that temple, not only his own body on the resurrection, but in him a new man. In him a bride like Eve taken out of Adam, the church taken out of his opened, wounded side. A bride, a wife of the Lamb. How can we put it? Some people have got the idea, they think, is it actually a woman they picture in their mind as kind of beautiful lady all beautifully dressed in finery at the side of the master. But you see, we're dealing with a spiritual entity, with spiritual truth, and we are explaining it. The Bible, the spirit of God explains it in human language. So he speaks of it as the temple of the living God. He speaks of it as the house of God. He speaks of it as the home. He speaks of it as the bride of the Lamb. He speaks of it as the wife of the Lamb. He speaks as the body of Christ. He speaks of it as Christ. Explaining this spiritual unity, this amazing thing that was in God's heart from the beginning of time before the foundation of the world, which the devil thought he had completely prostrated when man fell. But thanks be unto God, it was Jesus who came, laid down his life for our salvation, and in so doing has produced the very thing God has always wanted. From the beginning, this dear man David had a clearer understanding of some things than many questioned. One thing have I asked, after that will I seek. One thing have I asked that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. What for? To sort of revel in church doctrine? Oh, no. Go round sort of making propaganda about church practice and the nature that no to behold the beauty of the Lord. And that's what the church is really about, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. And it is there, dear child of God, that you are safe. In the COVID of his tabernacle. Will he hide me in his pavilion? Will he secretly keep me in his tabernacle? I will offer sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing unto the Lord. This man was a man who had an understanding of the purpose of God. May we be like David, a man, a woman after God's own heart. Shall we pray? How we pray, Lord, that these few strands out of many that we have taken from this 27th Psalm may be true of every one of us and of us as a people, O Lord. How easily we get centered on other things. How easily, Lord, even our own experience or things, Christian things take the place, even our work, our service, the place that alone thou shouldst have, O Lord, call us back by thy spirit, melt our hearts. May we be men and women of faith and of patience and of experience, men and women centered in Christ. Who can say for to me to live is Christ and to die more of him. And may we be those who have an understanding of thy purpose and are practically involved in its fulfillment, its outworking. We ask it, dear Lord, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. [00:36:29] Speaker A: May you press on toward maturity in Christ. May your faith be steadied with patience and an experience of who the Lord is. May you know the deep, deep love of Jesus.