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0:44Celebrate while you wait. Specifically, what we are to be doing while we are waiting for the Lord. We are to celebrate the Lord while we are waiting for the Lord. We have a, in fact, I would venture to say that many people here today and really across this nation right now are waiting for the weather to change. Life is a lot about waiting. We are a people in waiting. All of us, in one shape or form, are waiting for something, aren't we? Maybe we're waiting for one chapter in our lives to be completed. Maybe we're waiting for another chapter in our lives to begin. Maybe we're You're a caretaker and you're in a holding pattern, waiting for somebody to actually pass on. Maybe you're expecting and you're waiting for a new life to come.

1:42Maybe you're waiting for a wrong to be made right. Maybe you're waiting for somebody in your life to repent of something they did. Or maybe you're waiting for somebody to forgive you for something that you have asked for forgiveness. Maybe some of you are waiting for your health to return. Or maybe you're waiting for a project to be completed. We're waiting for a project to be completed around here. And those you know, we have a fellowship hall that's not quite finished. In fact, it's taking a little longer than I had hoped. I was thinking by the end of December, we would be dried in, and we don't even have the new roof on the edition yet.

2:27So, what do you do while we're waiting? What do you do? I see a contractor saying, Call me. That's what you should do. What do you do? Well, I have a suggestion. Why don't we have a chili cook-off? Oh, we already did that, right? We already had a chili cook-off in the half-finished fellowship hall. Well, how about we have a men's night or a ladies' night or some other, how about a YAG's lunch? See, We can celebrate even though we're waiting for something to be completed. Even though we anticipate a much greater celebration or a much greater capacity to fellowship in the new fellowship hall, we can still celebrate the life that's happening right now. What are you doing right now as you're waiting for the weather to change? Many of you who are joining in, what do you do today? Well, celebrate the Lord while you wait for the Lord. He is this life is happening while we're waiting. Be a good steward of that wait, and you can celebrate the life that's happening all around us while you're waiting for that one thing to come.

3:49I think the fellowship hall is in some ways a kind of picture of our own lives. We're waiting for something to be finished, something to be completed. It's even kind of a picture of heaven. We are waiting. We are ultimately waiting for Christ to return. We're waiting for Christ's enemies to be put down. We're waiting for his people to be exalted. We're waiting for a new heavens and a new earth. We're waiting for the consummation of all things.

4:21So what are we to do when we're waiting? Well, we can celebrate. We can celebrate the Lord. We can celebrate the Lord while we wait for the Lord. Celebrate the things to come, and even though there will be a much greater and fuller experience in heaven, and the fellowship and all of that, we can celebrate right now the life that He's given us. We can celebrate life while we wait for the fuller experience of life. Celebrate while you wait. You see, some people are really afraid to live, others are too busy to live.

5:05Some are afraid that life is going to throw them something that just debilitates them, and so there is a fear of life. There's a fear of getting out and really living. Some are too busy, they're so driven by tasks and things that they miss some of life's greatest moments that are happening right before them, some of the greatest occasions to celebrate. You know, last week we looked at Psalm 27, and that was a psalm that was all about waiting for the Lord. You see, you know where despair comes from or fear comes from? It comes from this deep-seated conviction that something evil or bad is going to come over me and I am going to be ruined, or something dreadful is going to come upon us. That's where despair. Despair, that's where anxiety comes from. It comes from this deep-seated fear that ultimately something bad is going to come over you. But the gospel corrects all that. And if you're informed by the gospel and you understand who God is and you understand the work of Christ and what He's doing in the world, you can be certain that deep, no matter what you face in this life, you know you're not going to be ultimately ruined because what's going to overtake you is God's goodness and His goodness in its fullness.

6:36And you can live in the light of that or you cannot. Psalm 37 is also about waiting upon the Lord. Two times in Psalm 37, we are commanded to wait upon the Lord. Look at verse 7. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Rest in the Lord. Wait patiently for him. Psalm 37, 34, look ahead to verse 34. Wait for the Lord. There it is again. And keep his way. Wait for the Lord. Keep His way.

7:15And He will exalt you to inherit the land. When the wicked are cut off, you are going to see it. You see, what this Psalm does is it contrasts the wealth of the wicked with the wealth of the righteous. So I want to orient, I'm going to take a few moments to orient you to this Psalm, and then we'll jump back into verse 23. But Psalm 37 really gives us a rich palette of vocabulary to understand what we are to do while we are waiting for the Lord. We hear this command: wait for the Lord, wait for the Lord.

7:55What are you supposed to do while you're waiting? Well, waiting isn't about inactivity, and this Psalm is really rich with telling us what to do while you are waiting for the Lord. And we'll just start at verse 1. You'll notice, first of all, we're told what not to do. David wrote this. David was a man who definitely learned what it was like to wait upon the Lord. And here he is telling us what not to do while you're waiting for the Lord to do something in your life or bring about whatever's next.

8:42Psalm 37:1. Do not fret because of evildoers. Be not envious toward wrongdoers. There it is. That's what you're not to do. You're not to fret. You are not to be envious. You are not to fret. Because of evildoers. Do not fret. You know what fretting means? It means to like burn. And you can see when something burns, there's a range of burning. There's the fire that's just consuming forests, but then there's that slow simmer on the stove. And that's the idea of fretting, just going through life, just burning, just this simmering or sometimes raging. Do not fret because of evildoers. The evildoers are the sinfully obnoxious.

9:36Don't fret. Do not be envious toward wrongdoers, those who are accomplishing wrong things and doing wrong. Do not be envious, even though they have amassed great wealth or have a lot of things going for them. Don't be envious. The word for envious takes the idea of jealous for what they have or coveting their position or their possession. So David tells us what not to do. Do not fret, do not be envious. Why not? Why not? Well, look back at verse 2. For they will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green earth. They're not going to endure.

10:18Evil has a shelf life. Evildoers have a shelf life. Look at verse 8. Verse 8 also tells us why you should not be envious. Verse 8. Do not fret. It leads only to evil doing. Do not fret because it leads only to evildoing. If you are fretting or simmering, if you are envious of those who are doing wrong, you're going to become like them. You too will become obnoxious. That's the pathway into becoming obnoxious before God is by fretting or being envious.

11:15So if you act like or envy evildoers, you're sure to become like one. But then David goes on to give us ten things that we should do while we are waiting, ten things to do. What should we do? He's told us what we shouldn't do. And he gives a long list of things that we should do while we're waiting. These are all commands. Ten things to do while you're waiting for the Lord. Notice verse 3: Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. See the first one there. Trust in the Lord. Trust. What does that mean? Have confidence. Believe. Believe in the Lord. Trust in the Lord. Anchor your hope in Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God.

12:16Second, do good. While you're trusting the Lord, be doing good. Doing good speaks about laboring. What are you to do with your time while you're waiting? Be laboring for that which is pleasant, beautiful, useful. For some of you, go pop some popcorn. Do something useful while you're waiting. I'm speaking to the virtual audience, not y'all. You all stay there. We don't need popcorn right now. But the point is, what you're doing while you're waiting for something, do good. Be laboring for that which is pleasant.

12:58Dwell in the land, verse 3. Dwell, inhabit. Settle down. Live. Live trusting in God. Live doing good. Taking territory. That's the idea. Doing good all around you. Dwell, inhabit, trusting, doing good. Taking territory for that which is good and pleasant and beautiful and useful. Fourth. Cultivate faithfulness. Cultivate. The idea is to foster the growth of something. Cultivate. Nourish something. It's interesting, like in a context of flocks, it literally means graze upon. Graze upon faithfulness. Now that's a good thing to do. Graze upon that, those things that cause greater faithfulness to Yahweh.

14:05Graze upon, cultivate faithfulness. Let your life be consumed with those activities and the people and cultivating faithfulness in your home, in your friends, in your circle of friends, in your work, in this world. Look at what verse 4 says. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. The fifth thing to do, delight yourself in the Lord. It's really the idea of pamper. We wouldn't say that like this, but it's pamper yourself in the Lord.

14:46Find joy in his desires. Let your joy be his joy. Find what a good thing it is to walk with God through this world, spend time with the Lord. Meditate, think, delight yourself in what God desires, and you will find them something, not only will you enjoy the things, but you will enjoy God Himself. Verse 5 says, 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. So there's a sixth thing: commit your way to the Lord. Let Him take care of the outcome. You don't have to go fight for your name. You don't have to do it. Let Him, you commit yourself to the Lord. Let Him take care of all that other. That's to be your focus. Let your delight become your commitment. The idea of committing something is let the momentum of your life be gravitating to God's way. And think about those marble runs. Have you ever, we used to have marble runs up where I live, we had a bunch of pumice on the walls, and we would dig and chisel marble runs down the side of a big rock or a cliff, and we would put the little marble, and it would go down, have marble races down our marble runs. And if you think about, that's the idea of what commitment is, is devote yourself to him, to his way.

16:31Devote yourself to his way as tribute. Look at verse 7. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Rest in the Lord. Rest in the Lord. I know there's a lot more commands in here. I'm just bringing you 10 of them, but there's. You get the idea of what waiting patiently looks like. It's rest in the Lord. What is rest? Well, be still. Absence of noise. Quiet your soul before Him. Peace with God. Don't be in that fretting mode. Well, God, look at what they have. Don't be in that simmering, fretting mode with God, but rest, knowing God's going to take care of everything. Commit your way. Then, look at what verse 8 says.

17:30Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret. It leads only to evil doing. Cease from anger. It's the next one. Cease from anger. Cease. You know what the idea of cease is just to become slack. You know, like when you're pulling a rope. It's hard when you're trying to tow a car behind you with a rope. Or if you're on a bicycle and the guy. In front of you, who's tied a rope to you, and he's on a motorcycle, like we used to do when we were little kids. Everything was great until that rope became slack.

18:13Well, that's the idea here. Become slack. Let go, release, put an end. It's literally two flared nostrils. Put an end to your flared nostrils. That's the idea. Put an end to the snorting, the anger. Just put an end to that. Cease from that. The next, verse 8 is forsake wrath. Forsake means to loosen the chains of something, to abandon. Abandon that heat. When you feel that heat or that rage, abandon it. Abandon that venomous speech and the heart that gives rise to it.

18:57Abandon those wrathful tones or gestures. Abandon. Forsake wrath. That's what you're to be doing while you're waiting for the Lord. That's what waiting patiently looks like. And then in verse 27, all the way drop down to verse 27. Depart from evil and do good, so you will abide forever. There's the tenth. Depart from evil, do good. This is the idea of changing directions. Look, we are to be a life of life as A life of repenting. It's a life of constantly turning from evil and doing good. That's what picking up your cross daily and following him looks like. We're constantly, as we're learning the ways of the Lord, we're constantly putting off the old ways. We are to depart from evil and do good, change directions. And all of these, you look at verse 30, look at verse 34. Wait for the Lord and keep his way.

20:02All of these things are summed up in that verse 37. Wait for the Lord. That's what it looks like. Wait for the Lord while you're waiting for the Lord. Be trusting in Him, be doing good, be dwelling, habiting the land, living for His glory, be cultivating growth and faithfulness, cultivate delighting in God Himself, delighting in His ways, committing to God, devoting your ways to Him, committing, resting in Him, ceasing from anger, forsaking wrath, and departing from evil towards the good. That's what you're to be doing while you're waiting patiently.

20:51Wait. Look forward and keep. Wait for the Lord and keep His way. That's what you're to be doing while you're waiting, while you're waiting for the weather to clear, while you're waiting for the next phase in life, while you're waiting for the Lord to return, while you're waiting for your life to be over. Maybe you have a few years left. Look, that day's coming. What you do with your weight is one of the most important things about you. Because so much of our life is spent waiting. How are you stewarding your weight? If I was John Piper, what would I say? Don't waste your weight.

21:37Why should we wait for the Lord and keep his way? That becomes a good question. Why should we wait? Several reasons that David gives us. Look at verse 9. For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. Another question: why will evildoers be cut off? Yeah, we should wait for the Lord. We should not envy the wicked and become like that. We are to imitate the Lord's ways and focus our attention on him because evildoers are going to be cut off. But why are evildoers going to be cut off? Look at verse 22, the center of the Psalm. For those blessed by him will inherit the land, but those cursed by him will be cut off. There is the way of blessing.

22:30There is the way of cursing. And you know what? There's no third way of life. Scripture holds out no third way of life. There is the way that is blessed of the Lord. There is the way that is perishing. And what you do with your weight is the most important thing about you, that you would be a good steward of that weight. So let me give you a little bit of an overview, like I said, of this psalm. This is all introduction to help you to get us to our text. I want you to see where this text happens in this psalm.

23:12This psalm is actually an acrostic. It means you can literally call it the ABCs of waiting for the Lord. You know what an acrostic is? It goes through the first letter, or the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. So Aleph, Beth, Gemel, Daleth. You just go all the way down till you get to Lamed, which is right in the center of this acrostic. And verse 22, which says, For those blessed by him will inherit the land, but those cursed by him will be cut off. And then that becomes kind of your center point, center point emphasis of the psalm. And then he keeps going with the other letters of the Hebrew alphabet all the way down to the last Tauf. That's what. An acrostic looks like. And so each of the first verses in these sections begin with the alphabet. So you can imagine that David was teaching, wanting to teach people the ABCs of waiting for the Lord. And so that's why this psalm is so filled with so many commands of what to do while you're waiting for the Lord. So let me show you what this looks like. Just in Oliph, it starts out, don't fret, don't fret. And then in Beth, it says, trust. But then look down at verse 40, and that gives you a reason why you are to trust. It underscores, emphasizes what's being said in verse 3. So verse 40, all the way in the top stanza. Trust in the Lord. Why? Because, wait for the Lord. I'm sorry, the Lord helps them and delivers them. Why should you trust in the Lord? Because he helps. You go all the way down. Commit yourself. Why? Because the wicked are going to be cut off. Don't commit yourself to the way of the wicked. Commit yourself to the way of the Lord, because the wicked are going to be cut off. Be still.

25:25Why do you need to be still? Well, the ruthless are going to be no more. Let him take care of that. Cease. And then, you see, down in verse 34, you will see. Cease and let God be God in your world and in your life. And so I'm not going to take time to show you all these connections, but I want to show you where this. Then the rest of these doublets or whatever are contrasting the wicked with the righteous. So David is spending, it's a very masterfully done, very skillfully done. It's all interrelated, very well thought out. This ABCs of waiting for the Lord. And so why should you... And it comes down to when you get to Lamed and you get to verse 22, and for those blessed by him will inherit the land, but those cursed by him will be cut off. So why should you not fret? Why should you trust in him? Why should you commit yourself? Why should you be still? Why should you cease from evil? Why should you do all things? Because those blessed by the Lord are going to inherit the land, but those cursed by the Lord will be cut off.

26:48And so what David is showing is that you might first take a look at the world around you and you might see some evildoers release. Really taking territory, you might see, you might envy some of their possessions, some of their positions. You may envy their wealth. But what David is showing is that the godly have a much greater wealth than the evildoers because they are blessed by the Lord. Listen, if you have the blessing of the Lord, you are wealthy. And that's what David is saying. And our text gives us insight into these treasures in God's great treasury. We have His treasury. And the treasures in His treasury belong to those who belong to Him.

27:42And it frees us, knowing these things, frees us to really celebrate life while we're waiting. We can celebrate the Lord while we're waiting. We can celebrate life as we're waiting for something in life. And so that's what I want to spend our time looking at because right after verse 22, right after the center of this psalm, we read these words: The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and he delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the one who holds his hand.

28:29David. Goes on in these verses to give us three reasons why we can celebrate life while we wait for the Lord. Three reasons why we can celebrate life while we wait for the Lord. First of all, the Lord ordains our steps. So all that was introduction. Now we just want to look at verse 23 in the few moments that we have left. The steps of a man are established by the Lord. So the focus now in this psalm focuses from the contrast between the godly and the wicked to the blessings of the godly.

29:19By the Lord. From out of. And that's in the place of emphasis. You don't really see it in the English. The word from the Lord or by the Lord is at the very front end. By the Lord, out of. And that speaks of origins. Out of the mind of the Lord come the steps of man. The steps, your steps, my steps. The proceedings, the idea of steps. What is a step? It's a proceeding. It's movement from one place to another. The goings forth, the advancement, your advancement in life and growth.

30:00And the blessing of the Lord, all that, the steps of the Lord, the steps of a man are established by the Lord. They come out of the mind of the Lord. They are established. They are firm from the Lord. The steps of man are established. That's the order, word order. They're firm, they're set up in advance, they're prepared. And this has implications for mankind in general. The course of life for all mankind on a macro level goes down the path of obedience yielding blessing, or blessing yielding obedience, disobedience, and cursing. Two paths. So, on a macro level, all of mankind is going down this path of blessing, coming under the Lord's blessing, or coming under his curse. Not a third way. But it also has implications for each individual. God is certainly not the author of sin, and he does give people over to their sin. If they want to go down the path of sin, he gives them over.

31:26But there also has implications for each individual. Especially those individuals who belong to him. God has ordained the time and the place for our existence. And he has ordained the directions, the steps of our lives, the directions that our lives take. There are circumstances that are far beyond our ability to control. We're not masters of our own fate. The Lord, steps of a man are established by the Lord. And this is good news because God is good. But oftentimes we don't understand why our lives go down a certain path or take a certain turn.

32:14Proverbs 20, 24 says it like this: Man's steps are ordained by the Lord. How then can man understand his way? I don't understand some things because I didn't ordain the steps. I don't understand why certain things happen in my life or in the world I live. So don't be surprised if you don't understand some things that are happening in your life. Well, that's because man's steps are ordained by the Lord. How then can man understand his way? We don't have that full omniscient perspective. But this we can be sure of: that good things are ahead for us because we know.

33:00Who has ordained our steps? As I said before, David's life took a very unusual path. All ordained by the Lord. Sin excluded, of course. But even in that sin, he was sovereign and leading things to his good outcome. David spent much of his life waiting for the Lord, anointed, king, and boy, did he have to wait a long time for that and go through all kinds of turmoil. He didn't ask for all that came upon him.

33:42Uh-oh, something. We're not called to know the future, but we're called to know the one who guides our future. And because the Lord ordains our steps, we can be sure that good is going to ultimately befall us. Therefore, we can celebrate while we wait, because the Lord ordains our steps. Second reason we can celebrate while we wait for the Lord is because he delights in our way. Look back at verse 23. The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and he delights in his way. This is a remarkable statement. God delights in, is favorable to, is delighting in, is enjoying to watch man's way.

34:42Kind of a, but that's what it refers to: his way. The Lord delights in his way. Specifically, the way that God has ordained for man to walk in and each person to walk in. The way that man wants to walk in. Sin excluded. The way in which, you know, like if you delight yourself in the Lord, as David was saying, the one who, God delights in the ways of the one who delights in the Lord. Does that make sense? God's excited to see, takes pleasure in the path that somebody takes who really loves the Lord. God is excited for those steps. I often wonder why God wants so many people.

35:46He delights in the way of man. God is delighting to see people progress. God likes it when a fish swims. He likes it when an eagle flies. He likes it when a lion roars. He likes it when his creation is doing what it was created to do. And he likes it when a person does what a person does, designed to do. He likes to see people progress in the way that he has established. I mean, he delights in the way of man, the relationships. He loves the relationship, whether it be man, woman, friends, family. He loves commerce. He loves man discovering things. He loves man's curiosity, the way of man, the desire to explore, the invention. He loves his image-bearers. He delights in the way of his image-bearers as they are putting him on display because it is good. He delights in our celebrations, celebrations of all kinds. I like what Spurgeon said on this.

37:08A person's course of life is graciously ordained, and in loving kindness all is fixed, settled, and maintained. No reckless fate, no fickle chance rules us. Our every step is the subject of divine decree. As parents are pleased with the tottering footsteps. Of their babes. All that concerns a saint is interesting to our Heavenly Father. God loves to view the holy strivings of a soul pressing forward to the skies. In trials and the joys of the faithful, Jesus has fellowship with them and delights to be their sympathizing companion.

37:54Delight yourself in the Lord. And then go and celebrate the things that God has put in your heart. What's the best way to find out what you should do next? Well, commit yourself to the Lord, delight yourself in the Lord, then go do what your heart wants. And God delights. He loves to see the creativity. He's not going to go live for you. He wants you to live and experience his life. He knows what it's like to live, and he wants you to live.

38:30So, first reason to celebrate while we wait is that the Lord ordains our steps. Second reason is that he delights in our way. He delights in those steps. Third, we don't have to fear ruin. We don't have to fear ruin. And I hope this just releases you to live boldly. I hope this truth releases you to really live. Look at verse 24. When he falls, he will not be hurt. Headlong because the Lord is the one who holds his hand. Notice how this verse starts out: when. Indeed, when. Not if he falls. When he falls.

39:16When he falls, when he stumbles. Stumbling is the idea of I fell unintentionally. Wow, I didn't see that coming. Something tripped me up. Some of it even made my own doing. But listen, falling down is an inevitable consequence of learning to walk in the way of the Lord. For sure. Stumbling may come. Maybe even by being envious of wrongdoers. Or maybe you're brought down by the traps of wrongdoers. But you will not fall ultimately. Life is going to have its low moments. For sure.

40:11But this shouldn't be a reason to be afraid to go and live. Why not? Because when we fall, we're not going to be hurled headlong. Look at that verse 24. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong. You don't have to be hurled headlong. Means to be thrown to the very bottom of a deep ravine, to be cast away completely, to be utterly ruined, to fall with no hope of getting up. That is not ever going to happen to the children of God. So you can celebrate life. Because even if you do fall, you're not going to be thrown headlong. I mean, how many of your parents make your child take their first steps on a tightrope crossing the Grand Canyon? Picture that scene. Grand Canyon. You know, deep ravines. Child, okay, baby's first steps. Come on, take a step. Oh, you're doing great, doing great. Ooh. Sweetheart, we lost another one. No way. Right? None of us do that. Do you think God in teaching you to walk in his ways is going to let you fall to a deep ravine or put you in such a precarious place that if you fall, it's absolutely in complete destruction?

41:38Do you think when you fall, do you think when you sin, even after a believer, that you're going to sin and beyond pardon? That, okay, you've fallen to the point of no pardon? Do you think he's going to take justification? Are you going to unjustify you now? You're not going to fall beyond pardon. Going to fall beyond getting up. We seem to have a vision of God. If we fall, wow, we're going to, He's got us over the Grand Canyon in one slip, and wow, it's over.

42:20And because of this, some of us are afraid to really live because one misstep. Our day, if I misstep this week, I mean, it's utter ruin. And our minds can easily go to these extremes. Utter ruin, utter ruin, utter ruin. I see it all the time. Somebody says something to you, and wow, your mind goes to an extreme or whatever. Something doesn't come together, and all of a sudden, catastrophe. No, let your mind focus on this. You're not going to be hurled headlong. Why not? Why not? Look back at verse 24. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong because the Lord is the one who holds his hand. The Lord is the one holding on to, sustaining, keeping.

43:17How many of you parents, when you're teaching your kids to walk, how many of you make sure your kids don't fall very far? Because you got them. A child can't fall very far when their parent is holding. On to their hand. The same is true with God. We're not going to fall to ruin. Bad is not going to ultimately consume us. Good is going to ultimately overwhelm us. You see, God is the one who is responsible to keep us in a healthy condition. That's what the one holding our hand is, He's responsible to keep us in a healthy condition, and He is actively ensuring our well-being even when life gets us down and even when we fall.

44:07Proverbs 24:16 says this: For a righteous man falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in time of calamity, it ruins them, stumble beyond remedy. Life may get us down sometimes. Again, I want to quote Charles Spurgeon: Disasters and reverses may lay him low. He may be like Job, be stripped of everything, like Joseph, be put in prison, like Jonah, be cast into the deep. But no saint shall fall finally or fatally. Sorrow may bring us to the earth, and death may bring us to the grave, but lower we cannot sink. And out of the lowest of all, we shall arise to the highest of all.

45:01Even in our falls, the Lord gives a measure of sustaining. Where grace does not keep us from going down, it shall save us from keeping us down. Job had double wealth at last. Joseph reigned over Egypt. Jonah was safely landed. It is not that the saints are strong or wise or meritous, that therefore they rise after every fall, but because God is their helper, and therefore no fall can prevail against him. It's a rich treasury that we have. Promise. One of the richest treasures we possess is this upholding love of the Lord. That's what we all possess if you're in the Lord. And that is why we can celebrate the Lord while we wait for the Lord, even in some of the darkest times and even in the mundane times, which is where most of us live.

46:07So, what do you do while you wait for the Lord's return? What do you do while you're waiting for his counsel or his solution to a situation you're facing? Celebrate life while you wait for the Lord. Celebrate. Celebrate the Lord. Celebrate life. And we have very good reasons why we can live and not be afraid to live. Be bold. In living, because the Lord ordains our steps, He delights in our way, and we don't have to fear ruin. Look around us. Look around you. There are lots of reasons to celebrate. Even though we have a half-finished fellowship hall, and even though the weather, it's too cold to get out and do much, life is happening while we're waiting.

47:01And be sure, I can tell you, what God wants you to do right now is He wants you to walk in the paths that honor Him. Right now, while you're waiting, right now, wherever you are, whatever you're doing today, make some popcorn, celebrate. We're having vegetas, we're getting the family together. We're going to pick it. We're going to make sure we celebrate this time. Life is happening, even when everything's frozen and shut in. Seek to honor Him, delight in Him, and then go live boldly. Celebrate life.

47:41Do not be afraid to live life to its fullest. To you who do not know Christ, I want to say this: choose God. Prefer Him. Prefer His ways to your ways. Repent. Turn away from that which is evil. Turn to him who is good. Trust in him who is good. And listen, I want to say to you, no matter where you are, if you've never put your faith and trust in Christ, you know what putting your faith and trust in Christ is? It's like extending your hand and saying to God, God, take hold of my hand. And if you will give your hand to God to hold on to, you are going to travel securely through this life. Which I assure you has many dangers and many wild beasts. And it's a land that you will have to pass through. But I can assure you that if you put your hand in the hand of God, the man from Galilee, you can only be safe.

48:49You can only be safe if God is your God and God is your guide. Not saying life will be easy, but your security is assured. Or God isn't God. So trust in him. Cry out to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And trust him. Be repenting and be believing. Way of life. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do give you thanks this morning for the gathering that we have and the means to where, even though things are shut down, And we, as your people, can gather in person and virtually, Father, that you are with us. And Father, that you've freed us from the fear of life to delighting in life. You give us every reason to celebrate. And Father, that's what we do as your people, and Father, what we continue to do. Help us to wait patiently and all that that involves. And help us to celebrate while we wait. In Christ's name, Amen.