Bro Gary Sunday Morning 8/14/11

Bro Gary Sunday Morning 8/14/11

Mic 6:6  Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?

Mic 6:7  Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

Mic 6:8  He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Mic 6:9  The LORD'S voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.

Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the High God?  It is good for people’s minds to be turned toward serving and worshipping God.  We know that God reigns and loads us with benefits but there is a seriousness in the consideration of these questions.

Would God be pleased with thousands of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oil?  Sister E. Faith Stewart witnessed a lady with two children, one handicapped and one healthy, in India.  She witnessed her give her healthy child to the river, to her God.  Would God be pleased with that? 

Micah asked, “What can I bring as I come before the true God?”  God created man from the dust of the earth and God breathed into the nostrils of Adam and he became a living soul.  God created man in His own image and then Adam and Eve yielded to sin and man lost that image of God and everyone born of man since then has a seed of sin inherit in their heart.  “All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.”  We each have gone into sin and desperately needed a savior. 

Micah asked what he should give for the sin of his soul.  Millions wonder the same thing, “What shall I give to get rid of this sin?”  There is a real prison that comes with sin.  It keeps you captive; it controls you and lies to you saying that there is no way out.

What shall I give for this sin of my soul?  Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? 

Micah 6:8 He hath showed thee o man what is good; and what does the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God. 

God reveals Himself to man in this text and what He requires of man.  These three things are stated by Micah that are required of man to do.  Man should do justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly.

Man should do justly.  God is a just God.  There is no partiality with God.  It was probably in the days of Micah as it is today.  There are those that think that, because they are who they are, God will not require certain things of them.  There is no partiality with God.  God brings men and women to the same plane.   Those that are substandard He lifts up and those that are filled with pride and arrogance he brings down. 

Men haven’t known very much justness in this world.  That is how life is.  We know though that God will be just with each of us.

God requires that we do justly.  The more I study this, the more depth I see in it.  God can cause the manna from heaven to be exactly what we need in each situation in life.

Man should do justly to God.  How much do we owe to God?  It is a beautiful season in Montana and as I look in this audience I see children from a young age to individuals to whom the golden years have reached the place where they don’t seem quite so golden. 

We are blessed whatever age we are.  I don’t take away from your aches and pains.  God is just and He is asking us to do justly.  He is asking us to do justice by our creator.  You may not have had a father or mother that loved you.  You may have had a loving mother and father that were taken away from you way to early.  

God was and always has been.  While I’m here, God is.  As I face eternity God will always be, forever and ever.  God will always be a just God to me.  You can make wrong decisions that you will always regret.  God will take your sins and cast them into the depths of the sea.  This is a justice beyond our minds.  What does a just God require of thee? To turn from your sins and accept His forgiveness. 

Give to God all that is due.  God gave each of us 24 hours yesterday.  I don’t know that He’ll give you or me 24 hours today.  Did we do what God wanted us to do those 24 hours?  There is a God in heaven that teaches us to be a good steward of our time, our money, our strength. 

We need to give God all He is due.  He is due beyond a shadow of a doubt our morning worship.  I don’t clam to know-it-all about worship.  I’m still learning.  In Matthew, Jesus taught us that when we pray enter into our closet and shut the door. 

It is not saying, “Oh God give me.”  It is coming before God in adoration and lifting our voice in worship, to say God I desire to be with you, not to just talk to you, I desire to have you commune with me.  Shutting the door means shutting the cares out.

“To those that overcome I will sup with them.”  Sup means to receive from Him whether it would be praise or correction or whatever it would be.  Towards evening we need to come back and thank God for being with us.  I know that there are things that could happen that could change Karen and my lives forever.  Hasn’t God been good?  We need to give back to Him.

We need to be just to one another.  In Proverbs it tells us that the law of kindness is in the virtuous woman’s tongue.  These traits carry on over to a description of God’s church here on earth.  We need to be kind one to another.  Let us do justice in loving one another. 

Let us also allow our brother and sister to do justly.  We need to know how to be easily entreated.  James teaches us this.  We all have lots of blocks, we have a thought and that is how it is.  If you turn things around and you know something that will help someone else, you’d want it to be received right.

In thinking of the death of Dr Sheehan, I think of a doctor that I know in Switzerland and I’d like to help him.  If he blocks it, there is nothing that I can do.  God help me to have an attitude of “let me approach that one and help them to have the attitude to let me help them.”

Most of you know how I feel about money.  The other day someone that really likes me dug down in their pocket, it was a little pocket, and gave me a coin.  When someone loves you and you put up a wall, you keep them from doing justly.  The quarter I got from my friend is a special quarter.  I’m going to save it and one of these times I’m going to go to a special place and I’m going to spend it. 

We need to do justly to our self.  God knows your name.   He has the name of each child written on the palm of His hand.  He has the name of each one that has repented and turned from his sin written on the palm of his hand.

God has a design for every day for the rest of my life.  God has a design to give unto His people not just messages and jobs but pleasures.  He wants you to have time to enjoy the roses and the rivers. 

Do justly by yourself by seeking forgiveness.  If you have never sought forgiveness for your sin, seek forgiveness and receive the forgiveness. 

Some are always confessing and asking God to forgive them.  One thing I know about God, He deals with our sin.  May God help us to walk humbly with Him so that when He corrects us we hasten to obey.  Forgiveness is a wonderful thing.  God has a design to forgive those that have sinned before God. 

Do justly by forgiving others.  If we don’t forgive, it will control and ruin our life.  It is sad when a family will not accept your husband or wife.  There will be people that may treat you like dirt but as long as you don’t forgive them they will control you.  There is such a liberty in forgiving.

If you have injured yourself, forgive and move on.

I appreciate this building, the green grass and the lights, but all this will fade away.  Do justly by this temple, which is your body; do justly by worshipping God.  Get things figured out so that you can worship Him and give Him your best. 

True prayer, communing with God is counsel, therapy, encouragement and many other things that money cannot buy.  You can go to God and He will anoint your eyes.  I’ve experienced this many times; kneeling down in prayer and having God help me see something in a different way.

Do justly in keeping your body under.  I have likes and dislikes and desires; do justly in ruling your body.  You can wear yourself out.  You can think yourself out.  You can think yourself into confusion.  Keep your body under.

Do justly in keeping your heart with all diligence.  “A tent or a cottage why should I care?”  We may not have the best of all furnishings; what difference does it make?

Think on things that are pure. 

Know that you have repented of your sins.  Confess to God and turn from your sin.  Sin is habitual until you get saved.  “If any is in Christ He is a new creature, old things are passed away and behold all things become new.”:  New heart, new mind, new tongue, new spirit.

God requires that we love mercy.

Lam 3:22  It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

May God help me to love mercy regardless what someone has done; help me to show mercy that they may not be lost.

God’s mercy is new every morning.  Great is His faithfulness.  If it were not for His mercy, we’d be consumed.

The Lord is my portion. It is wonderful to have Him as my portion.  What if food was my only portion?  There are comfort foods but sometimes they become uncomfortable.  Man cannot live by bread alone.

What if my portion was trucks, or the arts, or the high mountain lakes?  One of these days you’ll not be able to go.  You’ll wear out.  To have the Lord as our portion is wonderful.

The lord is good to them that wait for Him and to the soul that seeks Him.

Lam 3:22  It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

Lam 3:23  They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

Lam 3:24  The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

Lam 3:25  The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

Lam 3:26  It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

Lam 3:27  It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

Whatever age you are this morning, if you are not saved, get saved.  You will never be any younger.  Love mercy.  God has shown such mercy to each of us.  Love God showing mercy to others.  “God show mercy.”

Walk humbly with thy God.  Humility is beautiful.  It must come from God.  The nature of man is to be proud and haughty.  God changes that nature to the nature of a sheep of His pasture.

The beauty of humility:  I was created by God.  The whole design is of God.  I have nothing to be boastful or proud of.  There is nothing that I should feel myself superior.  It is of the Lord’s mercies that I was not consumed in my sin.  Think of the brushes with deaths and accidents.  I’m still able to walk!  John Newton wrote, “Through many dangers, toils and snares.”

Think of the snares that God has protected you from, the moral snares.  The world promises “If you’ll just go this way there will be a pot of gold at the end of the trail.”  Think of the still small voice that spoke “My son, don’t go there.”  Think of when God spoke to not go the way of the flesh. 

I was created by God and for God.  He chose you with a perfect design in mind.  You may feel little self worth this morning, if you’ll get your scriptures lined up you will see that the problem is in not being lined up with the word of God. 

I take my hat off to you parents.  God has entrusted you with children.  Good parents are a rarity this morning.  Children that have a mom and dad that love them need to be thankful.  It is a lot of work to be a parent.  There are many things in the world today that will try to shape the minds to not believe in God, to not believe in marriage, to not believe in respect.  You are blessed to have a mission field at home and to be teaching and training souls for God.

Grandparents, pray.  Build up your most holy faith.  When children don’t have parents that are praying I hope they have grandparents that are praying. 

The beauty of humility, I need God desperately.  I take studying for a message seriously.  My old notes would be like the stuff I recently cleaned out of the freezer.  Some of the things had been there for so long, I had to defrost the freezer to get them out. 

I think of the song that was written, “I need thee every hour.”  We need God.  Many in this audience have a son or daughter that is a prodigal.  That prodigal desperately needs you to walk humbly with God.  They are on a downward shute to destruction.  For some the children are praying for the parents.

We need each other to balance us.  Many times I’ve come to church Wednesday night and someone read a scripture not knowing that it was for me.  The design of God is that we work together as a body.  In order for me to be fed, I must walk humbly with my God.

God’s voice is calling today.  Softly and tenderly God is calling.  Who will hear His voice?

Bro Buster went to have his ears tested and the problem that he wrote down was that He had selective hearing. 

There are people with selective hearing and there are people with postponed hearing.  “I want to hear about that later.”  If God wants to talk to me today, I need to say, “Speak for thy servant heareth.”  The best and wisest choice we can make today is to hear and heed the voice of God.