Bro Gary Sunday PM 9/4/11

Bro Gary Sunday PM 9/4/11

1Co 15:58  Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

The word labor is always the same in the English Language but the word translates differently in the Greek.   This word labor is doing that which is taxing as far as laboring for God. 

We want to ever keep it real in our hearts, don’t give up laboring for God.  You’re going to get tired.  You’ll get tired whether you labor for God or not.  Sometimes people that don’t do anything are worn out. 

If we are doing what God wants us to do, not what people want us to do, that burden from the Lord is work.   

There is a lot of work in being a good husband and in keeping a home.  There is a lot of work in keeping a garden and canning.  There is a lot of work in serving one another.  Sometimes doing the labor of God is making a call: either a personal call or writing a letter.  May God help us to realize that this labor is not in vain; it is of the Lord. 

Being a good parent requires lots of labor and sacrifice.  Every little boy and girl needs to be really loved.   There must be a lot of things left out of a person’s life in order to do as the Bible says and love our children.  We have a lot of modern technology but our lives get full.  Take care of your grandchildren, don’t spoil them but don’t be a cheap skate.

2Co 5:9  Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.

This word labor means more of a labor of love.  There is a labor of love that starts between us and God, His son, and the Holy Spirit of God.  It is a labor of love.  It comes from God, “I want to be all that you want me to be.” 

We find it taxing at times to study the Bible.  About an hour of study is my maximum.  In about an hour I’ve gotten all I can absorb.  The scripture says to “study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

We have a wonderful treasure.  As I studied last week I felt like a gold miner that had found a vein of riches, riches, riches, riches. 

The Bible says, “Oh the depth of the riches of both the wisdom and the knowledge of God.” Romans 11:33

We will not find the mother lode, the vein of gold and truth, without a labor of love. “God I want to know your word in a deeper way than I have ever known it.”

O taste and see:  The miner would say, “Oh dig, dig past the ‘just a little bit of nuggets’.  Enjoy them but dig on.”  There is something in our soul created by God that hungers for more and more of God.

1Co 2:9  But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

1Co 2:10  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

It is a wonderful thing to have the treasure of the Word of God.  It is a wonderful thing!  We labor whether present or absent, to be in this present world you are absent from heaven, to be in heaven we are absent from this present world.  We labor to be accepted of Him. 

We labor not only in the natural, we labor in the spiritual.  “God that I might know your truth, so that I may know how to convey to others the treasures that are theirs if they will study and seek God.”

2Co 5:1  For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Aren’t you happy that you are not confused by those that have a misconception of how many can be saved?  If only 144,000 can be saved then we are far too far along in time to have been in that number.  That is just a symbolic number.  We have an immortal soul that is a house not made with hands.

2Co 5:2  For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:

Someone wrote, “I’m getting homesick for heaven.”  They weren’t the first, Paul was homesick for heaven.  Paul said, “I’m ready for that house not made with hands.”

2Co 5:3  If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

2Co 5:4  For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.

He was looking forward to the day that the heavens would open and he would lay this body down and go to be forever with God.

2Co 5:5  Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.

It is wonderful to have the earnest of the Spirit.  When you purchase a house, you put some money down.  You don’t have a house yet, but you have a promise of it being held for you.

God wanted to give you the earnest of the Spirit.  God has been mighty good.  He gave us the earnest and a lot of it is found in the Word of God.  If we had all the joy that we’re going to have when we get to heaven our bodies couldn’t contain it all.  He gave us the earnest of joy, of peace and of righteousness.

2Co 5:6  Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

2Co 5:7  (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

2Co 5:8  We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

Paul was homesick for heaven. 

2Co 5:9  Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.

Paul was telling us that it is because he loved God and His son that he was laboring in God to be accepted.

2Co 5:10  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

He was laboring a labor of love.  Our devotions are not just to help us stay saved, to help us see our children protected, or to help us have food and raiment, we have devotions because we love Him who first loved us.