Bro Bob Sunday School 3/25/12

Bro Bob Sunday School 3/25/12

Choosing, we as saints are faced with choices every day.  We need to make good choices founded upon the Word of God.  This will see us through every hard time. 

The New Testament brings out the word about the good shepherd and the sheep.  We want to be sheep and not goats always butting and wanting to go our own way.  Good sheep follow the shepherd.  We want to choose to be good sheep. 

Pastors and spiritual leaders are shepherds not sheep herders.  There is a big difference.  Shepherds lead; sheep herders are drivers.  Good shepherds don’t force the sheep.  They don’t force us to be sheep; it cannot be done.  We must choose to be good sheep.  They don’t force the Word upon us but preach the Word in the Spirit and we must choose to measure to the Word and the Spirit.

It is our choice; we need to make good choices.  Choose to be a soldier in the Lord’s Army.  There is a spiritual battle going on.  We are in the battle of Armageddon, a spiritual battle.  The devil and all his helpers are out to destroy the church of God.  The Bible is full of right instruction of right choices for us to make.

The largest portion of this battle takes place in our mind to cause us to sway away from right principals and become Babylon.  Sitting on these church pews will not keep us from becoming Babylon.  Our hearts and souls and minds belong to God and we stay in the Spirit and then are members of God’s church.  This is our part of this battle and then God can win the rest of the battle which is His.

Choose to stay in the spirit.  Gal 5:22,23.  Don’t let this scripture become common to you.  When we get saved we haven’t arrived with no more battle to do.  We must choose to press on.  We must have the whole gospel armor on in order to go forward.

Good choices: Choose to serve God with your whole heart.  It is very important.  We need to be determined, persistent in our service to God.  Some of our children are not saved, I’m so thankful for the ones that are.  I’m determined to go God’s way anyway. 

I care.  God cares.  God cares that my children and relatives are lost.  It is his plan that ‘whosoever will’ be saved.  We are determined to see the lost saved.  We care.  God cares.  We don’t want the “I don’t care.” Phrase to be common.  It is serious.  We need sound speech as saints.  Not caring is of the world.  Saints care.  Don’t be caught up with this phrase. 

We are all called to be soldiers of the cross.  Soldiers stand in the spirit, stand on the gospel rock, and stand with the saints in God’s church.  Stay in the Spirit.  We are creatures of choice.  We are what we are and where we are by choice.  It is important that we make the right choices.

We need to gird up the loins of our mind and guard our mouth.  We will be judged by every idle word that comes out of our mouth.  We can choose to serve self, death, and the carnal world or to serve God and others and the Word of God and bear the fruit of the Spirit.

Gal 5:22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Gal 5:23  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Lord, help us to be honest with ourselves and before you.  Are we staying in the Spirit and bearing the good fruit of the Spirit and not any evil fruit of selfish flesh.

Gal 5:24  And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

Gal 5:25  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Gal 5:26  Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.

Saints dwell together in peace with zero strife.  It doesn’t just happen, it takes effort.  We all have our own personalities and differences of opinion.  I wouldn’t take your opinion away from you.  The only time we get in trouble is when we force our opinion on someone else.  The children of God are children of peace.

Rom 8:5  For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

Rom 8:6  For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Remember the great peace that flooded your soul when you got saved? You need to maintain it.

Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

Our mind is flesh; it is up to us to control our mind and flesh. 

2Co 10:5  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

2Co 10:6  And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.

We must have a vengeance against all disobedience.  Squelch anything that exalts itself against God. 

Rom 8:8  So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

Gal 5:16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Gal 5:17  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

Php 2:14  Do all things without murmurings and disputings:

This is very important, ‘without murmurings and disputing’, children of peace and of God.

The children of Israel when they came out of Egypt were forty years in the desert full of murmurings and complaining.  We are not any better than they if we are murmuring. 

Php 2:15  That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;

‘In the midst of a crooked and perverse nation,’ this is where we are isn’t it?

1Co 15:31  I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

The flesh has to die daily, as we press onto the mark we must keep our body under.

Mat 16:24  Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Jesus died on His cross; our flesh needs to die on our cross.  We are His disciples.

Mat 16:25  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

To find life is an awesome promise.  It takes work on our end and we are glad to do it.

Mar 8:34  And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

God saved us from such a vain life in sin, such bondage.  I count it a privilege to do my best to obey all this Word.  There is no life without Jesus.

Gal 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

What I’m bringing is just scratching the meaning that you can get out of this.  Jesus shed His very life’s blood that we could be saved from sin and privileged to walk the Gospel Walk. 

We live in a world that is professing Christianity and full of gross darkness.  They say they are saved but what are they saved from.  Jesus came to save from sin, not in sin.  Jesus will only dwell in a clean vessel.  He will not dwell with sin.

Think of Christ living in me.  It is so awesome.  If we live by faith our works will prove it.  We will have good works.  Just saying that we are living by the Son of God will not be enough we must have fruit.

Joh 5:39  Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

Search the scriptures.  They testify of our perfect example of Jesus Christ.  We don’t measure one to another.  We measure to Him.  Bro Gary preaches of the plum line.  We measure to Jesus as our plum line.  When we obey Him and live to what we know, then we can know that we have eternal life.

Before I got saved I lived such a vain life that I could hardly stand myself.  Thank God for His mercies and a changed life. 

JOY is the key of staying in the Spirit of God: Jesus and Others then You; keep yourself in last place.  We must choose to make ourselves servants to others.  Our perfect example Jesus could have been a literal king but He chose to serve others.  This is my constant goal.

We must choose our goals with Godly wisdom.  The only true wisdom comes from God.

2Co 4:5  For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.

Not serving others is serving only self.  Not serving others is only selfish and ugly.  Selfish is ugly.  It is the ugliest thing that I can imagine.  Selfish is zero love of God in your hearts.  If you are living for and serving self then self is your love.  It is a lack of faith that God will take care of us.  (Achan thought that he needed those garments and gold to take care of himself.)

Though we are in this world we are not of this world.  Thank God that we can be separate.  Godliness with contentment is great gain.  Selfish people are never content.  They keep trying to be happy but are never satisfied.  It is an endless and sad battle.  When you have self on the altar and you have that great gain then you have peace.

Though we are in this world we are not of it.  We are only passing through it.  This journey is really short in the light of eternity.  The message last night was full of love and good instruction.  It is for us.  Eternity is a long time, I cannot comprehend eternity.  It will be a reunion with the saints that have gone before us.  Jesus, Others, and You last place that choice will stand through all eternity.

I’m a simple person, just a lumberjack, but I am so glad to be saved.  Every challenge that we face is for our own good.  Go through the battle right the first time.  I don’t know of anything that grieves me more than having to go through the same battle over again.  We need to be determined to get all the good out of it the first time and use it as a solid stepping stone.