Brother Gyme Sunday Morning 9/2/12

Brother Gyme Sunday Morning 9/2/12

The Goodness of God:

2Pe 3:9  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Patiently endure.  God patiently endures.  It was the goodness of God that He patiently endured with me.  It was the goodness of God that I am saved.  It was the longsuffering of God that He was faithful to me.  He only had to speak once to be faithful; He spoke to me more than just once. 

Those that perish, perish not because God wills them to perish, they make a choice.

Deu 7:9  Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

Isa 30:21  And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.

If we deafen our hearts to the distractions, He will guide and direct us and keep us from harms path.  I don’t see everything; I need God to direct me.  Sometimes He needs to correct me.  He is a faithful God.  He wants to build us up and support us.  ‘Faithful’ means to build up and support.  We are built up by the Word of Grace.

Act 20:32  And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.

God’s faithfulness is that He is not willing that any perish.  The Word of God builds our faith in the fact that God is faithful.  He has never failed.  We may forget that when we are in the middle of the challenge of life. 

I need more patience; I want things to happen right now.  I see where I should be spiritually and I want it immediately.  That is not the way that it works.  When we build something then it has more meaning to us.  We get into the Word and allow it to build us up. 

Unbelief always works on us.  When we open the Word and start praying then it breaks that unbelief.  Unbelief tears down our faith and tries to tell us that God is not faithful. 

Unbelief seems to be very manifest in the lives of people today.  People want to tear things down but God is faithful.  He is faithful that we will inherit what He has promised.

God is faithful by His word of grace.  He is the only one that will be faithful for time and eternity.  He will bring you to an expected end.  The world is not faithful to deliver on its promise.  It always leaves you empty and wanting.  It has lots of promises.

Exo 33:13  Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.

Exo 33:14  And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

Exo 33:15  And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.

Exo 33:16  For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.

Exo 33:17  And the LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.

Exo 33:18  And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.

Exo 33:19  And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.

Moses wanted God to show Himself to him.  We need to have this same heart attitude.  We want to see what God has and what it is to know God.  God told him that He would make all His goodness pass before Him.

God has shown all His goodness.  He has not withheld any good thing.

Psa 34:8  O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

We do have to taste if we are going to see.  We cannot just have the attitude of wanting to see without tasting.  We need to take in God’s goodness, take in the Word of God, taste and see what it produces.  It will produce the good things of God and we will see.

Psa 119:103  How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Psa 119:104  Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.

If we take this word of God and obey, take it in and partake of it then we will get to see the good things of God.

Exo 34:5  And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

Exo 34:6  And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

Exo 34:7  Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

He showed Moses His goodness.  The word, “Lord” here means Jehovah.  There are eleven attributes that are included in this reading.  He is self existent and eternal, the strong or mighty God, the merciful being that is full of tenderness sand compassion. 

This is the kind of God that we serve.  We hear about freedom of religion, have you heard about other people’s gods?  They don’t have a God that is a merciful being full of tenderness and compassion that wants everyone to make it to His heaven.

He is the gracious one, he whose nature is goodness itself, the loving God.  This is why He is good to us; it is part of who He is.

He is longsuffering, the being who because of His goodness and tenderness is not easily irritated but is longsuffering and kind.  He is the greater or mighty one, the bountiful being. 

He is He who is exuberant in His beneficence.  He gives good things.  He only gives things that are good.

He is the truth or true one.  He alone can neither deceive nor be deceived.  He is the fountain of truth!  We are blessed.  When you have a fountain of truth then it always bears truth.  It never fails.  He never leads astray.  This is why we can have confidence and be built up.  He never leads astray because all he leads us in is truth.

We want this true wisdom.  He is the fountain of wisdom.  We need to understand how things work.  If you do something wrong or fallow a wrong principal in your life then it will produce something.  What you sow will produce the natural fruit of the seed that is sown.  You will not be the exception. 

If it is a wrong principal then it will produce the fruit of it.  If you follow the truth then it will always produce a good fruit.  It will produce the same for everyone.  It is the solid foundation because it always produces the same thing.  God in His goodness has allowed us to have this. 

To have truth you must first come to the fountain.  We can know the difference between false and true because each always bears out the same thing over and over and over. 

If you get a little off track then go a mile or two miles you will end up a long way off track.  We are blessed and anyone can have truth.  It is not just us, we are not special.  We don’t feel that way.  We can know the truth, live, follow, and see because we obey. 

To obey now, we must obey the first point.  You cannot get to the tenth point or a mile down the road without obeying the first point.  We may feel that we cannot, but we need to realize that God can. 

When I got saved, I knew that I needed to change and God said, “This is the first thing that you must do.”  I started down the path.  It is for whosoever will; it is the goodness of God.  Part of who God is, is that He will not deceive us and we cannot deceive Him, you cannot mock God.

He is the preserver, He whose beneficence never ends.  He has an abounding storehouse.  He shows compassion and mercy while the world endures.  He gives generously. 

As I studied the attributes of God then it came back on me, if we call ourselves the children of God then we should have these attributes.  We show forth these attributes towards those in the church and towards all that are not saved as well.

Psa 84:11  For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

If God doesn’t bring to pass what we want then we can rest assured that it was not good for us.  We need to thank God in that situation and not act like spoiled children.

God is the forgiver, the righteous judge that distributes judgment with a hand that will not condemn the pure.  Jesus adds to the church those that are saved, no one else can add you or subtract you.

God is the God of justice and balance; He punishes the transgressor and will by no means excuse the sinner.  He will not change for anyone what He said in the Word of God.  It is all true and it is all for us: both the positive when we obey and the negative when we don’t obey.  He said it and it will not change.

1Pe 3:20  Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

Sometimes it seems that no one is interested.  The world seems to be going crazy and worldly.  God was longsuffering in the days of Noah.  God was not just satisfied with only the eight souls being saved or Noah wouldn’t have preached for 100 years.  Noah had to have been anointed to preach and build this ark while everyone around him was doing what they were doing. 

We need to get our eyes off the world and onto what God wants us to do.  Get our eyes off of why someone is or is not doing what they should and simply be faithful.  In Noah’s day there were eight souls saved.  God was faithful; eight souls were saved.

Col 1:1  Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother,

Col 1:2  To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Col 1:3  We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,

Col 1:4  Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints,

Col 1:5  For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;

We have hope because we have heard and obeyed the Word.

Col 1:6  Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth:

Col 1:7  As ye also learned of Epaphras our dear fellowservant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ;

Col 1:8  Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.

Col 1:9  For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

Col 1:10  That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

Col 1:11  Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;

2Pe 1:3  According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

2Pe 1:4  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

2Pe 1:5  And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

2Pe 1:6  And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

2Pe 1:7  And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

2Pe 1:8  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you are partaking of the fruit of the Sprit and His Godliness, then you need never be barren nor unfruitful.

2Pe 1:9  But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

If we want to see the good things of God and have a vision then we need to abound in these good things.  If you don’t then you will see the bad all the time, the fleshly things.  If you abound in these things then you get to see the end of what God has for us. 

The question comes to me: How are my patience and my longsuffering?  God has been longsuffering and wants all to make it.  He wants the church to be the church with Christ as the head. 

Am I longsuffering like God is longsuffering?  We don’t want to fellowship those things that are not of God; God helps us to draw that line.  There is a fine line between love and hate if you don’t let God draw that line then you will mess things up. 

God is longsuffering and not willing that any perish.  When we run up against people that have personalities that rub us the wrong way, we need to work on having these attributes from God so that we have patience and longsuffering, not a sharp tongue or elbow. 

If God hadn’t been longsuffering to me I would have been in hell or prison. He wasn’t just faithful to me once.  I remember the conviction that He placed on my heart when I came to the age of accountability. 

Account the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.  The goodness of God is working with souls that they be saved.