Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 2/17/13



Brother Gary Sunday Morning 2/17/13
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?

The prophet knew that there were lots of gods.  There have always been gods beside the True God.  There is an identity in our souls that wants to make contact with the only true God that inhabits eternity. 

Can I get to God with an offering?  How can I get to God?  How can I find this true, High God?  Will he be happy if I come before Him with great gifts: With ten thousands of rivers of oil or with my firstborn?  He was in earnestness posing these questions to bring the thought, “What does God require so that we can reach to the true God that makes a difference in men and women’s lives?”

What shall a sinner do with the sins of the soul?  When God begins dealing with the heart of a needy one, He knows how to prepare the heart and make it real that He loves them, cares for them, and identifies with the sins of the soul.

2Co 7:10  For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

It is a noble question, “How can I get to God?”  It is a right question, “Shall I bring an offering, or something else for the forgiveness of my soul?”

There is a marvelous work of God that happens in the hearts of an individual before they can get saved.  Godly sorrow works repentance.  Some can be sorry because they were caught or because of the trouble that it has cost them in their life or in their family, but it takes Godly sorrow to work repentance not to be repented of. 

How can an individual, that is troubled because of the sin in their soul, how can they get right with God?  The Bible has the answer.  The first thing is to have godly sorrow that works repentance.  The individual that experiences Godly sorrow is very blessed of God: someone that has the identity that they have sinned first against God and also against other mankind.  Sin not only affects the individual’s life but also others.

Godly sorrow works repentance.  Repentance is something that Godly sorrow brings.  Repentance means first to confess: 

1Jn 1:9  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Confess means first confess to God.  He is faithful and just.  We are dealing with a just God.  I am awestruck at the justice of God because there is really no way that any of us could pay for our sin.  I couldn’t bring 10,000 rams, rivers of oil, or a huge offering. 

Every mankind can bring a broken heart and a heart that realizes that first I have sinned against God.  God has never done anyone wrong.  He created us to first love us and then for us to love Him.

He created us that first Godly sorrow would come to a soul.  When this happens, the identity with the world begins to fade, the identity with what others think fades.  The identity with yes there is pleasure in sin, but the reward and what it works in my life makes me want to get out of the sin business.

It is because of Jesus, the shed blood of Jesus, because of God loving the world, loving his son, and loving mankind that we can confess and be forgiven of our sin.

Repentance brings you to salvation.  Salvation means deliverance, help, safety, victory, and health.  It is wonderful that there is deliverance from that old life of sin, from bad habits, from all that would defile us.

Salvation is help.  When we come to Jesus confessing and repenting, we become a new babe in Christ with someone to love us, care for us, and give us all the tools so that we can grow and mature.  There is help for every soul that will turn to God with all their heart.

There is safety.  We live in a world when literal safety is less and less.  When we go to bed at night we pray for safety.  The young lady shot in South Africa breaks your heart in many ways.  The thought that a young man that could have been used as a tool for God would do this is heart breaking. 

It is a wonderful thing that we have a God to protect us.  In a world where Satan is loosed from his prison we can be protected.  There is the still small voice that says, “Be careful; don’t even entertain some of those thoughts.”  It is a wonderful thing to be protected from the spirits of the world. 

Salvation means that there is victory.  God has ordained that we not just barely get through life, always unhappy and under the paw of the enemy, always battling.  God ordained that we be happy and victorious.

There is health.  Health means life.  We can be healthy mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. 

Joh 10:10  The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Every one of us wants to remember that there is an enemy, the devil, in the world that comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy.  It is sad the way he robs people of life.  People are looking for love, being loved and showing love.  The enemy robs people of life.

He robs husbands and families of really loving one another.  Love is only love when it is expressed.  The enemy puts people in such bondage that they are not able to love their husband, their wife, or one another.

He comes to kill.  He messes up lives and kills the hunger and thirst for God. People blatantly tell you that they don’t want to serve God.  This is a terrible thing.

The thief comes to destroy.  People destroy an individual’s life.  Jesus came to give life and to give life abundantly.  It is a wonderful thing that Jesus came to give life and to give vibrancy in life.

Godly sorrow brings us to the place where “I’m willing to pay the total price because I never want to go back to sin.”  I will serve God my whole life by God’s grace and will never return back to sin.

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?

He has showed thee what is good:  the ways of the Lord are right.  I think of the prophet Jeremiah.  He left us instruction, “Stand in the ways and ask for the old paths wherein the good way is.”  There is a very good way, the Bible way, the highway of holiness, Jesus who said, “I am the way.”

God requires us to do justly.  To do justly is to do as God requires.  It is wonderful that God requires what we are capable of doing.  We are happy for the children, the young people, the adults, and the seniors that are in this audience.  The same God knows exactly what a child is capable of understanding, what a young person, and what an adult or senior is capable of. 

God asks that children do justly what they know that God requires them to do.  Children are taught to pray, the value of devotions, the value of telling the truth, obey mother and father, do jobs at home, and be good at school.  God will not require too much of children. 

He will not require too much of young people.  He will shine just the right amount of light on your heart and life that you can do justly and enjoy life and do what God requires.

To love mercy:  one of my first thoughts is we want to love mercy because every one of us needs the mercy of God.  If it were not for the mercy of God we would be consumed.  His mercies are new every morning.  His mercy is as high as the heavens.

As we come before God we can love mercy.  I am coming before a God that requires me to love mercy.  I love mercy, I am trusting God for His mercy for the day.  God, our requests we are bring up before you, and in your mercy will you remember them. 

We can love the mercy of God that we would implore toward those that have chosen to make your life miserable or have hurt you deep.  The natural reaction would be to retaliate.  The better way would be, “God give me grace to forgive and show mercy.”

Walk humbly before thy God:  there has been lots of preaching about humility and preaching against pride and there could not be too much, but what I want to talk about is walking with God with humility.

“My God and I go in the fields together, we walk and talk as good friends should and do, we clasp our hands our voices ring with laughter.”

Walking humbly before God is when you come into His presence and say, “God I’m not asking you to walk my way, I’m asking that you would help me walk your way.”  Where He leads me I will follow.

The high God is a God of new beginnings.  We can think of souls that are not here this morning that need a new beginning.  You may be here and say, “Brother Kelly, I believe that I need a new beginning.”  The one thing I want to tell you about God is that God is a God of new beginnings.  In history, in the life of my parents, in my own personal life, in the testimony of many that are in this audience, scripturally sound, Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God.”

There was a time when nothing was like it is now.  This world was without form and void and darkness was here.  God chose there to be a beginning in creation.

Revelations 1:11 Jesus is the alpha and the omega.  He is the first and the last. 

In order for there to be a new beginning sometimes there must be an ending.  We all know some things.   December 31st at midnight we ended year 2012.  January first at 12:01 we began a totally new year.  In our lives everyone needs the alpha and the omega of Jesus Christ bringing an end and bringing a new beginning. 

That is not just when we get saved.  That is the beginning of new beginnings.  We get saved, we are carried.  If you feel godly sorrow and the need of getting saved, God carries the lambs.  You may feel afraid to get saved, but you don’t need to.  The safest place you can be is a new babe in the arms of Jesus and in the arms of God the father.

There are times in our lives when we face new beginnings.  There were two people that retired from their jobs last year.  They faced a new beginning.  They were no longer a part of the city of plains or of the postal service.  It bought an end to some things and a beginning to others.

In our spiritual life we begin our walk and we learn as we go.  We learn that we are not to use slang.  Before that you may have been a slang user and then you read that your yea should be yea and your nay, nay.  You realized that slang is just watered down words that God doesn’t want you to use.

I had an extreme amount to learn when I first got married.  My mom used to tell me and David Stegmier that for never having children we sure knew a lot about raising them.  When I had my own I realized how little I knew about raising children and I had a new beginning.

Rev 21:5  And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

This scripture happens many times in the life of an individual and for sure at death.  It happens many times as we journey from conviction to perfection to maturity and living for God.  You will note if you look at the scriptures previous to this that Jesus said, “I will make a new heaven and a new earth.”

There is not any in this audience that doesn’t realize that they need to be a new creature in Christ Jesus or realize on some things, “I enjoyed that but I need to move on.”

A bride prepared for her husband. It is marvelous that we have new beginnings of getting prepared.  We’ve been faced with totally new things this week.  We cannot handle it the old way, it is a new situation.  We will see the same people that we’ve seen before but they have changed since I last saw them.  There have been things happen in their life that will either make them feel more tender toward me or will have moved them away from me. 

If, without taking into consideration of how God has dealt with people, I meet them the same way that I did last, God will be grieved.  God has been dealing with Jan.  If I deal with her with the same preparation that I had last time that she needs to be saved, no, now Jan needs to know that God loves her, that Jesus wept, that we care. 

Two years ago in February her mother died and this year in February her dad died.  The doctor Damschen I saw Friday was not the Dr Damschen that I had seen a month ago.  His son almost went into eternity on Evaro hill since then.  It is wonderful that there are new beginnings.

You may say, “I tried to work with them two years ago and it was to no avail.”  I understand but if you meet with them and God opens the door, say, “God give me a new beginning.  If you have been working with them, then give me a new beginning.”

I don’t know what your job of ministry will be this week.  There are a lot of jobs to do.  The young men and women need a new beginning.  Not only do they; you and I may need a new beginning.

God spoke to me this week, forgetting those things that are behind I press… a new beginning.

Brother and sister in Christ, do you need a new beginning of thought in your mind?  There are some old battles that we won’t go to.  Have you been ripped off?  Let’s have a new beginning.  Think of the one that did too much for too little pay instead.  Ask God, “Do you want to give me a new job or do you want to give me a new vision on this job?”

Do you need a new beginning of praises?  If you are in a cycle of thought where each morning you wake up to thoughts that go down, down, down.  Let Jesus give you a new beginning of praises and thanksgiving.  God wants to give you a new beginning.

God promised to dry the tears from our eyes.  We don’t have to go back to the old life, no more regrets, no more pain of the conscience.

The former is gone; it is God that makes all things new.

The overcomers: inherit all things.  If you are challenged or afraid of the challenge, God said that you could inherit all things.  That which would destroy you or work problems, that which, "I have inherited and I don’t want, I cast it aside."

Peace, wisdom, joy, new beginnings.

To the overcomers: the Abba father would be ours.  The father not only of our nationality, but to all that would be saved.  To my brother that is a Cuban, the Italian, we have the same heavenly father.  The savior, the God of the Greek and of the Hebrew.

We are His sons and His daughters.  If you need a new beginning this morning, it is the easiest thing to have.  The price has already been paid.  You need bring no lamb, or river of oil, the price has already been paid.  You can come just as you are.  You can be saved.


No comments:

Post a Comment