Brother Gary Kelly Sunday Morning 3/10/13

Brother Gary Kelly Sunday Morning 3/10/13

1Ch 28:9  And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.

Last Sunday we dealt with the first part of this Scripture: “And thou Solomon my son know the God of thy father.” 

What a wonderful instruction of a father to a son to know the True God.  David was close to seventy years old and Solomon was about twenty years old.  David knew that God had chosen his son to build the temple.  David knew that it was vital that Solomon know God and serve Him with a perfect heart.

Serve God.  The word ‘serve’ means to worship God.  There are many things that tug upon our heart for our affection.  The one thing that is most needful is that we worship the only True God.  We must worship God in spirit and in truth.  We must have the right spirit and have the truths of God’s Word. 

Worship is more than just an outward moving of some kind, it is a moving of the heart.  He cannot just be worshipped with hands.

The thought is to be a servant and to be a husbandman.  A husbandman means to be a tiller and caretaker of the soil.  There were not rotor tillers when this was written.  It was either an instrument drawn by horses or done by hand.  It means to be a laborer.

David felt so convicted that he had done much preparation for the building of the temple.  He desired for God’s house to not just be a tent.  He had worked, labored, and sacrificed toward seeing the temple built.  He saw it as important that this one that God had chosen to build the temple know and serve God.

On an individual basis it is vitally important that we know God personally.  A man that had been a literal Jew of the strictest sect, as Paul was, left the testimony after meeting Jesus Christ, “That I may know Him.”  It is vital that we not only know God intellectually but personally having turned from our sin to God, having repented. 

David knew that Solomon must have an attitude of a servant, not only one that could lead but one that could be taught and could teach.  He wanted to instruct Solomon to not only be a servant but a tiller of the land and a caretaker of the soil. 

There are many spiritual lessons that come to us in the thought of a husbandman.  God the Father is the greatest of the husbandmen.

David knew that it was vitally important that His son knew how to work, how to take care of the soil, how to be a laborer. 

David said, not only do I want you to know and serve God but I want you to have a perfect heart, a perfect heart in obedience toward God.  You will never be perfect in the thought of in the eyes of people of the world, there is always human error.  David knew this but wanted Solomon to keep a perfect heart toward God. 

We must know God in serving God.  In the days of the Acts of the Apostles, there were those that had the inscription “to the unknown God.”  God wants us to know Him on a very personal basis.  God wants us to know Our Father, not as a stranger, or a God that is out there somewhere in space but our Heavenly Father.

Paul used the term, “Abba Father.”  This shows that Paul had a grasp that this God is the father of all creation: of the Jew and of the Gentile.  All of us here were Gentiles unless some of you visitors are Jews.  I am glad that I can tell you that I know my heavenly Father.  It is that father that sent His only begotten son that I could have a new beginning and forget the past.

It was so vital that Solomon didn’t only know his dad but that he knew the God of his father.  We must know the only true God.  We must serve Him with a perfect heart.

There may be times that you lack understanding or that you are not sure what God would have you to do but the gospel and the Word of God would have you to have the heart “God, to do thy will is my heart cry.”  These are the words of Jesus Christ, “Not my will but thine be done.”

To have a willing mind:  These precious children are blessed to have an innocent mind.  To the parents and grandparents in this audience, that brother that used to sit right there that left us Feb 14^th at 6 pm used to have a heart-cry for all the children of the world.  There isn’t a day that goes by that a saved parent doesn’t pray for their children or a saved grandparent doesn’t pray for their grandchildren.  But there is a great request that goes on.

 A willing mind:  You don’t have to live very long until there are things placed in the mind.  There are things placed in the minds of children.  Many of them grow up with barriers.  They are invisible barriers, thoughts put into your mind by individuals and sometimes by the enemy of your soul. 

These little children need to have a willing mind.  David saw the value of this and told his son Solomon, “If you have a willing mind, then God can move upon you, upon your mind.”

Sometimes we get phone calls and kind people say, “I’m sorry to trouble you and to take your time but I really need to talk to you.”  I try to tell them to take all the time that you need.  I tell them, “You are important and your phone call is important.”

We serve a God of new beginnings.  Brother Herb was seventy some years old when he got saved.  He was faithful.  The assisted living service was Wednesday and he went home after the service, that very Wednesday afternoon, and started preparing for the next service.

You may not feel gifted with language or words.  But to have a willing mind is more important than that.  We must have a willingness to believe God.  We live in a world that is full of unbelief.  Jesus fought it.  He couldn’t do many mighty works because of their unbelief.

God had chosen Solomon to build a beautiful temple for God.  God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands; this building is just a convenient place to worship God in.  The beautiful temple that we are to have a wiling mind toward is what God wants to do in your and my heart, in this earthen vessel.

The gold and jewels are not what beautify God’s temple but the graces of God beautify the meek with salvation.

Whatever you may have learned wherever you learned it, if it agrees with the teachings of the Word of God then it is true.  If it disagrees, then you must have a willing mind of “God I will take truth.”  There are two witnesses, it agrees with the New and the Old Testament, it agrees with the Word and the Spirit, and it agrees with the water and the blood that has been applied to our heart.

God already knows what is in our heart.  It is vital that you and I have the attitude, Psalms 139:23,24,  God I want you to search my heart and show me.

This is a wonderful promise that if you seek God He will be found of you.

In 1950 Harry and Duke took 50,000 worth of gold out of the Nine mile.  That there is gold there, I have no doubt of.  I don’t spend much time looking for gold but the Word of God has a greater value than the gold that they found.

If you have a job and are thinking about prospecting and I’m not telling you to not do that, but what I want to say is that that which is of eternal value can only be found in seeking God. 

My father’s testimony was, “God, if there is a God, then I want you to tell me.”  He found God and he found a new beginning.  That God is just as alive and real as He has ever been.

David told Solomon, “Son I want you to know that if you forsake God then you will be lost forever.”

Serve God.  It is vital that we worship God.  I was born with a hunger for God.  I cannot turn the pages of time back and serve God from my youth.  The scripture teaches that those that hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled.  There are things that you and I fill up on in the world that will do you no good. 

We are instructed to have the heart of a servant and to be a husbandman or a tiller of the soil.  The prophet was inspired of God to tell them that want to seek after God that the vine was empty. 

When you are not bearing fruit for God, break up the fallow ground.

The soul is as a garden, God designed that it be as a watered garden.  There is some fallow ground around our house that is not producing anything.  It is hard and unused ground.  It is untilled ground. 

May God challenge me and this audience.  Some think that there is no more ground to gain that they have gone as far as they can go.  I’m not going to deal with that this morning.  God challenge me to realize that it is my job to break up that ground in my heart that is unused. 

You say, “I like fire and brimstone preaching.”  That is good, but how do you feel about breaking up the fallow ground in your heart?  How do you feel about taking one more step for God?  Did you order more garden seed than you ordered last year? 

Spiritually God help us to realize that, “I want to be broken for God, and bear more fruit for God.  I want to be broken so that we are not found as Aaron and Miriam sewing bad seed and trouble, but bearing fruit for God.

Till the soil of your soul.  Most of us know a bit about tilling.  You cannot till soil that is too soaked or too dry.  Hardened soil with some water poured on it causes it to reach a place that it can be tilled. 

Before you can help someone else, sometimes you must refresh them.  Before you take the Pulaski to anyone, pour some water on them and let them know that you love them and that you‘ve failed and had some hard times too, but that there is a God of new beginnings.

  We always look for someone that is big and strong and geared right for pulling weeds.  We tell them, “Karen wants you to take the weeds but to leave the soil.”  They really go to work and leave the weeds they pull in the back of the little red pickup.  I go out after they leave and beat the soil out of the roots. 

You must be careful pulling weeds.  You don’t want to take all the ground away when you are getting the weeds out.  You will probably find some thorns, when you find the root of the thorn then you must work with getting it out.  Let the soul know that it will be a hindrance to them.  The thorns are cares: cares of this life, deceitfulness of riches, and lusts of other things entering in.

When you are working with someone and you are digging around trying to help them and you hit a rock.  Maybe they want to serve God but they have so many issues with the past.  There is only one way to deal with the past.  I help them to know that the failures of the past can be buried.  Cast as far as the east is from the west and cast into the depths of the sea.

The reason that Paul helped you and me so much when we read the epistles that he wrote is because first he worked on himself.

Php 3:8  Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

There is not one person that has ever gotten saved that didn’t feel that they would lose out on some things.  Whether it was the party life, the drugs or whatever it was.  When we come to Jesus the enemy makes it look like that serving God would be a dread. 

Paul suffered a lot of things.  We don’t know about the rejection of his family but he was probably considered dead and ostracized.  He gave up a position in the church and in the government.  He had served God a while and worked through some things.  He counted all lost for the excellency of the knowledge of God.

Life, if you serve God, may not be easy but it will be worthwhile.  You will find some things of excellency in God.  He is a comfort.  There is not a friend like Jesus as the songwriter said.  I cannot tell you of the hundreds or thousands of times that God had helped. 

My wife says, “I trust God to help this cake to work out or I trust God that these enchiladas are not too hot.”  We hit black-ice on bald tires when the girls were little and that truck went into a tail spin.  My mother was dead in the mortuary.  Karen, the girls, and I were all headed home together in the car. 

As we were spinning out of control we met three oncoming vehicles.  There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.  I am not the only one that has been protected by God. 

We can enjoy his friendship but it goes beyond that, we can enjoy his fellowship.  We can sit down with this Word of God in the good times and in the bad times and have more than friendship, we have fellowship.  He comes and sups with us and us with Him.  He never comes empty handed.  He comes with something for us.  He has never failed.

Forgetting the past

Paul had experienced it and that is the reason that he can cultivate you and me and say, “forget the past and press.” 

You may have experienced losses.  I know a God of new beginnings.  There are many times in our life beyond getting saved that we need a new beginning. There are times in our past when the disappointment is so strong that we need a new beginning.  There are times when grief has left us needing a new beginning.  God has the best new beginning.

Have a perfect heart before God; God is a heart searcher and knows our hearts.

Psa 139:23  Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

Psa 139:24  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Until you know that there is something in your heart that displeases God, then you are not held accountable for it.  If you say “I think there is, but I’m not going to ask God.”  Let me help you to know that God is not political.

Say, “Search me O God.  If there is a wicked way in me that in my blindness I cannot see, show me and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Honest souls know God and serve Him.  Stay humble before God.  Fallow ground is unused Ground.  Please don’t tell God that, “God I cannot grow anymore.”  You can grow more and I can grow more. 

God, you made the rock Christ Jesus.  I’ll fall upon that rock and gladly let God, His word and the Spirit get out the thorns and the rocks form my ground.”  I want to bear fruit.

First labor on your own soul, your attitude, and your vision.

In James chapter five we read that whoever plants is who should enjoy the first fruit.

Dig around and pray, let God, his people and the Word dig around and let the fruit grow up and then enjoy it.

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.