Brother Gary Wednesday Evening 3/6/13

Brother Gary Wednesday Evening 3/6/13

This is the account where the disciples of John the Baptist had come to Jesus after John had been beheaded and they had buried him.  They came to Jesus as Jesus’ apostles were returning from going out two by two.  The Apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things.

Mar 6:29  And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb.

Mar 6:30  And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.

Mar 6:31  And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.

My thought tonight is that the heart of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit of God is to take tender care of His own.  It is so important that we live and allow Him to take tender care of His own.

Naturally the disciples of John were grief stricken, terrified, and exhausted.  Jesus said to them to come apart and that He would be their refuge.

Every one of us may not have this exact experience of losing the one that brought us to Christ or taught us but we will have the experience where we are exhausted and need to let Jesus be our hiding place.

The apostles had gone out and labored hard.  We know how it is when you go out.  There are some that receive and others that reject.  They were exhausted from travels and from travails.  Jesus said to come apart and rest a while.

We all will be stretched by life.  God created us so that we must get off of the stretch and place our burden, cares and labor on Him.  Too much of being stretched will bring destruction to our soul.  God has a plan, Is 26:4, to keep us in perfect peace when our mind is stayed upon Him.

The great challenge is to when you are exhausted bring your mind in to stay upon Him.

How long should I rest, restore, and renew?  Come apart and rest a while.

Rest means to come and be refreshed.  We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that life in general is taxing.  Even these children that are in school find that life is taxing.  Young people find that life is taxing.  All of us need to learn how to rest and how to teach others to rest. 

Rest until the fruit of peace is experienced.  As you study the Word of God what a treasure we have!  Peace means to be at one again.  There are over sixty times starting in Romans and going through Revelations that the word ‘peace’ is in the New Testament.

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.

The message is an old message, not one that has not been seen or preached before.  It might be new to us but it has been here in the Word all the time.

It takes time to be holy, to be renewed, to be refreshed, and for us to be made at one again.  It takes time for everything to be brought into the proper place that God would have it.  It takes time for our mind to be brought into the proper position, and for everything to be as God would have it.

We have to get alone with God.  There will be times when we are exhausted.  When you are tired you will not make good decisions.  You will be moved by emotions and you will be moved by accusations.  When you are exhausted and have nothing left isn’t it just like the devil to come and start accusing?

When you are in the battle of accusation plead the blood, you have been forgiven.  You have been made new.  They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.  Another thing that I’ve found helps me when I’m in accusation is to take a rest and deal with it when you have it all together again. 

When our body is exhausted often we are emotionally scattered.  When we are emotionally scattered there is that is us that thinks, “May be I should do this, maybe I should do that, or maybe I should do something else.” 

Instead say, “I need to get alone with God and maybe I can handle this better when I have had some rest.”

When you are exhausted what someone has said or what another person’s opinion is can be a battle.  There are some things that we must put aside when we are tired and deal with when we are rested.

Col 3:15  And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.

It takes you and I being alone with God to let the peace of God rule in our heart and for us to be thankful.

1Co 9:24  Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.

Don’t take more on than what God wants you to; don’t take on more than what you can carry.  The world will load you down with lots and lots of things. 

When someone goes out on the track field they don’t go out carrying a lot of weights they go out to run and to win. 

1Co 9:25  And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

Let us remember that the savior is Jesus.  We like to help people and that is important but the savior is Jesus.  There are a million people in the world today that need a savior and many of them are looking for a savior. 

Many a man would tell you that if they could find a good woman they would get over alcoholism.  No, that will not be what saves them. 

We all have relatives that are hurting.  There are a lot of people hurting today.  This doesn’t take away from what God would have you to do, but we must get direction from God.  We must be temperate or we will not win the race.

1Co 9:26  I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:

We must know how to run.  When you have experienced taking more on than you can handle, don’t beat yourself up, but this message is that God wants you to take on only as much as He would have you take on.

1Co 9:27  But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

One of the dangers of exhaustion is in Eph 4:30 where Paul wrote “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.”  If we are exhausted we will say things and take on battles that we should have never touched.  We take on things that people dump on us.  Then we are not capable of handling it in the right way.  We don’t want to grieve the Holy Spirit of God.  We need the Holy Spirit of God.

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.

Gal 2:21  I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

We are crucified with Christ.  Keep real that, “I am dead to the world and the world is dead to me.”  We must keep it that way so that the world cannot shout at us and get us distracted.

I do not frustrate the grace of God.  Frustrate means I don’t set aside the grace of God.  All of us need to have the grace of God witnessing in our hearts and lives, “This is what I want you to do.”  With the grace of God comes joy, not frustration.

Frustrate means to disesteem.  Right here by the bridge an officer could probably give fifty speeding tickets every day.  There is a sign that says how fast to go but people don’t pay any attention to the sign.  The officer sits with his radar machine and it tells him that the driver is going too fast and then he pulls them over.

God has a sign up there that says, “Be careful what you take on, I want you to get prepared, and I have a job for you to do.”  

How grieved we feel when we neutralize the grace of God, “I thought I was moved upon by the grace of God to do something, but I am frustrated and don’t have the time.”

Heb 12:12  Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

I would like to live in the Spirit and be refreshed all the time.  God wants us to live so that when we come upon someone that is down that we can be the Emergency Room to them and lift up those hands.  “Brother, Sister, lets pray; be encouraged, your load is heavy but God has always come through.”  We will not know how to do this unless we have learned how to come aside and rest with God.

Heb 12:13  And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

We don’t want to run on empty and then make moves and decisions that will actually hinder someone that is weak.

Heb 12:14  Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

Heb 12:15  Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

Some of you live alone.  Some of you have jobs where you work with people.  Some of you have really tough jobs: teaching school, working in the public, working in medical facilities.  We have a good lesson here.  It is up to you to look diligently and know where the lines are drawn in your personal life.

What is grace?  Grace is graciousness: don’t run on empty or you will not have grace you will be frustrated by whatever happens. 

Grace is the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection out into the life.  The Divine influence, this last week Karen and I were put in a situation where no one meant to do wrong, but I said to Karen, “We need to pray about this; It is vital that I handle this right.  Babylon is terrible but that doesn’t give me license to do wrong.  I have to do what is right.”

Grace is gratitude: in a world where people are full of murmuring and complaining, things are never right, God help us to have grace so we can be thankful.  For all the problems that are in the world we have a lot to be thankful for.  I ate supper, we have a washer and dryer, and we have people to fellowship with.  We can be thankful that we have one another.

Grace causes us to be acceptable to God.  Grace brings joy.  Grace brings liberality.  We cannot out-give God.  I don’t mean be wasteful.  My heart cry for the soul is not so much that God reward them financially but spiritually.  Looking at what has happened in the past, we are all going to get by financially. 

Grace means pleasure.  There is real pleasure in having it all together and being at one.