Brother Gary Sunday Morning 5/19/13

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 5/19/13

Pro 29:18  Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

Indeed God’s people need a vision today.  A ‘vision’ is to mentally perceive and to contemplate with pleasure.  There is a vision of eternal things and of heaven and there is also a vision of being eternally separated from God. 

A ‘vision’ is a revelation from God, God revealing to us, giving us an understanding according to the Word and through the Spirit of God.

God knows everyone of us past what we can know of our self.  I have prayed, “God I can’t quite understand myself and my emotions but you have me figured out.  God you know my ‘down sittings and my uprisings’, you know everything.”

This is not dealing with the thought that God needs a vision; He knows every one of us.  He understands where we are spiritually and has instructed us to lay aside every weight.  We might not know why we are weighted down but I want to be freed.  God knows every one of us.

God desires us to know Him.  He desires you and me to know Him.  It is such a mystery to us how that God would love us.  It is such a wonderful contemplation to my mind that not only does God know me but He desires me to know Him.

Isa 1:1  The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Isa 1:2  Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

Isa 1:3  The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

It is always a really sad thing when people don’t know God.  Karen told me that she told her Sunday school class in the last month about my sister.  I was talking to my sister and she was telling me her troubles.  I told her that she needed to pray.  She said, “Gary, I’ve forgotten how to pray.” 

It is so sad when people don’t know how to contact the only God.  They may have read the Bible from cover to cover and still don’t know God.

David instructed Solomon to know God.

Isa 6:1  In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

Every one of us needs the vision of God in His rightful place.  Isaiah saw Him high and lifted up.  For every challenge that would be represented in this audience, (We would not find fault with the one whose dad died and their heart needs to be healed.), only God can heal a broken heart.  Only He can put something into that void that we feel when someone that we love is gone. 

A situation may have left us very disappointed.  The disciples were when they thought that Jesus would have set up a literal kingdom.  I have found that is how life is.  Life doesn’t leave you with every compartment filled with everything that you have hoped for in life. 

It is wonderful that we can see God high and lifted up.  He is the one and only one that can bring satisfaction and joy to us this morning.

If you look to anything that is tangible you will be extremely disappointed in life.  As much as we appreciate our home, and having children and grandchildren, they are to be appreciated but it takes more to satisfy the hungers of the soul.

Isaiah saw God high and lifted up.  Not only did He see this, he saw angels there.  They were describing God one to another.

Isa 6:2  Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

Isa 6:3  And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

The events of life may not be fair.  Job promotion or the workload may not be fair.  But there is one that always deals justly with us.  That is the one that the angels were describing.  He is Holy and we are to think of that which is pure. 

We live in a world that is bombarded with way too much information.  I am not saying it is not true but I am not convinced that man can handle it very well.  This I know, we can come into the presence of the Holy God and we want to see Him high and lifted up. 

We need a vision of God.  We are happy for everyone that is here.  For those that are starting out in life, these precious children, our public school systems will not teach you about God.  There is a God in heaven.  The scripture describes Him as being holy.

He is the Lord of Hosts.  Not only is God, God, the triune God, He is the Lord of Hosts.  He has an innumerable company of angels.  There will be nothing that you can face in life that you cannot handle as long as you allow Him to be in the yoke with you.

There are times when God chooses for the yoke to have more than two.  But as long as you have Jesus beside you and yourself in the rightful place and see Jesus and God as high and lifted up then there will be no challenge that you cannot face. 

You may feel that your heart is so broken and you would like to hear from that brother that never calls or you may feel that you have hungers that are not filled.

Last Sunday we saw the slideshow of your mothers and those women that had an influence in our life.  I often get lonesome for my mother and I thought of Brother and Sister McConahae and thought of those wonderful years of fellowship.  Any that heard him preach know that if he was not the very best preacher in the world that he was one of the very best.

One day the events of life left him so that he couldn’t preach any more.  One day he couldn’t find the van anymore and one day he couldn’t find the way home any more.  One day he died and sister McConahae was left alone.  We made our yearly trip to California and she knew everything that I loved to eat and what she didn’t make she would take us out for. 

One day we received a call, the aneurism has broken and Sister McConahae is laying there knowing that before long she will be in eternity.  We appreciate every mother.  That is how the family of God is.

As we have Mother’s day, I couldn’t help but think.  No one could fry chicken like Sister Irene Blanchard Knox.  There is something in us that we feel lonesomeness.  We cannot touch them but there is a God in heaven.

You that are widows in this audience, there is a God in heaven.  You cannot bring the ones back that you are lonesome for but you can have a vision of one that is high and lifted up.  If you do not then you will get bitter. 

How come this happened?  How come my inheritance was stolen from me?  What are we going to do?  There has to be one that is high and lifted up.  The angel said, “We are going to describe and name Him Holy.”

Maybe school won’t turn out like you hoped it would.  Sometimes we have friends that disappoint us.  Sometimes teachers disappoint us.  Children can know God.  When the events of school turn out like you didn’t hope they would, know how to worship God.  I believe that children can worship until they hear the angels saying, “Holy.”

It is wonderful to have someone that looks at us without any motive.  Holy means undefiled.  We go to a God that has our best interest at heart.  No one has told him anything about us that has affected him.

He is sanctified.  He is set apart from being indoctrinated, influenced, or moved by the winds of time or anything like that. 

He is honest and I have faced His honesty many times and not always was it a comfortable situation on my part.  He said, “Spend more time with me.  Pray more.  This is what I want to do.”  I have shook and trembled.

He is loving.  I have never come or went from His presence that He hasn’t embraced me.  I never have felt that God didn’t love me.  In the most difficult seasons of life He has loved me.

He desires to be our God.  It is wonderful to have an identity with eternity.  It is wonderful that we can visit with someone that desires to be our God. 

We don’t know our roots back very far.  We think we can trace back to when our family left West Virginia.  We are not sure how they got there, but we are here.  We serve a God that doesn’t just go back to 1776 but goes back before time.  He indicates that He wants to be our God.

God is not a God of just makeup or band aides or good feelings.  He is God.  His presence convicts us. 

Some can remember the very first time that God convicted them.  They thought, “I know that I shouldn’t have taken that cookie” or whatever it was.  God convicts us and His presence convinces us that He will forgive and provide for all our needs.

Sophia is 1 year and three days old and does not have to worry about any of her needs.  You have a heavenly father.  You have a God.  My God shall supply all your needs.

If you woke up needy this morning then you are blessed.  Blessed are the poor in spirit.  If you recognized that you needed something from God then you are blessed and God plans to supply.

If you woke thinking that the world was lucky to have you then you are wretched, poor and miserable.

A vision of creation:  You will never understand how the world was made except by faith.  You can study all the theories that are out there but Hebrews 11:3 says by faith we understand that the worlds were made… that is how we know the world was made. 

Psa 100:3  Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

When we go back to the creation of man, God formed man of the dust and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man becoming a living soul.  Not only did God make us as a human, God made us to be one of His own in the thought of His sheep.

A vision of God’s design for our life:  God created us for His glory.  The design of God is that your life would be a beautiful tabernacle where God dwells. 

Joh 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

God loved us.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, our mind, and our soul. 

There was a lawyer, an individual that studied the law that asked Jesus concerning the thought that you are to love your neighbor as yourself.  When asked who our neighbor was, Jesus said, “The one that is needy is your neighbor.”

We are loved by God first.  Then we are to love Him with all our heart, mind, and strength, and then we are to love our neighbor as our self.

The plan of God produces joy in our life.  The enemy loves to steal our joy.  There will be things in your life that if you magnify them, such as your losses, you will have no joy.  Let me emphasize, Jesus came that you and I could have the kingdom of heaven.

Mat 5:3  Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Rom 14:17  For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Applying the vision:  I will look carefully at God.  I will keep Him high and lifted up and then I will realize that it is from Him that I am made a sheep of His pasture.

Psa 100:3  Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Psa 100:4  Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

Psa 100:5  For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

Psa 100:1  A Psalm of praise. Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.

Psa 100:2  Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

God wants to hear you being thankful and praising Him.  He wants you to have a vision of Him high and lifted up and when you do this then you will see your problems right.  And recognize that He is the triune God.  He is the Lord of Hosts.