Brother Gary Sunday Morning 11/3/13

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 11/3/13

1Ch 29:10  Wherefore David blessed the LORD before all the congregation: and David said, Blessed be thou, LORD God of Israel our father, for ever and ever.

1Ch 29:11  Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all.

1Ch 29:12  Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all.

1Ch 29:13  Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name.

1Ch 29:14  But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.

As God began to work with me on this lesson, I thought back in time to years of pastoring, teaching, and laboring.  I usually preach a lesson similar to this at the end of the year.  “Who will give themselves to God and consecrate to Him?”

This is the end of the leaves.  The fog is moving in and the mountains are being dusted with snow.  The feeling of hunting season is in the air.  Many of us have had this feeling and Brother Gyme getting that elk the other day brought to mind the year when God moved a bull elk into Brother Bob’s logging strip to eat moss from the trees and he snuck out got the gun and snuck back and shot it.

Who am I?  David was a humble man and started as a humble boy.  He had a testimony that he responded to God. 

You and I know that as God, His word, His spirit, His power, and His love encompasses the globe this morning.  God speaks to every soul.

God knew all about David before Samuel knew about David.  You all remember the lessons where Samuel was called to anoint a new king.  Saul had failed God.  He found this man that had eight sons.  There were seven that were there that God had not chosen to be king. 

David responded to God as a child.  When He was herding the sheep out in the hillsides, most of the time he was all by himself, he was visited by God.

There are times in each of our lives that we can look back to.  We are glad that each child and each adult is here.  There is one thing that is vital that we know and that is that this God begins to work with souls usually when they are very young.

David was a teenager when God told Samuel, “I have found a son of Jesse, a man after my own heart that will fulfill all my will.”

You that are less than 20 years old are in a unique situation in your life.  You are very blessed because there are those that have a very personal interest in your life.  They are not just interested that you get an education and make it through this year of school.  You have individuals that are concerned about you spiritually.

The responsibility is on us adults that God would help us to hear what His thoughts are to us and especially that we would pray for the young in this congregation that their little lives will respond to the call of God.  Those children in Bible Story Time and Vacation Bible School, your grand or great grandchildren, whoever you could reach out to in being relatives, realize that God begins preparing a soul when they are very young in age.

David asked the question in humility, “Who am I?”  He asked this question because of all that the children of Israel had given in building the tabernacle.  David did his very best in every assignment that he was given.

Teenagers and others that are close to that age, David was anointed as a teenager and the Spirit of God came upon him.  This eternal God begins shaping lives very young.  That is the reason that you parents are parents.  God’s plan is perfect. 

May God help us as adults to realize that as a teenager David was anointed by the Spirit of God.  He was still a lad and had responsibilities of the family.  He was responsible for the welfare of the family.  His older brothers were not out there herding the sheep but responsible David was out there. 

While he was out there he learned how to kill a bear and how to kill a lion by the help of God.  As sad as we often feel it is, the things that children and young people face young in their lives, it is a time for them to build character and take a stand against those things that would destroy them. 

The lion and bear were there to destroy the sheep but would have killed David too if they were able.  David had other experiences too because when he killed Goliath he already knew that he was not comfortable with the king’s armor.  “Let me go to the stream and collect five stones and use my sling.” 

We think of the five stones in the Gospel day as promises.  Then the scripture tells us that he ran to meet Goliath and took from his bag one of those five stones.  Every one of us needs to have promises that we have used over and over again.

At the end of his life he asked, “Who am I?”  We need to acknowledge God’s greatness and power.  David left a testimony that He thirsted after God.  Ps 42 David said, “My soul cries out for the living God.”  “Deep within my heart there is a longing.”  In every little child there is a longing for God.

I would be spiritually sound in making this expression that there is a lion and a bear there to destroy that longing in every child that is out there.  There are spirits that way too young begin encouraging children in the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life.

At your and my exact age we make a choice as to what we hunger and thirst after.  We live in a world where it is so easy to be distracted.  24 hours a day you can fill your mind with whatever whomever would want to fill it with.

Because I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, I try to be very careful what I read on reference desks, in the email or other places.  I don’t want to miss His thoughts for me.

“My soul thirsts for the living God.”  We are all born with a personality that is inquisitive about some things.  This may be why we have wonderful inventions in the world and good things to eat and grow.  God made us with that and it is important that we don’t get sidetracked. 

When you want to commune, learn, and get a hold of something, there is a God whose depth has never been found, whose height has never been found.  There is a God who is making plans for everyone in this audience.  God has exploits for each of us to do. 

God has thoughts for us first in our reaching to those of our local fellowship.  Every one of us needs to have exploits to show loving kindness to those in our fellowship.  We are the family of God.  Sister Bereneice has told us that we are her family.  Her other family has forgotten her. 

Every one of us needs to exercise, “How can I show an exploit toward the family of God?”

There is a general prayer, Help my family.  And remember the lost everywhere.

I think of the man whose service is Saturday and who was raised in Indiana.  There may be those in that day that prayed for this man at that time.  God has a way of reaching souls everywhere.  Here we are starting a new week.  You may feel, “Who am I?”  You are the one that God is depending upon to accomplish His exploit.

“I thirst for the living God.”  In that account, David said, “When can I appear before God?”  We have a wonderful thing built into us of having had the wonderful opportunity of being together with brothers and sisters in Christ. 

Some of you mothers can go back and remember having a little boy or girl and I remember being with my dad in a basin and hiking in to look at a timber sale and he taught me to drink out of a creek.  I remember getting down and Him showing me to take my hand and make a cup out of it and drink. 

I thought of the occasion when Kathy and I were going hunting and as we left Paradise and headed to Plains we saw flames, the day McGowan commercial company burned.  We remember the day when Kayla’s ear was abscessed and the great mercies of God when He healed that ear.

We remember times of coming before God.  David pinned it, “Who am I?”  “I thirst for the living God.”  If you want to have things right in your life, thirst and drink and that sets things right in your life. 

I emphasize, in Psalms 51 David taught us how to repent.  David acknowledged his sin and repented towards God.  He asked himself the question, “Who am I?”  He is that man that knew how to repent. 

It is important to know how to repent.  It is not take the thought, “I’m going to turn over a new leaf or change my ways.”  It is “I am going to clear myself with God.”  Someone said, “The easiest thing in the world is to get right with God.  The hardest thing is to stay right with God.” 

There is a vital clearing of ourselves when we clear ourselves with God and with one another.  David knew how to do both.

Psa 78:70  He chose David also his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds:

It is a wonderful thing for God to look down and say, I’m going to choose you and use you.  I created you to live a life full of light and joy. 

God chose David to protect the sheep.  He chose David and made a plan that Goliath would cease to be the tyrant and giant that overshadowed people’s lives. 

May God help you and I to be instruments to know God and have such faith in God that we would be inspired to tell souls, “You don’t have to go through life overshadowed with failure, events of life, or by fear, you can be free from that.”

David met and slew the lion and the bear.  God has a plan to choose you to be used mightily in the Kingdom of God.

He took him from following the ewes that were great with young.  This man that was chosen had taken such good care of those that were carrying heavy burdens.  David became a king but he kept the heart of a shepherd.

May God help this pastor to keep the heart of a shepherd.  When I think of the hirelings that are out there and the precious souls that are without a shepherd, it is almost more than you can bear.  There are lives that have no one to care when they are carrying heavy burdens. 

I thought of Phil, talk of a man with a heavy burden.  You and I cannot go to help him; he lives too far away.  It needs to be more than just a run in to see him and running out. 

David said, “Who am I?”  He was a man that yielded himself to God and God chose him.  Yes he took care of the sheep, but the day came that he left that position and came to feed God’s people.  He was a leader with a heart of the shepherd and a guide that led by example. 

God deals with us so that our interchange with one another is according to the integrity of our heart.  People that know God have the integrity to help one another with never the thought, “I’m doing this to get what I want.” 

God gave David the ability to guide with his hand.

1Ch 29:15  For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.

I can almost remember my father’s and my mother’s shadow.  They are gone and never again on earth will that shadow be there for us to see.  That shadow is gone but I have a shadow for my grandchildren to look at and to see.

1Ch 29:16  O LORD our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own.

You young people with bright minds, everything that you have: it all comes from God.  All who are so talented that can sing, play, and write, you that understand the money and tax system in our land, all that you have received, it came from God. 

“God, you try the heart and have pleasure in uprightness.”  You have pleasure in your people when they do right.

1Ch 29:17  I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto thee.

1Ch 29:18  O LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee:

I pray that it will be in the heart of the people and in my son to have a perfect heart and obey God.

1Ch 29:19  And give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart, to keep thy commandments, thy testimonies, and thy statutes, and to do all these things, and to build the palace, for the which I have made provision.

Keep this in their thoughts, in their meditation.  David had a real earnestness in his prayer for all the people of Israel and for his son Solomon.  The reason is because David had experienced God preparing him in his heart and in his mind. 

David knew great love and he knew hatred.  He knew honor but he also knew what it was to be dishonored to the extent of being hunted.  He knew the choice of letting God prepare his heart to be a man after the heart of God. 

You may meet me at the door and say, “I plan to be a doctor and use my...”  Others may meet me and say, “I plan to be a missionary.”  Others say, “My feet are tired and I am not running fast but I plan to make exploits for God.” 

We make a choice to let God prepare our heart.  God is looking for pastors, Sunday school teachers, deacons, piano players, instrument players, and people just like you that have a heart of a shepherd.  If you don’t have a heart of a shepherd then you will never know what He has planned for you.

God is looking for husbands, mothers, and grandparents that have a heart like Him.  My message to grandmas and grandparents is that God is looking for more than those that dole out candies and any little old thing that the child wants.  He is looking for people after God’s own heart realizing that they are working with God in praying and training for a soul to do exploits for Him. 

David learned that God searched the heart.

Psa 139:1  To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.

Psa 139:2  Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

Psa 139:3  Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

Psa 139:4  For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.

Psa 139:5  Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

Psa 139:6  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

Psa 139:7  Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

Psa 139:8  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

Psa 139:9  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

Psa 139:10  Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

Psa 139:11  If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

Psa 139:12  Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

Psa 139:13  For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

George Matheson wrote a devotional that is in Streams in the Desert:  Live everyday with gratitude toward God for the blessings of the day.  This was a blind man that had been broken hearted by his fiancé saying, “I cannot stand to be married to a blind man.” 

His sister had been his companion and helped him get an education.  One day she told him that she was going to get married.  The night of her wedding he was all alone.  He could have felt sorry for himself or he could choose to think the thoughts that God had for him.  He chose the thoughts that God had. 

To every soul that is here, God has thoughts for you.  As soon as you get the thought, “You need to take care of this,” you need to take care of it.

David said, “Search me again.”  That is like, “I’m packing the suitcase twice, I’m making this pie and I am going over the recipe over and over again, I don’t want to try to put any substitutes in it.  It is for someone that I love.”

“Try me and whatever it would take to reveal a wicked way in me, whether it be losses, pain, being made fun of, or left alone while my dearest companion is gone, work it in me so that I am not displeasing to you.”

This morning if you have any needs, David’s life proves that God will meet every need.  At the end of his journey David left the testimony, “I am concerned with that which is God’s and that He remains in the minds and thoughts of them.”