Brother Gary Wednesday evening 2/12/14

Brother Gary Wednesday evening 2/12/14

Mat 18:18  Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Mat 18:19  Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.

Mat 18:20  For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Luk 24:36  And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

Among the greatest challenge that I have ever had was getting into the closet of prayer, shutting the door, and getting all the voices silent so that I could pray.

Luk 24:37  But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.

Luk 24:38  And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?

Luk 24:39  Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

Luk 24:40  And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.

Luk 24:41  And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?

Luk 24:42  And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.

Luk 24:43  And he took it, and did eat before them.

Luk 24:44  And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

Sometimes it is right while we are going through things we grasp precious truths that have fed us before.  When they become real to us then we become as the disciples, “our understanding is open.”

Luk 24:45  Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

Luk 24:46  And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:

As it was with Jesus so it will be in our life.  There is faith and it will be increased by the things that we go through.  Among the true characteristics of God’s disciples is virtue and valor.  As we work through things in our life, we see where “God I want to step up to a higher plane of valor or virtue.”

Luk 24:47  And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Luk 24:48  And ye are witnesses of these things.

It is beyond our mind that a million people are reading the Bible and missing the message of repentance.  Whole religious societies, that claim they read the Bible and pray, miss repentance. 

For all of us that have known repentance and the remission of sins, it is an injustice for any individual that will not seek and find the forgiveness that Jesus has for them.  There is no way to put a value on repentance.

Luk 24:49  And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.

Luk 24:50  And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.

One thing dear church tonight, every one of us can acknowledge and know of a certainty that it is the desire of the Son of God to bless.  You may be going through a turbulent storm.  It is not designed to destroy you but to get you to the exact point that He wants you to come out.

Luk 24:51  And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.

Luk 24:52  And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:

Luk 24:53  And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.

In Acts 1:1-12, Luke records the account of Jesus being lift up from His disciples.  He addressed this to Theophilus. 

Act 1:13  And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James.

Act 1:14  These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.

It would take a pretty good size room to hold 120 people so it is unknown whether this was in the temple or in some house. 

We see that Jesus had taught them to tarry at Jerusalem until they be endued with power.  He had taught them about praying.  They knew how to pray.  He had taught them about prayer and about supplication, but there is a word in there that I want to introduce you to.  You know the word and that is ‘accord’. 

I was taken by that word.  They were in one accord.  It signifies that the 120 that were there were all together with their minds upon what they were doing. 

The reality is that their lives were totally upset because things had not progressed like they had hoped they would progress.  They had hoped that a literal kingdom would be set up.  They had gone through Judas betraying Christ and failing God. 

It was chosen of God, it was the work of God that all 120 of them were to gather and they all had their mind upon, “We are here praying and supplicating that the Holy Spirit of God would be poured out.”

Our day positions us to realize, “Oh how we want to be in one accord not just with each other but with God the Father, Jesus the Son, and with the Holy Spirit of God.  One accord that when we come together to worship, so that everything will be that which would work towards the edification of souls that are saved and the deliverance of sinners.”

It signifies that they not only had their entire minds but all of their affections together.  Temperance deals a lot with our desires and our affections.  My granddaughter called and said, “Grandpa, I am lonesome for you.”  Lord willing I won’t be going tomorrow not because I don’t want to but it will not work out.  That would be close to my heart.

You would have things that are close to your heart.  There is nothing wrong with them.  In order to be in that one accord we must lay aside all the distractions.  My distraction to my granddaughter, the distraction to the wood getting low in the cellar breaks the one accordness. 

God wants you and me to know how to be in one accord.  When we come together so to speak as the 120, we have the greatest blessings that could be afforded to any souls.

Not knocking politics, but good things will not happen to you because of what goes on in Helena or DC.  Don’t look to the capital for everything to go well in your life. 

If God will grant us, as a congregation, that understanding, “I want to be in one accord so that we get everything that God has ordained for us on Sunday, I want all of my mind.”  We all have a mind that has a lot of thoughts and lots of needs.  There are needs of eternal value.

These disciples, this 120, grasped being in one accord in one place.  We need to preach on unity, I believe in unity and if God allows me to preach on it I mean to preach on it.  These dear ones, the 120 brought their minds into being in one accord so that their affections, thoughts, desires, and wishes were all concentrated on one thing.  Isn’t that beautiful?

I woke up this morning singing the song, “Shut in with God in the secret place, there in His beauty beholding His face, gaining more power to run in the race; How I long to be shut in with God.”

We have been in times where we were so in one accord that all of our thoughts were banished, laid aside.  I don’t think that we were trying not to think of the job interview or that hike; we had prepared our self in the secret prayer, “God I want to be all there Sunday, Wednesday…” 

I have limitations to what I can do and still handle my job on Sunday.  All of you that have clients know that if you are going to be taking care of them you have to take care of yourself.  It is the same with serving God.

Being filled with the Holy Spirit they had power to be witnesses at home first and then everywhere.

Being one accord is the total opposite of being the onlooker.  I was there yesterday.  I was in Babylon and had total no desire to be there and had no interest in being a part of what was going on.  That breaks the one accord.

No care:  If we don’t have care for the church and for each other then there cannot be one accord.

Luke warmness is a killer to being in one accord.

One accord puts us all in earnest unity for the Holy Spirit of God to come down and meet the needs of the hour. 

Whether the need of the hour Sunday morning will be for a child to be ministered to or healed, or for a sinner to get saved, or a backslider freed. Whatever the need is it is not for us to desire but to be rightly related to the Spirit of God and in one accord so that the Spirit of God can work.