Brother Gary Sunday Morning 5/25/14

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 5/25/14

Eph 5:17  Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

The pursuit of the soul: every one of us in this audience has a soul.  God created us with a body and a soul.  God created us to seek after God, to find God and to serve Him. 

Mat 18:14  Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

It is wonderful how God is.  He takes His Word that has been there long before I was on the scene, but He speaks His Word and sheds His light into it so that it is good to our soul. 

Mat 18:10  Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

The angels of little children, of the humble, contrite, and broken, the angels in heaven always behold the face of the Father when it comes to dealing with children. The age of the children is not limited.

It is not the will of the Father that anyone, any of the little ones, should perish.  It is vital that we realize what that word ‘perish’ means.  It is not the will of the Father that anyone perishes.  That doesn’t mean just lost in hell.  I’m not going to ask what crowd you were in this last week, but about everywhere I went, I saw people that are perishing. 

I thought of people, you look at their lives and such darkness and scars.  We looked at a child one year old and we looked at the crowd gathered for her birthday.  It is not the thought that people are going to hell.  That word ‘perish’ means individuals that are losing fellowship with God.

To live a life without communion with God, to live a self centered life where people think only of themselves, they are such losers.  When individuals allow the carnal side to bring the focus on themselves, they lose the fellowship with God and others of their brothers and sisters in Christ.

Eph 5:15  See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

Eph 5:16  Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Eph 5:17  Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

We live in a world where people like to let on that everything is great in their lives and they couldn’t have any faults or problems.  The church at Ephesus had losses and waste, they had non-productiveness in their lives.  Let’s get a hold of God and redeem the time in every capacity that He will allow us to.

Perish means to destroy.  May God challenge me.  I so appreciate those that are going to graduate.  I’m glad that they are here and are going to graduate.  I’m glad for every child that is here and is going into the next grade.  God doesn’t want our lives to experience being destroyed in our mind.  Destroy our talents, destroy our relationships.

I think of all the effort that goes into having a relationship even with your neighbor.  The easiest thing is to build a big fence and having nothing to do with your neighbor.  God wants us to pray for them and love them and see if we can be the greater influence.

There are people that are very religious but don’t know anything about God.  We want to help people to realize that salvation is real and not just a fairy tale that we are believing.

God doesn’t want your life to be marred.  To be marred means to be bruised, to be scarred, to be scratched, warped, ruined, and then your life a wreck.  Every one of us in this audience are challenged because there are so many things that work to mar our lives.

There wouldn’t be any in this audience that wouldn’t have experienced disappointment.  The enemy comes along when you face heartache to mar your attitude, your speech and conduct.  If you yield to it… I don’t want to leave the thought that you have to stay marred, there is a healer praise God that can heal us so that we can recover from the mar.

Rom 12:3  For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

Faith is the conviction of truth.  The pursuit of the soul:  the first thing that every one of us knows as a conviction of truth is that there is an eternal God.  Then there is that conviction that “I am a creation of God.  We are created a body and a soul.  There is a natural body and a spiritual body.”

Matthew 18:10 the angels behold the father’s face concerning the little ones.

If there is anything in you that doesn’t identify with the reality, “I am a child of God, one of the sheep of His pasture.”  May God help us.

Every one of us shall give an account of himself to God.

We all understand that there was a requirement to get out of first grade, high school, college.  Every one of us shall give an account of himself to God.  We want to keep our conscience. 

My personality is not to try to find out someone’s business or if someone is doing wrong.  I already know that every soul is accountable to God.  God knows us.

As I was studying Matthew 18, it deals with the thought of if the hand, the eye, or the foot offend then cut it off.  I question what people put on facebook, the thought of lying with your hands.  Everything that I write or say I am accountable for.  Everything that is posted on facebook they are accountable for to God. 

Whoever it is, whatever is going on, that individual is accountable to God.  There is a time for great seriousness, the pursuit of the soul.  When we see men and women’s lives being perished. 

The design of God is that our soul be rich, be flourishing. 

Every one of us is accountable to God.  We are accountable with how we prepare for service.  We as a church must step up to whatever the need of the hour is because the most important thing is that we worship God.  We don’t want to desire to be looked up to or in high esteem.  The important thing is that the Word of God is preached, that there is an anointing, a preparation, and a conviction. 

After working on the lesson of perishing I am convicted.  I don’t want to perish and I don’t want anyone else to perish.  We want to rescue the perishing.

The conviction God cares about every one of us.

We are all accountable before God.  We want to realize when we get up in the morning that we are accountable before God for everything that we do and say so that at the end of the day we can know He is pleased with all.

There is no respecter of persons with God.  Most of us were raised in a community where in our family there were those that felt they were a little better than everyone else.  Their house was cleaner, their family was special, and your family was a little sub standard. 

Don’t beat your children down but don’t puff them up.  A haughty spirit goes before a fall.  We have all been around these people that said, “This place is above others because we are superior church of God.”  That may be if that is what their town is called, but the same thing that makes the little place church of God makes the big places church of God and there is only one.  There are no big I’s or little you’s.

What God requires of this brother or sister is what He requires of you.  The thought of privilege is not of God.  God desires you.  If you seek Him with all your heart He will find you.

1Ti 2:4  Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

There is no question, whomever you can find to work with, it is the express expression of God and His Word that it is His will that all men be saved.

It is the will of God that all men be sanctified.

Rom 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Rom 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

This message is about each one of us saying, “God, before we look at our plate, the first thing I want to be is a living sacrifice.  Before I do what I feel is my responsibility, first Lord, I am a living sacrifice.  God I want to do what you want me to do today.” 

Holy – I want to be holy before God, holy in my mind, holy in my attitude, holy in my conversation. 

Acceptable unto God – Father I want to give myself to you in such an acceptable way.  Many people have picked up the worldly phrase that they think excuses them from anything, “I got to do.”  I doubt that you would be using that if you didn’t want to do it.

First God I want to be acceptable to you.  There are a lot of things that are not sinful and yet they take way too much from us and leave us so tired, so empty, so overcome that we don’t have anything left.

This is a reasonable service – I think of all that God had done.  You have homes, you have beds, and you have clean clothes, family and friends.  God has been so good.  We have set together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. 

This is memorial weekend.  Many of us have visited the cemetery.  There we see we have experienced great losses.  It is not bad for people to die and go to heaven, but we felt the loss.  But God never failed.

I thought of the song, “God always comes through.”  There are some family stories that we don’t know.  Some are blessed to have their dad in their home.  God always comes through.

The Bible says that this is our reasonable service.  We know that if it were not for the mercy of God how lost, wrecked, and wasted our lives would be if we were alive.  When we visit the rest home, for some we can see that it has been a rough life.  There are marks of sin, of heartache, of living a life of denial. 

I would have a thought of God asking too much?  It won’t happen.

Paul counsels us in Romans, “be not conformed to the world.”  All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh…  Without God you will conform to the world.  Without God that overpowering personality of whomever will cower you.  With God you don’t have to conform to the world.

All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh you can overcome all of it: the lust of the flesh and of the eyes.  Isn’t that wonderful that we can be overcomers?

You can be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  “God, what your word says I want to affect not only my heart but my mind and my entire spiritual man for if I go the way of the flesh, I will conform and I will perish.”

Rom 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Rom 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

2Co 8:5  And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.

2Co 8:6  Insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also finish in you the same grace also.

2Co 8:7  Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.

Paul had been given much by someone and Paul was writing to them that they would abound in this grace also.

Some in this audience face great challenge.  For whatever challenge you are facing, there is only one in heaven that can give abounding grace.  It would be a great challenge to give up your home.  Every night I thank God for my home.  For the widows in this audience only God can give abounding grace.

There would be those in this audience whose heart is broken for children or grandchildren.  If you have a son or daughter that deep down inside you know that they are perishing, the world would tell you, you should dress in sackcloth and ashes because you are so broken.  The gospel says that He promised that He would give a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

If you find rejection here, it is an opportunity to seek God because He will open another door.  Some people won’t let Him open another door.  They feel the security of being rejected and it immobilizes them until they become sour.  May God help us.

Jas 5:16  Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

We quote part of James 4 often, if there be any sick among you let them call…  The next scripture says, “Confess your faults one to another that you might be healed.”  You all would respond well to me if one came to me wanting me to pray for them and I say, “Have you confessed your faults?”  Some are very protective of their faults.  “I have a sharp tongue.”  If you have it then why haven’t you been healed? 

Confess your faults.  Some people get starchy.  There is a place for starch and that is on white shirts.  Every one of us needs to have a relationship with God and with the saints that we can confess our faults.  If you don’t think that you have any, then you need to confess that you need help with your thinking.  This was written to all men.

Some have the fault that they don’t think they can do anything.  This place needs all the workers that we can get.  Others will take on the whole world and then do only half the job doing it.  There will be a dozen people say, “Let us lay hands on you and pray.” 

You sisters don’t serve a half raw dinner and slop it on a dirty plate, you garnish it and make it look nice.

Jer 31:12  Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.

You are climbing Zion?  God wants you to take another step and get up in the height of Zion.  God is so awesome.  He doesn’t chasten, convict or scourge without sending both the Word and the Spirit.  The result, “Thou shalt be like a watered garden.” 

We are thankful for a lot of water.  We like to see the seed coming out of the ground.  After planting the seed we start looking for something to sprout before the germination period is over.

The Word of God sown in the soul the rain of the Word and the Sun coming down to germinate the seed.

The sorrows of the soul:  What is so wonderful about God is that He comes to us where we are but He doesn’t leave us there.  You may feel that you failed here.  If you did then repent and get a hold of God so that you get the grace of God in your life and the sorrow leaves so you can actively pursue the will of God. 

The morning comes and the heartbreaks cease.  Praise God.

When Brother Gordon was dying in Chicago, they said, “Brother Gordon would want us to read scriptures and sing.”  The saints came in, they sang and read scriptures. 

The comforts!  I don’t want to see your wills, but you need to know how you want it to be in your last days.  Do you want to be drugged up or do you want the comforts of the saints reading scriptures and songs. 

Brother Gordon started to feel better.  One started to sing, “Swing low sweet chariot.”  Brother Gordon shook his head and said, “I am not going home yet.”

Jer 31:14  And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the LORD.

The many things that go into your mind and say, “I have to do this or that…”  Stop it and say, Let the pursuit of my soul be that my soul would be filled and satisfied with His goodness.