Brother Gary Sunday Morning 9/14/14

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 9/14/14

Isa 55:7  Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Isa 55:8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

Isa 55:9  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God’s thoughts are His intentions.  God has definite thoughts and definite intentions, and definite plans for every individual that I am preaching to this morning.  

It is pronounced that there is a definite pattern known as God’s ways, known as His actions.  That which He has in mind to every one of us, He has a way to get us where He wants us to be. 

Conviction is a wonderful thing.  If you feel conviction, the right attitude is not, this makes me feel uncomfortable, but rather, God help me to realize the blessing of conviction.

God’s thoughts in creation:  God had in His thoughts in creation that, “I am going to create man in my own image.”  We are blessed that the Bible teaches us, Gen 1:31, everything that God created was good.  I love the thought that all God had to do was speak the word.  He said, “Let there be light” and there was light.  He said, “Let us make man.” 

In Genesis 2, we see that God gave commandment to Adam and Eve.  We are blessed that God draws definite lines on that which He requires.  God drew a definite line, “You are free to eat of everything that is here except of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”  Not only did He give command, but He desired to be obeyed.

There is something so sweet in the nostrils with obedience.  I was reading in C.E. Orr about how God looked upon Adam and Eve and took great pleasure in their obedience.  He chose to visit them in the garden.

It is wonderful when God chooses to visit us.  It is only for our benefit.  It is wonderful to have company, visitations and invitations. 

This Sunday morning, God desires to commune with us.  Spend time in fellowship, in the decision making process, in you communing with God and in Him communing with you.

I so appreciate having God as a friend, the Holy Spirit, and the Son of God.  I appreciate the fellowship and the friendship that we have.  There is something about true friends.  They want to know really how you are.  You can take off all your masks to your friends.  You can say, “I am really in need of prayer.”

You can tell your friend, “I appreciate how you prayed because God has come to my rescue again.”

When God comes, He comes to help, to warn, to teach, to train, to map out a plan for you.  Sometimes He says, “I am here for you to sacrifice some things to me that are breaking your heart, hindering you, or drawing more from you than you can give.”  It is wonderful to say, “I am giving this into the lap of the Lord because He has a way.”

Gen 8:22  While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

As long as there is a calendar, as long as there is today, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

We see that God has ordained that there is the law of sowing and reaping.  There is God’s designed plan of summer and winter, God’s designed plan of cold and heat, and of day and night.  This is not only true in the natural; it is true in the spiritual.  We go through all of these seasons in the spiritual.

God made the earth by choice.  Then He chose to make man.  He said, “Let us make man in our own image.”  He made Adam in the image of Himself, a holy image.  God chose that Adam and Eve would be creatures of choice. 

Every one of us this morning made a choice.  We didn’t have to come to the house of God, we chose to be here.  You make a choice to bring your mind in, “I’m not going to think about this or that; I’m going to keep my mind here.”

You make a choice if you draw into yourself and think about yourself or think about someone else.

Obedience brings fellowship with God.  We are so blessed to know that obedience brings fellowship with God.  We choose to obey, to live for God, to study the Word of God, to apply our self and measure, to be challenged.

Disobedience is a choice.  We can choose to choose our own way.  Disobedience brings death.  Adam and Eve experienced a death in the garden.  It was not only that in a matter of time they would die; they were separated from God and in the process of time were driven from the Garden of Eden.

God created us to love fellowship.  It begins with our fellowship with God: when God meets with us and we meet with God.  We are in His presence and enjoy such supreme joy that we don’t ever want to displease Him but have fellowship with Him all the days of our life.

We can go back past our father and mother to the creator.  You may still miss your parents; that is a process of life, but we cannot allow that to be the stopping point in our life.  We can have fellowship with God our creator.

Pr 4 the wise man Solomon dealt with the thought of the way of wisdom.  It is wonderful that there is a God in heaven that is alive and real.  You don’t have to take your thoughts; you can only see so far.  There is a way of wisdom and we can seek God.

It is wonderful that that nature to sin can be eradicated and you don’t have to live under the cliché that you confess your sins every night and you hope God forgives you.  You can be forgiven and live holy.

God said let there be light and there was light.  God said, “Let us make man…”

Gen 2:7  And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

God formed man of the dust of the ground.  I personally believe this.  I believe that God literally took the dust of the ground and formed man out of the dust of the ground.  He breathed into His nostrils the breath of life.  I believe that God breathed into the nostrils of Adam the very breath of life.  Then man became a living soul.

I want to talk to you about your soul this morning.  Everyone in this audience has a soul.  I don’t know how you are treating your soul, but I want to make it so real to you that you care about your soul as I care about mine. 

If I had a golf ball I would like to have brought it this morning.  If I put it up then it would be a miracle if I could find it.  It is not because I am so unorganized.  I can find my hunting knife that Brother Jim gave me.  I can find the watches that the congregation and my family have given me.

This is a tennis ball; it is due to the grandchildren that I was able to find it.  I don’t play tennis so tennis balls don’t mean anything to me.  This tennis ball will always be a tennis ball.  You can pray and pray and pray and if your soul is as a tennis ball, you can say, “fill my soul with the love of God”, if God would pour love upon a soul that is like a tennis ball then it would just roll off. 

People bat these tennis balls around and they end up wherever.  Don’t think of your soul as a tennis ball: some little thing that is not of much value. 

I asked Karen if she had any expensive yarn.  She brought out this one.  We need to think of our soul as something that God is going to develop.  Stores take expensive yarns or materials and get someone to make up a pattern and hang it where you can see it.  If it pleases your eye then you ask if they have the pattern and the yarn.  You might ask if it is inexpensive and they will say, “If you want it to look nice you will buy this one.”

Your soul is the most valuable thing in the whole world.  I like that hunting knife that my brother-in-law bought me.  I keep it where I can always find it and when I finish using it, then I put it back in the cupboard and on a shelf where my grandchildren cannot reach it.

I want to talk to you about your soul.  Your soul is like yarn, it can be developed.  I chose this because I thought it has some real desirable colors in it. 

If this was used by a professional knitter, it would not look like this anymore.  There is someone that wants to work with your soul.  No one is resisting me, this is not the thought.  It is God that is talking to us. 

I asked how big is a babies heart, they told me that they are the same size as their fist.  A baby’s soul, might be the same size as their fist.  These children are covered by the atonement.  God listens when they pray. 

You ask, “How big is that soul?”  I want to tell you about that soul.  It is as undeveloped yarn.  It is something that God plans to do a marvelous plan weaving, making something beautiful.

I have been so convicted lately.  I have prayed in my secret devotions and I covet your prayers that my soul would have the love of God spread abroad in it.

The subject is that when the scripture was written, the words that were chosen were that God the Father, The Holy Spirit, and the Son would just poor into the soul the love of God.

If you prayed for humility and didn’t get it then your soul has become like a tennis ball, a golf ball, a football, a basketball, something that is not penetrated by the holy Spirit of God.

We have all experienced having love poured into our heart, having kindness poured into our heart.  Brothers and sisters in Christ coming to us and from them feeling the outpouring.  If our soul is like a tennis ball, then it just goes right on off.

We have reached out to someone and have hoped that we would be able to show them enough love that it would get into their hearts and help them.  If their soul is like a tennis ball and won’t let God change it then you will pour and pour and pour and it will splash on the ground.

When we cry out to God, “You created my soul; I want it to be as yarn, being woven into that which is pleasing in your sight, woven into that which is the calling and gifts of God to be used for your honor and your glory.”

As the maser weaver begins to take the yarn and work with it.  He begins to develop a pattern and you begin crying out, “Oh God help me to be obedient, genuine, real, humble, easily entreated, honest, and to have good character and good attitudes.” 

As you begin to pray you can visualize as in my case, crying out with 1 Cor 13 for love, generosity, kindness.  I am praying for the grace of not even having a battle over unkindness that someone shows me, mean words. 

If your soul is like a tennis ball which is good for batting over a net and when you reach my age, you put it behind your back and roll it on the wall and find that spot then it might help you sleep that night.

If you have a tennis ball in your soul spiritually then there is a place to get it broke up.  If your soul is as the yarn and you begin to pray for wisdom, if your soul were a tennis ball and you prayed then it wouldn’t help you. 

If we want help from God, “God help me to be as yarn.  That you can truly poor love into or humility into and it would saturate it. 

You want your soul when it opens up to God to be a refreshing odor.  It has to be a yarn and not as a tennis ball.

The soul is created by God to grow.  Once the dad’s hand was just the size of a child’s hand.  God created the soul to be woven into a pattern to bring glory.  He created the soul to be filled and to be led.

Man’s thoughts, the intentions or thoughts of the soul that is not saved:  In my mind, I cannot understand why everyone is not saved.  Man’s thoughts are, “It is so hard.”  Totally contrary to how it is.  The way of the transgressor is hard.

The actions of the unsaved: if there is that nature to sin inside then there is a seed of ugliness and corruption.  You can have a disposition of iron but that nature will expel ugliness.

Rom 3:23  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Rom 6:23  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We come to the place, “Do I want to hold onto my sin, my way, my ideas… or do I realize that I really need a savior?

God’s thoughts: Gen 3 15 one day my seed will bruise Satan’s head.  One day Jesus, on a place called Mt Calvary paid the price that all mankind can repent and be saved.

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.

Jesus came from heaven and left this testimony.  Those are God’s thoughts.

In Revelations, on the Isle of Patmos: God chose and Jesus chose to leave this testimony that Jesus be slain from the foundations of the earth for the help of man.

Jesus taught, “No man can come to me except the Father draw you.”

Whoever is in this audience this morning, there is no greater invitation than the Father to say, “Come.”  He says come if there is sin and be saved, if there is carnality and be sanctified. 

You say, “The events of life caused me to have a soul that is somewhat of a tennis ball.”  God honors humility.  If you say, “I have some problems and hang-ups in my life.”  Do you want to talk about them all your life or do you want to let God take care of them? 

If you are as a tennis ball then you love to talk about them.  If you have hang-ups in your life and you have things that hinder you from being your best for God then there is something about God calling and giving you an opportunity.  If you will humble your heart then there is no problem that cannot be solved if you be humble. 

Humility cries out to God.  God always honors humility. 

Acts 2 Men and brethren what shall we do?

Peter said, “Repent and be baptized.”

Later he says that all the promises will be yours… the promise of the Holy Spirit, the promise of being saved from a generation that is not seeking after God.  It has fit every generation and it is fitting for this day.