Brother Gary Sunday Morning 2/1/15

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 2/1/15

Isa 11:10  And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.

This is a prophecy of Jesus.  Eight or nine hundred years before Jesus was born God revealed that the Gentiles would seek the Lord.  We are blessed this morning for everyone that has felt the convicting power of God rest upon our soul and we realized that what we really needed in our life was Jesus.

We were bound by sin and hindered in all the ways that sin hinders life.  We are so blessed that the convicting power of God didn’t end there but worked with us and worked with us again.  Jesus came to give us rest and His rest shall be glorious.

His peace and rest is indeed glorious. 

Zep 3:17  The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

God has provided everything we need for us, because He loves us.  He can rest in His love. 

We look back on the season when we got married and we didn’t have much of this world’s goods.  There were a lot of things that we couldn’t afford and our bride had to love us enough to believe that we could work and provide for her needs.  Thank God we have a house today and God has always provided for us. 

There are a lot of things when you are starting in life that you don’t have.  That is good, you learn to appreciate what you have.  But there is something wonderful about God.  The Son as God is fully able to provide for all our needs.  You and I can rest in His love.

Every need:  even this morning there were those that asked for special prayer.  There were physical needs and emotional needs; saints made the expression, “We really need prayer this morning.”  There are times that there are very express needs in our life. 

There will be upsetting things.  They will not only come to the children, they face some very difficult things in their journey.  Most of us feel that it is unjust and unfair that children face the things they are faced with today.  Children, you can be sure that God’s love reaches to you and He is going to provide for that need in that very hour.  It is important that you rest in the thought, “He loves me and I love Him.  I can rest in His love.”

We are going to receive as we travel the journey of life information given to us whether we ask for it or not.  I am not telling you to stick you head in the sand and never receive information from anyone.  Before you receive the information we must have it settled, “God is going to meet every need that I have.” 

If you have a real emotional crisis in your life.  You may say, “I have come to a crossroad in my life.”  We are going to come to places in our life that are emotional or spiritual or physical crossroads.  You reach a place in your life where your strength, finances, or mental ability to deal with things is not what it used to be.  We want to remember that the love of God reaches to us.  He loves us, we can rest that He loves us and will help us even though our abilities are not what they used to be.

Our needs today are not what they were 10 years ago.  We have walked with God and understand him better than 10 years ago, but we feel, “I am in a place where I don’t know what to do.” 

He loved us and made a provision whereby we can be saved.  Thank God for the truth of bible sanctification.  My mother and father were not taught it by man but by God.  Our need of wisdom:  everyone in this audience, Solomon was 16 years old when he was made king and sought for wisdom.  You young people and children are not too young to seek God for wisdom in your life.  

With the perils of today, it is alright to begin seeking God and say, “I am not even as old as Solomon, I am seeking God because I believe what my mother, father, and the saints are telling me.  Perilous times are upon me, I only have one life to live, and I don’t want to mess it up. 

Hunger for righteousness:  It is wonderful that we were created with the desire to want to be right with God.  Jesus made every provision that we could be right with God.

Peace:  “I had sought for peace.”  I heard this song on one of the New Orc records of Karen’s.  I found it, put it on, and began listening.  Soon this voice came out of the record: “I had sought for peace in pleasures of sin, things that would pass away.” 

That is my testimony: The pleasures of sin don’t bring peace.  Isn’t wonderful that every provision has been made that you and I could have peace?

His rest shall be glorious:

Heb 4:1  Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.

Let us take every precaution lest a promise being left us…

God ordained that He rest in our love but He has also ordained that you and I enter into rest.  There are many things in this world that are designed to keep your life in a turmoil, to keep you in distress and dissatisfaction.  Let the pastor and the congregation take every precaution that we don’t miss the rest that God has designed for us. 

Heb 4:2  For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

Not mixed with faith:  The promises of God are given to us but it is faith in God‘s Word and Him that brings that promise to us.

Heb 4:3  For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

Let us always remember in 2015 that 2014 for America was not a year of rest.  We don’t live in a country that every day we are assured that our morals and standards and convictions are being adhered to and lifted up.  There are a lot of things that are disturbing. 

Right among that the Bible says,

Heb 4:9  There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

Entered not in because of unbelief:

Heb 4:5  And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.

Heb 4:6  Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:

One of the perils of our day is unbelief.  God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit knock on our door.  God is not a ghost knocker, He doesn’t knock and you go there and He is not there. 

I don’t even think that unbelief has the courtesy to knock.  It just moves in.  “How can you have rest and peace with this condition and that; and this one isn’t saved; you’re burdened about this one and that.”  Our rest is not a result of everything being perfect around us but “God I’m not going to worry about how you are going to carry me through this.  My rest is that I know you are going to carry me through.”

Jesus had quite a crowd as He began to teach and preach.  They said, “These are hard sayings; from that time many left and didn’t walk with Him anymore.”

You and I make serving God a joy or a very difficult thing.  Sometimes people feel like, “It is so hard to not do this, or to be modest, or to be loving and kind.”  It is only hard if you make it hard.  When you and I die out to ourselves and to handling things ‘my way’.  We come to the place, “God’s thoughts are higher than my thoughts.”

Today if you will hear His voice…

Everyone in this audience is blessed when we hear His voice.  We are blessed to understand that “His sheep hear His voice.”  We know the voice of the shepherd.  We know when it is not the voice of the shepherd.  It may come with unbelief, accusations, or the thought, “Why don’t you do this?”  We know the voice of the shepherd.

Heb 4:7  Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

“Today if you hear His voice:” We basically know that God’s voice speaks to us through the Word of God.  God can use a song, it is backed up by the Word of God.  There are scriptures that come to you over and over again such as, “You are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.”  That scripture has never ceased to challenge me since God gave it to me in 1965. 

When you hear His voice:  I have reached that age in my life that I want my wife to say, “Do you see that deer?”  It doesn’t bother me when someone helps me while I am driving.

When you hear His voice, harden not your heart.

There remaineth therefore a rest.

I would personally say that I and everyone in this audience is going to be challenged about rest between now and Sunday February 8^th.  There will be things come up, the phone may ring, or someone come to your house.  A thought may come to your mind that will take away your rest.  Sometimes it is just a part of life.  Things come to say, “Can I get them upset so that they are absent in mind when they come to the house of God?” 

When we come through the doors on Sunday Morning I want to come through the doors with the thought, “I want to absorb the love of the Saints, the children singing, the Sunday school lesson.”  Last Sunday night was very special to me.  I absorbed the good exhortations on first John. 

Absorbed in the love and fellowship of God and in that which is sung and played. 

Heb 4:9  There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

Heb 4:10  For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

For he that has entered into His rest:  “I know God, you’ll take care of everything in my life.”  I loved the visual that Sister Brenda gave us this morning of crowing Him Lord.  He has our best interest at heart.  I shudder to think of where sin would have taken me and where I would be if it wasn’t for God and the saints that loved and cared for us.

Those years that I was so sick and you gave me not only your love but your confidence and your finances; you absorbed me with a depth from you.  There remaineth therefore a rest.  There is a rest. 

We look at people and their lives are filled with strain, or the thought, “I am terminally ill.”  I saw a man last week and he was not the man I had seen 5 years ago.  Not only was I heartbroken to see the deterioration of his body but the strain on his face.  He had the countenance of, “I am sick, I have the sentence of death.  I have cancer, liver failure, and whatever it might be.” 

There can be a rest.  There is a rest:  you placing everything and trusting Him so much that you give Him everything. 

Jim Nipp got a job picking strawberries in Indiana.  He was able to save 5 or 10 dollars.  They went to a camp-meeting and there was a missionary service.  God spoke to him and said, “Will you give me your summer wages?”  Jim never had the thought of being a missionary, he reached into his pocket and put the bill in the offering.  Maybe 20 years later, God spoke to him and said, “I want you to go to Africa.” 

The thought is, “You can trust God.”  We were blessed and privileged to raise children and get them through high school.  There are parents here that haven’t gotten through that yet.  There is one parent here that has a daughter in college.  I remember waking in the night and thinking, “My daughter is not in the home, but in the city.  What if?”  The ‘what if’ ceases when you are resting in Him: “That daughter is yours.”

Children, enjoy the wonderful season of being a child at home.  Enjoy your age.  Be a little child.  Enjoy mom and dad figuring out all they figure out and always be thankful. 

Heb 4:10  For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

There has to be a cleansing take place for you and I to cease from our own works.  There must be a season of us coming to him and saying, “I am full of striving and endeavors that bring unrest.  I have to get this back on the altar and be cleansed from having my own way.” 

Heb 4:11  Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

It is a labor of faith.  We only get rest by believing.  We have felt the need as a congregation, “We have to get this over on you and rest.”  Over and over again.

There must be a purging.  “There is something in me that is nagging away.  The only thing to do is get to God and say, “I want to be purged of that nagging.  I want it cut off.”  We know that in order to bear bigger fruit there are some things that need to be cut off.

The labor of being still before the Lord God.

If you deal with people then you know that people don’t show up and say, “I want this candle six months from now.”  They will show up and say, “Can you have this by tomorrow?” to be quiet and rest is only acquired from God.

Stilling the mind:  It is amazing how our minds can roar even when they are tired.  Stilling the mind.  Stilling the emotions:  when the Word of God comes close to us I find that I am emotional two ways, the first, “This is wonderful.  The second, “How is this going to affect my life?”

When I think of seeing Sister Chancellor my emotions are stirred many ways, “To absorb one more time ‘Sister Chancellor’.”  She stayed in our home, we went out with her to pick chokecherries so that she could take them home to make jelly to give as Christmas presents.  To absorb that experience.

We look at grandchildren, children, one another and there is something that we want to absorb.  Stilling our emotions so that we can absorb from God.  Stilling our emotions so that instead of thinking, “Travel is so hard.  I don’t rest well away from home, I have all these allergy problems.”  The rest.  Your mind says, “What if you get in a room where there are dogs.  What if your car breaks down?”

Stilling the ghost knockers.  Jesus stands at the door and knocks.  Suppose Heather would meet me at the door and say, “The ghost knocker came to my door and said, “I’ll never get married.””  I’d say, “Heather, that is just a ghost knocker.”

The ghost knockers come to every door.  But I want to leave you with this thought, “There is one that stands at the door and knocks.”  He says, “If any man hears and opens the door, I will sup with him.”

He will bring something along.  It will not be something old and stale with mold.  He will come in and sup; that means that He will give you something good.  After you have been with Him and absorbed, you will have something to give out.