Brother Gary Sunday Morning 8/26/12

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 8/26/12

1Sa 15:22  And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

Last week I dealt with the thought of “How did Saul get into such a thought pattern of wanting his son Jonathan to murder David?”  We saw that he got there by rebelling against the Word of God.

What does the Bible say about obedience?  It is a blessing and a big subject.  Obedience is a wonderful thing.

Isa 1:19  If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

If we will be willing and obedient the blessing of God will rest upon us.

Isa 1:16  Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

God made mankind in His image.  We became sinners because the nature to sin was passed to us from Adam and will be passed to all generations.  From a child we go into sin.  A child is covered by the atoning blood of Christ until they reach the age where they know what sin is, the age of accountability.  As we grow, we become well acquainted with sin and need to be washed.  “In that day a fountain shall be opened.”

When God instituted tabernacle worship not only was there a sacrifice for sin but there was a laver to wash in as you went into the holy place.  The promise of God for our initial washing is that if we confess and repent of our sin he will wash our sins away.  This is real today and will be as long as this world exists.

When God tugs upon the heart, the thought is not of condemnation, but of “I’ve come to cleanse you.”  This cleansing is not only for the committed sin but also of the nature to sin.  This nature can be washed out. 

This cleansing and washing continues through our lifetime, not in the thought of sinning, but you tell God, “God I want to be more like you.”  The individual that wrote the song, “More like Jesus.” was undoubtedly saved and knew God but they wanted to know more about God and have more of Jesus.

In our lives, as we love God, we can expect Him to help you and me to know things that we need to be washed of as we walk with God. 

2Co 7:1  Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

It is a wonderful thing to have promises.  Yesterday I was thinking children don’t forget promises.  They may forget instruction, you give children a job and they get distracted and forget the job.  You tell them that you are going to do something and they will remember that.  We have a heavenly Father that has left promises for us. 

This promise was written to those that were saved.  Cleanse ourselves from all ‘filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God.’  We love God and God loves us so we need to have the attitude that we want to be cleansed because He loves us; the expression was, “Dearly beloved.” 

Some have the misconception that because God corrected us He is mad at us.  No, God is not mad at you when He corrects you.  When we don’t take the correction then He gets unhappy with us.  As ‘dearly beloved’ He will correct us and cleanse us from things in our lives, our shortcomings. 

I encourage the husbands to look up the scriptures that deal with them.  I encourage the wives to also look up the scriptures that deal with being a wife.  When I married Karen I wasn’t thinking of all that was required of me in being a husband; I just knew that I loved her and wanted her to marry me.  The Bible teaches us to confess our own fault and not the faults of others. 

As I’m praying and seeking after God, I hunger for God; I thirst for God and want more of Him.  I tell God that.  When we tell God that then we’re telling Him as the Psalm 139 says, “Search me O God and see if there be any wicked way in me.”

 When you ask God to search you then you are not asking Him to complement you on all your good traits.  I tell God, “Tell me the worst of my case now.”  God has much respect for a humble and contrite heart.

Our thought is “Oh God, we want to be cleansed.”  There are many mysteries in the world today.  We may not understand something.  You may say, “I don’t understand salvation so I don’t want it.”  Well I don’t understand electricity, it is a mystery.  I’m afraid of electricity. 

The lines that go through the alley are not very big around, but there is enough electricity to feed our house and the church.  There are bigger lines that come to our house than those that carry the electricity.  It goes through a transformer and from there into my house. 

I enjoy electricity; I enjoyed it when it was so hot and you could turn on that electricity and cool down the house.  In the morning when I get up it is dark and I like to be able to turn on a light. I don’t know a lot about electricity but I sure enjoy the results.

We must come to God with the attitude, “God I want to be obedient so I’m coming to you and want you to tell me if there is anything in my life that you can cleanse me of so that I can be obedient. 

I prayed after I got saved that I wanted to be real and genuine.  God began to deal with me in my language, I had lain off the swear words but I had a lot of slang words in my vocabulary.  God said, “I want your yea to be yea and your nay to be nay.”  I said, “I want to please you and obey you; I’ll leave off those words with your help.”

When we got up in the morning, my dad would be singing, but I was moody in the morning.  God helped me to know that I needed to be cleansed from that moodiness.  I changed through His help and I’m really glad I did, my dad was snatched into eternity by a logging accident.  I’m glad that I don’t have to look back to that time with regret.

Everything that God tells you to do, do quickly.  If we take care of things now, we never look back and say, “I regret not taking care of that when God spoke to me.”

God is holy, He loves sinners, He came to seek and save that which was lost.  We have the attitude, I love to serve you and am doing my best to do what the Spirit and Word teach me.  When He speaks to us we yield to Him and He gives us the strength and power to do what He asks us to do.

Eph 5:25  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

Eph 5:26  That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

Eph 5:27  That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

The way we are perfected is not by following a bunch of church rules.  We cannot be saved by joining a church or signing a catechism.  The way we are saved is asking God to forgive us and then reading the Word of God and asking God to wash us. 

We hear the teaching of the Word and the preaching of the Word from the Bible and it must line up with the truth of the Word.  ‘Study to show thyselves approved.’  We must read the scripture for ourselves.  We must read until we know that God has spoken to us. 

When you get up at five to be to work by six, be faithful.  Read some scriptures, have prayer, ask God to help you that day and to help you with what you will face that day.    

We need to read the word of God, and pray.  There are times when we pray and then request things of God and then say, “Amen and Amen if in your wisdom you choose to not give me my request.”

This Word of God is a washing that will not take any good thing from us.

Eph 5:32  This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

God loving us and dwelling in our hearts is a mystery.  When we die our spirit leaves and returns to God that gave it, this also is a mystery.  Just because it is a mystery doesn’t mean that it is not real.  We don’t know what will happen tomorrow but we want to see tomorrow and be a part of it. 

There are a lot of mysteries; this is a great mystery concerning Christ and the church.  Everyone that is saved is a member of His church but He is washing each of us in a different way.

Isa 1:16  Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

Isa 1:17  Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

God help me to know how you feel about what I’m thinking and what I’m planning, help me to know how you see how I’m treating my brother and sister. 

Relieve the oppressed.  Glat 6:1 we have burdens that we have to bear and we should help bear one another’s burdens.

One thing that I have found in helping people is to be a good listener.  Let them express themselves and after they have told you what they are so troubled about, have a gift from God that you know how to relieve the oppressed. 

The devil is the great oppressor, he takes things and makes it look like there is no hope and there is no way out.  This God that I know makes a way when there is no way.  He can cause an axe to float.  If you throw an axe from the bridge into the river it will sink. 

The axe that God allowed to float was made of material that would sink.  God has a way of relieving the most unlikely situation.  He relieves the oppressed.

“I don’t know about tomorrow, but I know who holds tomorrow and I know who holds my hand.” 

I don’t know what you are going to face tomorrow, but if you live for another week or year or two years you will find yourselves with your face to a wall saying, “I don’t know how God will do relieve this situation, but I know the God that holds tomorrow.”

The fatherless are those that don’t know God as their father.  The judgment that God is interested in is for the sinner to know the help that He has for them.  The widow is someone that doesn’t have God in their life.

Isa 1:18  Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Though your sins cannot be blotted out of your memory, though there be those that know what you’ve done, Jesus put on the scarlet robe and bore your sins.  He’ll take your and my life that has stains of sin, regret, and bitterness and take all your sin and cast it as far as the east is from the west in the sea of God’s forgetfulness never to be remembered again. 

He says, “I will clothe you.”  The father told the servants to bring the best robe for the prodigal son.  The sins that were red will be as that fresh wool that has been sheared off of a sheep and woven into a garment.

The greatest honor I can give God is obedience; the best gift I can give my house is obedience to God.  Whether you are alone or have a companion or you have a household, the best thing you can do is obey God.

The blessing of obedience to God is the most honorable choice I can make for the family, for the church.  You may want to do something for me or Karen.  The best thing that you can do for yourself and for all of us is to be obedient to God. 

You teachers, be obedient to God.  Lift the bar high.  Live by the rulebook, the Bible.  The best thing that each of you can do for your marriage is to be obedient to God.  I cannot provide as I used to provide or work like I used to work, but I can be obedient to God.

The best thing that I can do for my daughters, for my son-in-laws, and for my grandchildren is be obedient to God.