Brother Gary Sunday Morning 8/11/13

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 8/11/13

Heb 3:1  Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;

Wherefore is the first word.  When you come into contact with the word wherefore or therefore it refers back to what has been said or recorded beforehand.  Paul is saying, “Holy Brethren I have already said some very important things to you that the Holy Spirit gave me to convey to those that are saved.  Partakers of the Heavenly calling, consider…”

The word ‘consider’ has a lot more emphasis to it than me saying to my son-in-law, “I wish you would consider helping me get a bigger trailer.”  It comes from the word that means “observe carefully.” 

Paul is saying, “Observe carefully what I have already said, go back over it carefully.  Perceive what I have already said.” 

Chapter one.  God in times past spoke by the holy prophets.  We appreciate all the recordings of the holy prophets but since Jesus came and in the Gospel Day, God is speaking to us through Jesus Christ.  It is vital that every one of us perceives and observes carefully what Jesus is saying.  

There are many writers, voices, and translations; what is important is that we perceive and observe carefully what Jesus is saying.

Chapter two.  Since God is still speaking, let us perceive, observe carefully, that we give the more earnest heed to what God has told us.  Let us be careful to consider what He has told us from the very first time that God spoke to us to now. 

Many in this audience can remember the very first time you felt conviction.  You had sought for God and maybe didn’t know how to find Him. 

Sister Silverthorn thought that He might be hiding in old buildings.  In her journey through life and with that hunger within she would go in and walk around old buildings and try to perceive, “Is God here.”  That isn’t how God is found; everyone has a time of their first encounter of knowing, ‘God is speaking to me.’

I wish I had started a journal from when I first learned to write and put down the story of life.  I have spoken to those who have and it is interesting.  There are things that are more important that we not neglect.  “How shall we escape if we neglect…”  It is sad about individuals that have neglected their soul. 

You may have neglected education.  You may have neglected to plant a garden.  Maybe your car is dirty and you wish you hadn’t neglected to wash it.  These are things that are a part of our life.  One thing you don’t want to neglect is your soul.

Paul wanted us to remember that he instructed us in chapter two that Jesus Christ is the Captain of our salvation.  It is important that we realize that the captain of salvation is Jesus Christ. 

Often you come across an individual and you look upon them and recognize that they have great needs.  You run across individuals that pour out what is on the inside and you realize that this dear one is in a lot of pain and has gone through something traumatic in their life. 

Your heart is broken with what you see.  You may not know how they arrived where they are but you see great needs.  It may look like they need a bath, a job, a haircut and a change of raiment.  You think, “There is a young man or woman that has a heart and soul and is trying to find what he craves and has sought in all the wrong places.” 

Maybe they have been a victim of an accident and have been left in an impaired state because of it.  Remember you are not a savior and I am not a savior.  As much as we would like to help, we must remember the captain of salvation and deliverance, the captain of health and safety, and the captain of help and victory is Jesus.

Let me warn you, if you draw people unto yourself you will find yourself in an exhausted state.  You cannot meet their needs.  Their emotional, financial, and other needs, you and I cannot meet them.  Only Jesus is the captain of salvation.

Jesus tasted death for all men.  Jesus tasted the separation, the no fellowship with God, that condition of being lost at sea of being bound by habits, Jesus tasted it for mankind and became the author of eternal salvation and purchased salvation for all men.  He understands us.

Wherefore:  There is all of this in chapter one and two.  He was inspired by God to greet you and me with such a beautiful greeting.  Among the English white folks as the Spanish call us, we don’t kiss each other when we meet as they do.  Paul greets us as the holy brethren.  It is wonderful to meet one another and have the confidence that we have behaved and acted in such a way that Paul addresses us as the holy brethren.

We have partaken of the heavenly calling.  I cannot emphasize this with the weight that God and the Holy Spirit can.  May everyone in this audience grasp that you are an individual that has received a heavenly calling.  You were not gifted with this at the time of birth in the thought of being musical, mechanical, good with animals, good with horticulture, or anything like that. 

There is something that comes in our life out of the portals of eternity.  Paul was inspired with God and wrote, “Partakers of a heavenly calling.” 

I wrote this to myself, “When did I first feel conviction?”  Before I end this morning I will ask myself and this audience, “When did you last feel conviction?” 

This is not the thought of a downer; it is the thought of “How blessed the Hebrews were when they felt the heavenly calling.  It wouldn’t matter where you were born or where you are from.  There is something that is beyond grasp of how great it is to receive a heavenly calling. 

One could ask the question, “When did you feel conviction the first time.”  It is important that we know how to respond when God convicts us.  You don’t need to feel shaking and trembling.  If you look for a sign then you open the door to deception. 

When you feel the still small voice of God convicting you, you need to respond.  Children that may not be old enough to be convicted of sin may feel a conviction of drawing to God.  There is something in the hearts of children, if you stop at a dairy queen when you drive by on Monday, then you go back the next Monday and do the same thing then I can almost guarantee that the next Monday as the little one looks out they will say, “Daddy, Momma, I hungry for ice-cream.”

Even before we are old enough to get saved there is a drawing.  There is a definite heavenly calling when we come to the age of accountability and we realize that “I need to be forgiven for being disobedient.”  We need to know how to respond to conviction. 

I understand the thought of, “God is angry with sinners,” but I also understand the love of God when he comes and says, “Son or daughter, I want you to respond and be saved.  We are feeling convicted because we are loved.  He comes to warn you as someone would tell you to watch out for the hole in the road.

  I have preached about snares before but this last year we have been using some netting.  When I even get closed to it I start becoming tangled.  There is netting laid for precious souls.  The body of Christ wouldn’t tell this precious young person to, “Watch out for that snare,” with an attitude. 

We say it because we know about the snares that we have been caught in.  No one needs to get on the high horse when someone tries to help you.  If we do then we will be caught in the snare. 

We need to know how to respond to conviction.  Have I felt conviction today?  How do I respond to that conviction?  The heavenly calling is a call promoted by the love of God.  God doesn’t just call us when we are in trouble.  There are those in this audience that are in a crucial position in life. 

I don’t have to know anything about you; I understand life in just a little way.  When we hear the heavenly calling, we are called because God loves us.

When this heavenly calling comes and you and I respond to it, we come to one that has a scepter of righteousness and a scepter of equality.  He speaks to me. 

When I think of my window of time that is left, I am sixty-two years older than Isaac.  I think of these young minds that are so bright and that heavenly calling.  When He calls it doesn’t matter your age.  That scepter is set out there if you respond.  It is a scepter of, “He will be so fair and right with you.” 

Oh the benefits of the heavenly calling!

That heavenly calling to the sinner is forgiveness.  He is offering everything that you transgressed against God, He’ll forgive and cast as far as the east is from the west.  That scepter offers abundant life.  Expect a heavenly calling into the abundant life.

Life affords a lot of aches and pains.  Should we allow the aches and pains to abort our wonderful privilege of having an abundant life?  Allow nothing and especially yourself to hinder you.  Not only does He offer life and life more abundant, He offers eternal life.

He is offering a friend for life.  When we come to the last crossing, He is our friend.  He is our friend when we come to the decisions of life. 

The benefits of a heavenly calling:  a call to service.  It is God that calls men and women and gives them gifts to minister, teach, preach, the gift of helps, and others.  In a world that is demanding so much from everyone sometimes I think, “I’m getting old, we shouldn’t be so busy.  I should sit around on the porch swing and eat coffee and scones until about time for lunch.”  Even the aged are busy. 

I am not too old to receive another gift and another calling.  A man in his sixties that had labored for God for about 30 years and God told him that there was something that he wanted him to lay down because he was going to gift him with one more thing.

What God would be calling you for is up to Him.  You are not too old.  God is almighty God.  When you feel that conviction from God and that heavenly calling...  You are looking forward to going to heaven and he says, “I have something that I want you to do on earth.”  You say, “I want to be worthy.”

The call gives direction.  The saddest thing in the lives of individuals is when people have known God but don’t position themselves to stay in tune to His direction.  All they do is wander.  They look for a place of acceptance here or a niche over there. 

There is a heavenly calling and it gives such direction.  It gives direction in the morning, maybe in the morning of your years, of your life.

The benefits that await the heavenly calling:  Deep within every individual there is a place created by God, for God, and for God alone.  It is a place created by God that He could place his hand upon with a call and a gift.  The soul of man is only fulfilled by God and following His calling.

Observe carefully, behold, discover, and perceive.  The emphasis of this message could be summed up with, “The uniqueness of the calls of God.”

In Matthew chapter 4, Jesus took a walk.  As He walked, men that sat in darkness saw a great light.  After he had walked a while He said first, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Jesus came across a couple of fishermen.  Their names were Andrew and Peter, and he said unto them, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”

In Luke chapter 10 Jesus called seventy:  He sent them out to where He was going to go.  Can you imagine God calling you to go out where He is going to come and visit? 

Imagine Jesus looks over Montana this morning.  He says, “I’m going to send that servant of mine down that road.”  You probably don’t know why you are going down that road but Jesus plans to go down that road. 

They had great success and came back and He asked, “How did you do?”  They responded, “Even the devils were subject unto us.”  He told them, “Don’t rejoice in that but rather rejoice in that your name is written in heaven.”

In Mark 6:31 Jesus said, “You need to come apart and rest a while.”  The disciples had really gone through something: John the Baptist had been beheaded and they had gotten his body and buried him.  Can you imagine what they were going through?  This had been done to one of their own. 

We haven’t been through that.  Do we know how to come apart and rest?  “God I’m giving this all to you.  I’m so concerned about my economics; I’m concerned about this and about that.  You see the pressure here and there and all that we have right there.”  Then Jesus gives you a heavenly calling and it is usually when it is unexpected.  He says, come apart.

Watch and pray Matthew 26:41.  When Jesus went to Gethsemane he was really facing something and He said to His own, “Watch and pray.”  We want to hear the heavenly calling.

I don’t know where you are heading and what you will face but we have a God that sees the tomorrow.  He speaks to you, “Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.”  People want to be so spiritual that they can say, “Nothing can get to me.”  Come on, you are not there yet, you are here.  The enemy is full of tricks and deceptions. 

The flesh is weak.  Don’t overestimate your strengths.  Watch and pray. 

Mat 11:28  Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Mat 11:29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Mat 11:30  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The last words of Jesus to Peter are recorded John 21:22.  Peter was concerned about someone else.  Jesus handled it so discreetly.  He said, “Peter follow thou me.” 

The first and the last thing that Jesus said to Peter was “Follow me.”

The counsel of the Word of God is to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church today.  Let us hear and let us act upon the call of God.  Souls in trouble in this audience consider the importance of the call of the apostle and high priest, Jesus Christ.