Brother Gary Sunday Morning 10/19/14

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 10/19/14

2Ti 1:1  Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,

2Ti 1:2  To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is a marvelous introduction given by Paul to a young man.  Paul had met Timothy when he was traveling.  Timothy was 16 or 17 when Paul met him.  His mother and grandmother had gotten saved and knew God.  Paul took an interest in him and continued to have an interest in him all though out his lifetime. 

Paul was an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved shortly after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. 

The second verse has spoken to me and I have been applying it to my life since I studied it.  “My dearly beloved son.”  As a congregation that loves souls this is to us.  This Timothy was a spiritual son, someone that he cared about because he was out laboring for souls.  If you want to help a soul, don’t sit around waiting for them to show up on your door step. 

Paul loved him so much that he wrote to him.  Wouldn’t it be something to get a letter like this?  “My dearly beloved son…”  I hope that before I die I have written a few letters to our daughters, to our grandchildren.  I’m not talking about flattery letters; I’m talking about letters that have some depth to it.

Depth is something that is little known today.  I received a letter from a church that said, “You have one something right because it seems that there are people in your congregation that love God.  If you love God it is because God has spoken to your soul and you have responded.

Paul said, “Grace to you.”  It is vital that you know what grace is.  Grace will appear to you.  It has undoubtedly appeared to every one of you.  Sister Darla spoke of when she was in the third grade and grace poke to her, “Don’t open that door.”

Grace is the unmerited favor of God.  If you woke up this morning and your mind went to the Word of God then you are blessed.  If you awoke with a song, then you are blessed.  If you don’t know how to have devotions, start with page one in the hymnal and read Matthew chapter one.  In the evening read page two and Psalms 1.  You will begin to have a hunger in your heart for God.

The divine influence upon the soul and it’s reflection in the life.  I believe that John and Ruth would want you to pray every day that they would have the grace of God.  To have the influence of the divine upon our soul!  Something that is of eternal value! 

I remember as a child that I wanted to know where I came from and where I would go when I died.  We all understand that we came from somewhere.  We had a mother and a father or we wouldn’t be here.  Your mother and father may have failed you, but there is the divine influence of God.  He will not fail.

God will come with the grace of God, speak to you, and help you know how to live.  If you feel that you haven’t lived right then the answer is to repent and tell God that you are sorry for it.  America doesn’t want to lament and spend time feeling bad about how they have lived.  We are paying for it.  Tell God that you are sorry.

It is so beautiful that God wants our life to radiate with something more than the problems in America.  Radiate with something more than the price of groceries, or what is going to happen with your retirement.  We need the grace of God shining out of our life so that we radiate hope.

The grace of God makes us acceptable.  There is a way to be acceptable before God.  The way that we treat each other matters.  God has a way that is acceptable for a man to treat his wife.  Not being a yes-man but not being a tyrant.  God wants children to be acceptable children.

God has benefits for His people.  Everyone is interested in benefits.  The benefit of the grace of God is beyond measure.  The favor, oh that the grace would influence you in such a way that you have favor with the ones that you are burdened for! 

The grace of God comes to tell us that in a world that is running upside down, you can be walking right and have joy. 

Grace gives you liberality.  The grace of God causes you to be liberal.  It causes you to be liberal with your complements.  It gives us liberty to love the lovely and the unlovely.

Grace brings pleasure.  It is thankworthy.  It will fill your soul with thanksgiving unto God.  Paul wrote to Timothy, “My dearly beloved son, may there be grace and mercy.”

We can thank God for His great mercy that has been applied.  Mercy means forgiveness.  If you are here this morning and you are in trouble.  You could be saved and still have found trouble.  If you have done something to bring the disapproval of God, the hardest thing is to admit that you have a need.  When you acknowledge it then there is mercy.

Mercy means pardon.  When there is pardon there are no strings attached.  There are no limitations.  He forgives you and says, “I trust you.”  Jesus is so marvelous in this thought:  You can have utterly failed; repent, confess, and lament, and he will pardon you and take you as his very own loving child.

Mercy means daily compassion. 

He went on to say, Peace.  There is a wonderful thing about God, grace, mercy, and peace.  When He gives you peace, the first peace that He gives is peace with the past.  There are many that openly acknowledge, “I failed my children; I have such regrets that I failed my wife; I failed the church.”  Few regrets are of monetary value.

When you come confessing and repenting, he gives you a pardon and gives you peace.  He gives mercy.  He says, “I’ll give you another day.”  Don’t expect God to give you 100 years.  If you have failed, don’t wait until the first day after the wedding to make changes.  Make changes now. 

Peace with our trespassers.  You that work with the public, what people ask of you, almost require of you, and how they treat you when they ask help: isn’t it wonderful to forgive them and have God give you peace?

Those that openly trespass, that steal from you.  Those that try to ruin your reputation, or take more than their share.  Peace with our trespassers, to forgive them.

God will give you peace for today.  Peace for the journey. 

In high school, there are lockers, halls, and there are other things.  Among the other things is that there are a lot of voices.  “If you will just go this way, do this or that, then someone will like you or you will be popular.” 

You may not be captain of the speech group, or chosen to be the beauty queen.  There is no peace in all of those things. 

There is peace in knowing, “I am right with God.”  There is peace with knowing, “If I will serve Him, if I will seek him first, then all things will be added unto me.”

God has designed great beauty and great riches for every life.  I am talking about the beauty of living a holy life and the riches of His grace.  He has those for everyone that will serve Him.

You may not know what will happen tomorrow, but if you serve God you can have peace.  We can have peace with our present, peace in our homes.  Last but not least, we can have peace with the future.

2Ti 1:3  I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;

2Ti 1:4  Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy;

Paul was praying for him daily.  Someone had brought back the report that he had endeared himself to Timothy to the point that he was lonesome for Paul and was crying.

If you have experienced pure love then you are a very blessed individual. 

2Ti 1:5  When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.

Timothy’s dad was a Greek and was unsaved, but his grandmother and his mother had gotten saved.  The greatest thing that you can give your children is faith, unfeigned faith in God, and love, pure love.

2Ti 1:6  Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

Paul was saying, “Beloved son, I want you to remember the gift of the Holy Spirit that you have received.”

Paul went on to say:

2Ti 1:7  For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

I want to emphasize this in such a way that you are so hungry to be saved, sanctified and have the Spirit dwell in you.  It is only through the gift of the Holy Spirit that your life will not be full of fears.  We live in a world where there are many fears.  “What is going to happen when I get old?  What is going to happen here or there?” 

God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear, but of power: faith and confidence in God.  He has given us love.  He loved us before we could love Him.  But when we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength then we can have the assurance that, “He loves me.” 

His love is such that if you don’t leave Him then He will never leave you.  There was a man that suffered such losses.  He learned he would be blind and the girl that he was going to marry said, “I don’t want to marry you because you are going to be blind.” 

He lived with and was cared for by his sister.  Later his sister came and said, “I am going to get married.”  He said, “I want you to get married.”  His sister went and he was left alone.  He wrote this song, “Oh love that will not let me go… I trust my weary soul to thee.” 

He loves us and His love back to us will never depart if we stay true to Him.

God has given us a sound mind.  I don’t need to tell you:  People play games with people’s minds.  If I asked for a show of hands and ask if any of you had someone play with your mind.  There would not be a hand unraised. 

People play with people’s mind.  It is not just people that play with the mind, it is spirits.  Spirits come along and play with people’s minds, “Oh it is so hard to serve God; if I serve God then this or that…”  No.  It is not that way.

People have thought that I am after their money, their children, or their house.  No.  I don’t want any of that.  There are troubling spirits that come and ruin people’s lives.  If God has spoken to you to measure and you are afraid because of what it will cost you:  It will cost you far less to measure than it will cost you if you are rebellious. 

What you need to do when you shake and tremble is hit the altar, let the saints pray, cry, and stay there until your pride crumbles.  There is a God in heaven that hears prayer.

2Ti 1:8  Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;

2Ti 1:9  Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Isn’t it wonderful to be called with a holy calling?  God spoke to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?”  He knew where they were, but would they acknowledge where they were? 

We want a rekindled burden.  “I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God.”  This was written by a man that believed God. 

Paul was less than a year from death and had served God for 30 or 40 years.  I’m not going to tell you how many times God had come to him, “Don’t let this shipwreck keep you from what I have called you to do.  Don’t let being persecuted keep you from being what I have called you to be.” 

Rekindle the fire of our soul.  If you are here this morning and are unsaved, if you feel God convicting you of sin.  If you realize, “I am so sorry.”  Maybe it has never been in your vocabulary to repent, lament, and cry.  If you realize that “I am so lost this morning.”  You can be really lost at any age.

If God speaks to you and you have that deep realization, “God is convicting me of my sin.”  You can get right with God and you can stay right with God. 

You may not know how to come to God, or how to pray.  Come to the altar and you will learn fast.

If you are here and realize, “I need the fire rekindled.”  There is no shame in going to the altar.  It is ok if you want to go pray instead of lead singing or playing the piano.  The urgency:  I need rekindled.

Today is the day that God is speaking to Paradise.  He has prepared us for this message today.  “The most important thing is that I am saved, sanctified and my fire is rekindled.” 

We have heard people stand up and testify that were as dry as could be.  “Forty years ago, I got saved and sanctified.”  That is good, but in forty years it takes a lot of rekindling. 

It is like, if it starts getting cool in the upstairs and someone mentions it and the brother says, “I built a fire last year.”  That is what it is like.  Rekindle it. 

If you need to get saved, you cannot do it for someone else.  You need to do it because Jesus died for you.  If you need to get sanctified, you need to get sanctified because you need it.

If you need a rekindling, it is fine to say, “I need rekindling, the pressures…”  If you need rekindling there is a God in heaven that sent His Word and this is what it said:

2Ti 1:6  Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

Stir up means to rekindle.