Brother Gary Sunday Morning 1/10/16

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 1/10/16

1Co 3:9  For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.

The New Year has brought a lot of good things and we thank the Lord for that.  Various individuals in the congregation have been challenged with the thought, “What are you wanting to grasp or accomplish in 2016?”  In whatever way you want to draw near to God, God wants to draw near to you. 

There is a way to draw near to God.  Fanny Crosby wrote, “Draw me nearer to God.”  When she wrote this she was with a family in Cincinnati Ohio.  They were sitting outside and various ones began to comment on the sunset and how beautiful it was.  Fanny was blind and couldn’t identify with the sunset. 

As they were enjoying the beauty of the sunset, God began to speak to Fanny.  She asked the gentleman to please get her a pencil and paper.  She began to write the beautiful poem, “Draw me nearer my God to thee.”  She got up the next morning and the gentleman had written the music to the song.

My burden is that every soul would be drawn nearer to God.  God works to bring forth spiritual fruit in our lives.  Paul, with this thought said, “We are God’s husbandry.”  This means that we are God’s farm.  God works to cultivate, prune and work upon us so that we prosper spiritually.

We are God’s building.  He works on us to get us to build on the sure foundation.  God has a design for our building.

1Co 3:10  According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

As God worked on Paul, he gave the work back to God.  There is only one true foundation and that is Jesus Christ.  Paul preached Jesus Christ, the only true foundation.  We must build our spiritual house on the teaching of Jesus Christ.

You might have been exposed to the idea, “I don’t want to serve God yet.”  There are children that feel that serving God and serving Jesus will hinder them from enjoying life.  There is no greater lie than that.  Serving God positions us to really enjoy life.

We must build our spiritual house on the teachings of Jesus Christ.  We live in a very religious world.  People take up cliché’s and say, “I talk with God.”  There is a real basis that must be met for us to know God. 

For children, God has ordained that there be angels in the presence of the Father that work to protect and help them: Matthew chapter 18.  We appreciate that. 

Once children are old enough to know sin; “To him that knows to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin.”  God is faithful to help them to realize that He made a way. 

It is important to study the Word of God to know how to get saved and how to get rid of the rubbish teachings of the religious world such as: “You can live how you want and still walk with Jesus.”  That is not what the bible teaches.

The bible teaches repentance and living clear from sin. 

Mat 4:17  From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The word repent in the Greek means to confess and turn from your sin.  If you have done something wrong then you do need to repent.  If you have done someone wrong then you need to go to them and be humble enough to admit that you did wrong.  Don’t blame anyone else but yourself for the trouble you are in.

Repentance means to confess and turn from the sin.  We preached last Sunday of making a very good wall and back wall to your building.  We need to have it settled for some things: “I am never going to go back to that.  I am not going back to lying, gossiping, and backbiting.”

The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.  Repentance has a very positive effect in our life.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught that in order for us to be forgiven we must forgive those that have trespassed against us.  If someone has done you wrong then forgive them.  If you don’t then you will be controlled by that all your life. 

You can say, “I have been wronged here and there…” that is life.  Jesus taught us that that is life.

2Co 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Isn’t it wonderful that our past can be forgiven?  Isn’t it wonderful to be a new creature and have a new outlook in life?  Old things are passed away and all things become new.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.”  The Word of God doesn’t make you religious.  It makes you a new creature in Christ Jesus. 

DS Warner said, “Sin made all my life so bitter.”  I remember being in sin, lost without God.  I remember the ugly person that I was on the inside.  My parents feared nothing in the thought of correction.  They wanted us to love doing right and miss hell.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness:  We are all going to fight the battle of the enemy trying to dampen our hunger.  The enemy tries to get us to find fulfillment in things in the world.  I like to hike and fish.  There are a lot of things given to us to enjoy in the world that there is nothing wrong with.  But nothing will satisfy the soul and the inward man like Jesus.

I exhorted Wednesday night about the hand of God.  He has a hand that He wants to place upon each one of us.  You might think, “This or that one doesn’t like me very well.”  That is a part of life but we want to live so that the good hand of God is upon us.

Having lived and pastored a while, over and again we have been faced with someone trying to get rid of whomever on a job or wherever else.  As we began to pray God looked down from heaven. 

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.  God created me with two appetites.  I like to eat, and I like to hear good preaching and good teaching.  I like to feed on the good things of God.  God moved on Jeremiah to say, “I will thoroughly saturate.” 

As loose as the morals are in our country and as unethical as people are in our day: I know a wealthy man that is interested in making more money.  Someone came along and asked for $50,000 and told him that he would come back with $200,000.  He gave him the $50,000 and he never saw the man again.

If you want satisfaction, happiness, and direction in your life, it is found in Jesus.  Jesus taught on the purging on the vine.  You ask people if they are saved.  They might say, “I got saved 40 years ago and that took care of it.” 

That is good that you got saved, but it is vital that you know that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches.  There will be a cutting off and eradication because Jesus suffered without the gate that He might sanctify His people.  Carnality is ugly.  It is ugly in children and it is ugly in adults.  There is a purging that will take place. 

People say, “You must take me as I am.”  Jesus will not.  He is going to purge, convict, and shine His light.  We love to walk in that light.  We love to measure.  David said, “You have searched me.”  Each one of us here can say that.  We love for Him to search us. 

He is answering our prayer.  David said, “Search me O Lord.”  That is the heart cry of everyone that knows God.  God has searched us and tried our reigns.  That is the way that God is. 

The goal of the teacher is that not only that the student be better educated but that they leave there having a glimpse of how they can live a better life.

The teacher has to know where the students are in order to teach them.  If they never learned to add and subtract, if they have never learned the basics, then you can’t teach them the next thing.  That is the way that God is with us.

God shows us, “You will do better spiritually if you lay aside this.  “Lay aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset you…”

Jesus prayed for us: John 17.  He prayed that we would be one.  Isn’t that wonderful?  We all have come from different nationalities, have been raised differently, like different kinds of cars, and different types of things.  He prayed that we would be one.  We need each other. 

We need the body of Christ.  We need to say, “Lord help me to know how to be a good brother or sister.”

Luk 14:25  And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them,

Luk 14:26  If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Luk 14:27  And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

God wants the children to honor their father and mother.  It is important that you know how to be respectful to your parents.  Whatever your job is at home, do it well.  Children need jobs at home. 

As much as you love your parents, you have to love God more.  The way that you love God more is by honoring your mother and father.  God wants you to honor them in the bad situations by praying for them.

You need to hate your own life also.  People are so blind that they can only see themselves even when they are not looking in the mirror.  They are captivated with themselves.  They are captivated with their emotions and with their feelings; they see things that no one else can see. 

People have come to me, “You looked at me funny.”  My answer is always the same, “I cannot help that I am funny looking.” 

We must, in order to be our best for God, not be tied up in our own life. “God, I don’t want to always be thinking about myself.  I want to think on others and on you.”

When the storm comes, if you are not on the rock, then your building will not stand.

1Co 3:11  For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

1Co 3:12  Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;

Build on the foundation with gold, silver, and precious stones.  All these things are the sure teachings of the Word of God.  One could use the thought, “Gold is as the faith that we have in God.  Silver and precious stones are the doctrines of God.” 

We must build on the sure foundation with the Word of God.  “Heaven and earth will pass away but my word will never pass away.”  “The word of God is forever settled in heaven.” 

Building with wood hay and stubble:  these are our own ways, man’s ways and man’s ideas.  Sometimes people build their life because they are trying to impress someone else.  Build your life on the Word of God with gold, silver, and precious stones.

1Co 3:13  Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.

1Co 3:14  If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

1Co 3:15  If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

Tried by fire:  our labors to build an experience with God is tried by the fire of the Word of God. 

Jeremiah tells us that the Word is like a fire.  Anything that you are building for yourself, when the fire of the Word of God comes it will turn it to ashes. 

When we build with the Word of God, “If any man’s work abide, he will receive a reward.”

There are definite spiritual rewards to the obedient.  Being obedient to the Word of God causes you to have God as your Father.  I was thrilled yesterday that Jesus, the very son of God taught you and me how to pray.  “After this manner pray ye, “OUR” Father.”  He was saying, “My father shall be your father.” 

When the brothers and sisters are praying, it is “OUR” Father.  It causes us to be a son or a daughter.  My mother would have been 102 on Jan 21.  I am her son and she is my mother.  All of us that have mothers in eternity get lonesome for them. 

Obedience to God positions us to use what God has entrusted us with.  Everyone in this audience is gifted.  These spiritual rewards are designed so that you and I would be prepared to help the family of God. 

For you that prayed for me last week, you helped me.  For you that wrote that card, it was a blessing.  If you didn’t know that so in so was in dire straits but you prayed, God answers.

If any man’s work abide, he shall receive a reward.  Isn’t it wonderful to be prepared to help the family of God? 

The sympathy that is in the world for the lost today is not helping them, but when you have a burden and have built right, you can tell them, “This is what God did for me.” 

The reward of the obedient is to be prepared for the storm of life.  Many years ago Karen and I came to the place in the storms of life that “God had never failed us.”  We picked up the cliché, “It will be interesting to see how God will work this out.”  God has never failed us.  We have all our needs supplied.  We are happy and prepared for eternity. 

1Co 3:15  If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

The great losses of building with wood hay and stubble:  today is the day to live so that you don’t have regrets.  There is nothing sadder than feeling like, “I failed my family.  I failed my wife.  I failed my neighbor.” 

The great losses:  it is a great loss to the church.  We have the understanding that Christ is the head of the church, our headquarters is where our head is, in heaven.  The plan of Jesus is that every member be fitly joined together. 

In the Body of Christ, He ordained that He is the head.  No man is the head.  There is no earthly headquarters.  The body is fitly joined together.  God is so wonderful!

The part that you can do: all you have to do is be rightly related to Him.  “I want to do my best to do what you have for me and to encourage one another.” 

You do your best and you will increase.  You do your best and I will increase.  Be rightly related to Jesus.  As you grow you will be increased.  As you grow, as God works with you, thrills and encourages you, it will come right on over onto me.  We will all have an increase.

When God’s fire burns up one’s ideas and you see ashes: you think, “I thought that was what to do but now I see by the Word of God that it is just ashes.”  Isaiah 61:3 He will give us beauty for ashes.

You may have had hopes and ambitions and God says, “That is not the way that I wanted it to be.”  Then you just say, “Burn it up.  You make something beautiful according to your plan.”