Sister Dorothy Sunday School 8/25/13

Sister Dorothy Sunday School 8/25/13

My burden has been on ‘How to think.’

Pro 23:7  For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.

Thinketh - H8176שׁער shâ‛ar shaw-ar'

A primitive root; to split or open, that is, (literally, but only as denominative from H8179) to act as gate keeper (see H7778); (figuratively) to estimate: - think.

That thought was so good to me, to act as a gatekeeper as to what we think.

Php 2:5  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

G5426 Φρονέω phroneō fron-eh'-o

From G5424; to exercise the mind, that is, entertain or have a sentiment or opinion; by implication to be (mentally) disposed (more or less earnestly in a certain direction); intensively to interest oneself in (with concern or obedience): - set the affection on, (be) care (-ful), (be like-, + be of one, + be of the same, + let this) mind (-ed, regard, savour, think.

Probably from an obsolete φράω phraō (to rein in or curb; compare G5420)
G5420Apparently a strengthened form of the base of G5424; to fence or inclose, that is, (specifically) to block up (figuratively to silence): - stop.

The words, ‘to think’ in the Old Testament and ‘our mind’ here in the New Testament, are very similar: to fence or enclose or act as gatekeeper.  He wants us to have the mind as Jesus Christ had.

Mat 15:18  But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

Mat 15:19  For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:

Mat 15:20  These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.

There is not a murder or so on that happens without the individual first having evil thoughts about it.  Evil thoughts bring about these kinds of things.  It is from the heart that these acts are manifest.  It is what comes out of the heart.

Engage the mind.  Keep that gatekeeper very tender and careful.  Engage my mind.  Keep the precincts of my heart and mind devoted to God. 

We have one precinct in Paradise.  Our mind is as a precinct.  The precinct for God should be the largest.  We have one for family, one for work.  We enter those processes in our mind. 

Our mind can dwell on the cares of life and on tragedies of life, but let the largest precinct be for God that those thoughts we have for God enter into all the other things in life.  He will help us in what to think about.

In the beginning God said let there be light. 

2Co 4:6  For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

This is special!  In the beginning God said let there be light and there was light.  God who did this has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in Jesus Christ.  He has caused not only the literal light but the light of His face to shine through Christ to us.

We cannot imagine until we experience it the beautiful light that comes from God through Christ.  You look on the Saints of God and they have a lightened countenance. 

There is a scripture that says, “There face gathers darkness.”  It is not so with God’s people.

In the world many times their face tells that they have a hard life.  Even in young people their face shows that. 

Joh 14:6  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Joh 14:8  Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.

Joh 14:9  Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

We see the Father.  When we are saved and have the light of Christ in our heart, God is not hid to us.  We can see the Father through the Son.  He manifests himself to us.  No one can come to the Father but through the Son.

Jesus was almost like he was perplexed by Philip’s question.  Have I been so long with you and you cannot see the Father through me?

Mat 11:27  All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

God will reveal to us the Father.

Jer 31:33  But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jer 31:34  And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Isn’t that wonderful?  Know the Lord.  He has equipped us to know the Lord by putting His Law in our hearts.  Just to know that God has taken our hard heart and has written His law in our hearts.  Know the Lord!  We know Him.

Thy Law is truth.  We can have that truth in our heart.  God witnesses to us, “That is right, or “No that is not right.”

Before, to know God they had to go to the prophet, now in our time from the least to the greatest shall know Him.  We can have an experience with God and He can speak to us.  Our pastor wants us to know God.  We want each other to know God.  By knowing God and who He is and about God it builds us all up and gives us a purpose and strength to live.

Heb 8:10  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

Heb 8:11  And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

Heb 8:12  For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

Heb 8:13  In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

Here we have the same account in the New Testament.  I will put my laws in their mind and write them in their hearts.  This is what Jeremiah prophesied would be in the Gospel Day. 

It is wonderful that we have that privilege of knowing God.  It is born of internal spiritual perception not by listening to others.  We see this in the world.  They listen but there is no heart change.  What we have has to be when God writes it on our mind and in our hearts.  Just listening doesn’t bring it.  We must have that beautiful experience.

Luk 11:1  And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.

Luk 11:2  And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

Luk 11:3  Give us day by day our daily bread.

Luk 11:4  And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

Jesus here is introducing His disciples to the Father through prayer.  “Our Father”, as is the Son so is the Father.  In the Old Testament there are maybe three or four places where the word Father is capitalized meaning God.  In the New Testament there is time after time where it talks about Our Father.

Pray to Our Father, Jesus said.

Luk 11:5  And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves;

Luk 11:6  For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?

Luk 11:7  And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.

Luk 11:8  I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.

Luk 11:9  And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Luk 11:10  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Luk 11:11  If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?

Luk 11:12  Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

Luk 11:13  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

Jesus not only introduces His disciples to the Father but is telling them what kind of a Father He is.  He is a friend that you can trouble at any time.  He will supply that need.  He is a father to us.

Ask, seek, knock:  Keep at it.  The Father is listening.  He is a Father and will not turn you away.  He will not give you something that is not good for you.  He will not give a stone when you ask for bread.  Ask.  Pray.  Know the father.  Ask of Him and you will receive.

He has so much good in store!

Mat 5:8  Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

The pure heart will see God:  Moral adjustment through the work of the Holy Spirit.  He took the heart made an adjusting and a work in your heart that by a born again experience, not one that just says, “I believe”, you can see God.  It is a work that is done in the heart by the Father.

Joh 3:7  Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

When we are being instructed some like Nicodemus think, “How can that be?”  Don’t marvel at that.  It is God that does the works.  Realize that if you are dead in trespasses and sin, you need to be alive by that born again experience. 

It is rampant that people today say that they are saved but they have missed the born again experience.  They haven’t been made a new creature with a new mind.  It is so foreign to them like it was to Nicodemus.  The telling and the living is what we need to do.

Each time that God deals with us there is that new inspiration from God.  The enemy would come to steal it away.  It encourages me to remind God and really I’m reminding myself, “You gave me a new heart here.”  How am I living and what am I doing with the food God gave me today?

We want to live so that we have new life every day.  When you ask the world what has changed sometimes they are offended.  When they ‘believe’, has there been a change in their life? 

The reason they cannot live above sin and cannot see it is because they haven’t been born again.  We can point to the day and the time when God washed me of that and I didn’t rise from the altar and go out and sin again. 

They have a dead experience.  They haven’t been taught that and are living to what they have been taught.  It is not by listening but by an experience that we can see. 

Jesus told Nicodemus, “Except a man be born again He cannot see the kingdom of God.”  You cannot see God the mercy of God or anything about God if you are dead in trespasses and sin. 

Old time conviction will make them start thinking about their soul and where they are going. 

Truth is withheld from people in Babylon.  When they are hungry and thirsty they don’t know where to look.  To be born again is to be born from above.

Joh 1:12  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Not ‘believed on Him’, but ‘received him’.  The Son of God is born into me by the direct act of God.  As a child of God I must exercise my right of coming to the Father with my needs. 

Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

We can be born by the act of God making us a new creature.  We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end and a desired goal.  What is His purpose for my life?  That I depend on His Word and power now.  Know God now.  Not depending on yesterday’s experience or what may happen tomorrow.  Know Him now.

Stay calm and unperplexed.  His purpose is for now not some time in the future.  I can walk in the chaos in my life now.  Do this and my life is a blessing to God and each moment is precious because we depend on Him and know Him. 

Our life should impact our surroundings.  It should impact not only our lives but also all those around us.

Brother Gary Wednesday Evening 8/21/13

Brother Gary Wednesday Evening 8/21/13

We are blessed that there have been individuals that found God, held onto God, and their testimony is left to help us.  We see the words ‘wherefore’ and ‘therefore’ written in Hebrews many times.  Each time they refer to previous scriptures.

Heb 12:1  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

This may refer to other chapters beside chapter 11 but for sure it refers to chapter 11.  There were many people written of that left a testimony for us to follow. 

A great cloud of witnesses:  what cloud do I let come over me?  There are a lot of clouds.  We appreciate in the cool of the day sitting outside and I always look up at the clouds.  They were not rain clouds that we looked at tonight as we sat on the deck, but I said to my wife, “Look at those beautiful clouds.” 

There are clouds that definitely have something in them.  There are times that I can smell that there is going to be rain when I don’t even see the cloud yet.  There are other times that you look down the valley and see that it is raining down there. 

We are taught to lay aside every weight.  We must lay aside the weights so that we don’t build our own cloud of, “I have a lot to get done.”  We have a lot to do in Montana from the last frost to the first frost. 

We must lay aside every weight and every sin and run with patience the race that is set before us.  As a pastor tonight, Brother and Sister Kelly will have no greater challenge than to teach their children to not be rushed.  Little girls in the world today want to be worldly way too young.  Little guys are exposed to sin that they should never be exposed to in a lifetime let alone when they are my age and know to refuse it. 

There are things that will be presented to you; that doesn’t mean that it is for you.  Instead think, “It is something that I need to weigh before I introduce it to my un-calloused heart and my innocent mind.  I don’t know if I want to introduce that right now.”

In Psalms 116 there was a cloud that came over David.  There are clouds that come over children and that come over young people.  We need to understand how to check out where is this coming from.

Psa 116:1  I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.

David loved God, prayed, and knew that God heard His prayer.

Psa 116:2  Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.

The hymn story to the beautiful song: 

1 Salvation’s free, glad joy to all
Of Adam’s fallen race;
We’ll tell to all both far and near
Of saving, keeping grace.

Refrain:
There’s joy, glad joy,
Now flowing from above;
There’s joy, glad joy
In the fullness of His love.

This was written in the darkest time of DO Teasley’s life up to 1908.  His world fell apart.  His heart was broken.  There was no light at the end of the tunnel as far as his heartbreak.  He got a hold of God and said, “My heart is broken but there are others around here that I need to be a light and example to.” 

He said, “God give me something from you.”  He said, “You would have thought that I was on a mountain top instead of the valley when I wrote this song, “I will live through… p61

Watch what cloud comes over you.  We don’t choose the cloud but we can choose the affect that it has upon us. 

Psa 116:3  The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.

His cloud was dark, very dark.

Psa 116:4  Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.

 The thought is not the length of the prayer but the faith of the prayer. 

Psa 116:5  Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.

Psa 116:6  The LORD preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.

The Lord preserves those souls that are tender.  Those that are innocent like a child, the Lord preserves them.

You will not be able to teach anyone anything if they already know everything.  But if you are blessed with students that come into your classroom with the attitude, “I am here to learn.”  Then you can teach them.  If they come into your classroom with an attitude, “I am here to play.  My mom says you’re not much of a teacher but a good babysitter.”  Then you will not be able to teach them.

If we have the attitude, “Lord help me to be un-calloused.”  The Lord will preserve you.

We need to be preserved.  God is able.

I was brought low:  clouds bring us low.  We find ourselves where we are crying to God day and night.  It is good that we are so tender that we say, “God I am in a difficult spot I am going to cry to you day and night.”

Return to thy rest:  this cloud had taken his rest.

Psa 116:7  Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee.

When we get to God in our turmoil of mind and say, “God there has to be a change take place for the way of righteousness is peace.”

Psa 116:8  For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.

Psa 116:9  I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.

Psa 116:10  I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted:

Psa 116:11  I said in my haste, All men are liars.

Psa 116:12  What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me?

I want to tell you, I owe a debt to God not in the thought that I can never repay, but in the thought: He has done so much that what can I give back to God?  If it isn’t in me to give then it is in me to be covetous.  Let’s give, give…

In the New Testament we have a cloud. 

2Co 4:7  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

Faith is a marvelous treasure and without it you cannot please God. 

2Co 4:8  We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

There are going to be clouds of troubles come over you and me.  Such troubling times!  It was troubling times in Paul’s day.  He was facing something that you and I may or may not face.  He may have already known that he was going to give his life for the gospel. 

Troubled but not distressed, perplexed:  there are times that as an individual that we are perplexed.  Karen and I are in some perplexing situations right now.  It is important that we do the right thing. 

In our jobs, in our homes, when we put the metal roof on the house I thought we were done with the roof problems.  I looked up there and recognized that the roof was coming up.  We had a lot of loose screws up there.  We got the roof fixed.  In time Robin showed up and said, “You have roof problems you should replace the screws and put screws with washers that will not melt in the sun.”  We are through with roof problems for a while.

Cast down but not destroyed, persecuted:  whatever persecution 2013 is to you is what you identify with.  It is not the same as was in 1885 but you are persecuted.

2Co 4:9  Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

2Co 4:10  Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

2Co 4:11  For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

2Co 4:12  So then death worketh in us, but life in you.

2Co 4:13  We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;

David said this, (Psalms 116:10), “I believe therefore have I spoken.”  From Old Testament, David, to New Testament, Paul, “I believe therefore have I spoken.

2Co 4:14  Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.

2Co 4:15  For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.

God will take care of us beyond a shadow of a doubt.

All things are for your sakes:  this cloud is for our sakes.  It means that you are to discern the clouds.  We need the inspiration of the Almighty God to help us to know what is this?  If God puts it there and we need to learn something from it then we need the grace of God to help us to learn.

If you are going through a tough time, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that you are in a tough time.  The joy in the tough time is to say, “God I am trusting in your grace to help me to love the one that is doing me wrong, to not get a bad attitude.  I cannot make an expression to them because they are not there, but I can love this one that is here.”

You may have a neighbor that is hard to love but we need to pray, “God help me to do right by that individual.”  There are those that are watching and not saying so to see if God gives grace.

God has grace and it will redound to the glory of God.

2Co 4:16  For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

Every one of us will get weary and tired and some of us get exhausted.  God has a way to renew us.

2Co 4:17  For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

2Co 4:18  While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

2 From wells of everlasting joy
Our strength by faith we bring;
The joy that thrills my ransomed soul
Can make the dumb heart sing. [Refrain]

3 How sweet the soul that’s purged as pure
As gold without alloy;
How peaceful is the flowing stream
Of deep, eternal joy. [Refrain]

4 I’ll live for Christ through this dark world,
And faithful I will be;
The joy I know that keeps my soul
Shall last eternally. [Refrain]

Passing through the greatest test:

“From wells of everlasting joy our strength by faith we bring”
“The joy the fills my ransomed soul can make the dumb heart sing”

Refrain:
There’s joy, glad joy,
Now flowing from above;
There’s joy, glad joy
In the fullness of His love.