"Men’s Day" By Brother Parrish Lee and
Brother Andy Geibler June 28th,
2015
Parrish: All
this stuff is
just going so good, and, I’m telling you, if you miss a week, it feels
like
several weeks. Anybody
here ever listen to
Christian music? Anyone
ever hear a
song, and it was like, “Ooh, that was just getting me started. I’ve got to put the repeat
on that
one.”? Anybody here
ever get a little
carried away, and you lose a little track of time, and God starts
moving, and
He starts being good to you, and you just—it’s better than cake when
you’re
full. You just have
to—and I’ve had some
good cake. But,
it’s just a fact that
you just don’t want to let it go.
That’s
how it is when you’re around God’s people and they’re lifting—you know,
there’s
no other sound like that in the whole earth?
No other sound…
The whole earth,
the Bible says, is filled with his praise.
But, according to the Bible, he seeketh the true
worshippers to worship
Him. So, of all the
praises on the whole
planet, He’s looking for the true worshippers.
That’s not even—my fifteen minutes didn’t start,
yet, Andy. Giving
honor to God, who is the
Head of my life, of our lives… Giving
honor to the omnipotent, the merciful, the wonderful, the
awe-inspiring, the
all-saving, the He who makes a way out of no way, the light in the
darkness
God, the splitting of the Red Sea God, the One who goes and is able to
travel
all the way down into the pit of Hell and deliver the souls, the Bible
says,
giving honor to Him. Giving
honor to Him
who set the sun in the sky and outshines the brightest thing that we
know
of. Giving honor to
that same,
wonderful, inspiring God. Giving
honor
to our founding pastor and his family and all those who were with him,
and
giving honor to our pastor, he and his family, and all those who stand
with
him. Giving honor
to all those who have
stood in the gap to make up the hedge to see this ministry where it is
right
now. And, giving
honor to all of y’all,
who come and present yourselves before the Lord, and say, “God, feed
me, fill
me. Giving honor to
y’all. It’s
wonderful to be here today,
and I say that on several levels.
On all
levels, it’ wonderful to be here; it’s wonderful just to get up in the
morning. It’s
wonderful to open my eyes. It’s
wonderful to breathe. It
is wonderful to walk across the
floor. It’s
wonderful, it’s wonderful
just to be able to open my eyes, go to work, drive a car, put gas in
it, get
something to eat, and not worry about somebody taking all that away
from
me. Amen. You start thanking God,
and He starts
reminding you things that He’s doing for you. This
month is Men’s Month, of
course, and today is Men’s Day. Women,
you did an incredible job last month.
So, we pray the same thing for Men’s Day. The message today is going
to be two-part. I’m
going to deliver part of it, and then
Andy’s going to deliver another part.
The title of the first half is: It’s
wonderful to be back, and,
you know, it’s Men’s Day, and I’m going to talk a lot to the men. But, I want to say a
couple of things. One
of the things is, somebody asked me, “Why
do you mention the founding father of your ministry, why do you mention
your
pastor, why do you mention the elders that went before?” And, we’ve said it before;
we want to say it
again: This is the
labor that’s been
bestowed, and that’s why we have this particular ministry. There’s been labor that’s
been bestowed, and
that’s why we have the Word of God.
there’s been labor that’s been bestowed, and that’s
why we have this
faith that keeps going, and the Lord said, greater things will we do,
than He
(John 14:12). It’s
all about giving
honor to whom honor is due (Romans 13:7).
Amen? Amen. So,
our Scripture thought form the
Book of Ephesians chapter four: From
time to time, we get to
talking about callings, and that’s something that we hear about. That’s a semi-popular
subject in the
sanctuaries of our church. “What
is your
calling?” “What is
my calling?” It’s
interesting because you get interested
in our callings because you see the people who have gone on before,
and,
obviously, they all had a calling.
And
you get interested in something like that, because the thought comes
naturally,
“If they had a calling, what about me?
I
mean, I see the callings of the people in the Bible, and there was
Peter; he
was a great speaker. He
preached the
first big message, three thousand people got baptized, and it was on
the Day of
Pentecost, and—wooo!—that must have been an awesome calling! And, you see Apostle Paul,
and how he
travelled, after God smote him blind, and called him to establish
churches; to
be able to pray over a handkerchief, to see that whoever owned that
handkerchief get healed. Oh,
what a
calling that must be, and it only lends to the question, it lends to
the
question, ‘What must my calling be?’
What has God called me to do?
What great things will I do that I’ll come before
God, and people will
know about me? What
will be my
testimony? What
will be my legacy?” The
Bible says that you were
called in one hope of your calling, and that, that particular calling
is
without repentance. The
gifts and
calling of God are, according to the Bible, without repentance. And, in that one
calling that the Bible talks
about—calling, not callings with an ‘s,’ there are many gifts, but one
calling-- in that one calling that we have, the Bible says, one Lord,
one faith,
and one baptism. One Lord, one faith, and one baptism.
And it is, you get to know, people say, “I’ve
heard it all before; I’m ready to move on.
You want to talk about that one Lord?
I know who the one Lord is; don’t belabor the point. Let’s move on!” That one Lord that we go
to serve, we will
learn about that one Lord for the rest of our lives.
Because, the Bible says the Heaven, and the
Heaven of heavens could not contain all of His glory (1 Kings 8:27)—how
much
less our sanctuary, or temple? Have
you
ever gotten so filled up that you felt like you were going to bust,
that it
felt like it was coming out of your ears?
Every opening in your body.
Anybody ever been touched so much, you didn’t know
what to do with that
much God in your life? And
you
understood, you understood that He had so much more for us, but He
would just
fill us up with what He could. If
you
haven’t ask Him for it. If
you haven’t
gotten filled, and touched, and overflowing, and just to the place
where I feel
like I’m going to bust, I can’t hold anything more, God, ask Him for it. Ask Him for it; He is the
giver of, according
to the Bible, all good and perfect gifts (James 1:17).
Wisdom?
Let him ask of God, who giveth liberally, liberally
(James 1:3). And,
yes, we are called, believe it or not,
you are called to be filled. And
that
one Lord that we talk about, that one Lord that we need to learn about. Anybody that would say, “I
got that down,”
no, you don’t. No,
you don’t, because
nobody comes into the presence of Jesus and leaves the same way he came. Nobody does.
You might leave with some regrets, you might leave
saying, “Wow, He said
a lot of hard things; I don’t think I can accept it.”
You might leave saying, “Wow!
It was hard to fend that stuff off,” but you
never leave the same. Whenever
Jesus is
on the scene—the real Jesus—whenever the real Jesus is on the scene, He
changes
everything. So,
this one Lord we’re talking
about, instead of skipping across that part…
This one Lord that we’re talking about, that the
flesh wants to skip
over… This one Lord
that we’re talking
about, it talks about how, when we come before Him, His only
commandment to us
with the one Lord was to love Him with all our heart, with all our
soul, with
all our strength, and with all our mind (Mark 12:29-30). That’s the commandment;
that’s the one thing
that He’s—yes, yes, Men’s Day. Love
the
Lord your God—love the Lord, your
God
with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
If anybody says, “Well, I’ve done a lot of stuff,
and I’ve got that
pretty well contained, and I’ve got that love of God taken care of, and
I’ve
gotten the faithfulness taken care of, and, you know what? I’ve gotten several other
stuff… Let’s move
on to the good stuff?" That
is the good stuff. That
is the good stuff. Before
you’re going to have the experience with
the calling, when God calls you to pray over somebody and they need
healing;
before the whole essence of, you go ahead, and God fills your mouth,
and you’re
able to prophesy, or discern, or minister so wonderfully and truly in
someone’s
life. Before God
fills you with wonders,
and all the rest of that, there is the calling of the one Lord, and the
one
faith and the one baptism. Yes,
Saints,
that is the gifts and calling. We
have to say, truly, many people
do get turned off at this. “I
want to
love what I want to love.” Generally,
people don’t like to give up their love for free.
You know, they’re real protective about who
and what they love. I
love what I love,
and I can’t—how do they say that?
I saw
it in some goofy show: “The
heart wants
what the heart wants.” Is
that what they
say? “The heart
wants what the heart
wants?” There’s a
Scripture for that,
bout how the heart—if you just follow your heart, the Scripture says
that your
heart can be desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9).
Did you ever follow your heart, and found out
you got in trouble? Did
your heart ever
want something that you know you have no business wanting? Honestly?
Your heart, yeah, your heart.
And
then you have to ask, “God, I need You to wash me, make me clean, come
and
bring me back, set me right, and give me—as David said—“Create in me a
clean
heart.” (Psalms 51:10) Amen? Amen.
Our one Lord. And,
so, as we go on to our one
Lord, one faith, we learn about several things in this one faith that
we serve
that one Lord with. One of the things that we learn about this one
faith thing
is, yes, men, yes, men are notorious for wanting to be loners, have our
own
specific private time. One
of the things
that you’re going to find in this one faith is fellowship. Fellowship.
Simple word. Fellowship
is easy
to go on, and smooth over, but the Bible, in the Bible—fellowship,
actually, is
the kind of thing that if it doesn't find you, you need to go and find
it. If you find
yourself saying, “Nobody’s called
me; nobody’s looked me up,” grab your phone, find a door, look up an
address, a
phone number, and if it hasn’t found you, you find fellowship. And this goes back to
Genesis; this goes back
to Genesis—you know what? I
am famous
for being alone; I am a famous loner.
I
had to get it out of my blood. But,
it
goes all the way back to Genesis, after God created Adam, and after
Adam did
all the things, God said, “It is not good for Adam to be alone.” Men, we need to fellowship. So, in the one Lord, one
faith, one of the
things that we find is fellowship.
You
know what else we find in fellowship?
In
fellowship, some might say, "I don't want to fellowship with certain
people. I want to
choose my fellowship
with people that I like.” That’s
all
flesh talking. “I’m
going to choose my
fellowship based on only people I can benefit by.”
But, fellowship is the type of thing that
you’re supposed to give and receive.
For
the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Amen?
And,
the Bible also says that we are called to know Him in the power of His
resurrection, and in the fellowship of His sufferings. The power of His
resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, and
that we are called to have fellowship with God. We
are called to have fellowship with
God. ##18:10## You
know what else is in this one
faith? Prayer. Prayer. We’re going to name five
things in this faith
that we’re talking about. Not
movie-prayer, but honest, sincere, life changing, God-filling prayer. And, inside this prayer that
we pray, we don’t
want to have the attitude that, “I prayed a week ago; don't tell me I
have to
do it again. That
was a great prayer we
had a couple of weeks ago; people were all around the altar. We were calling on God. Woooh!
That ought to last me at least until summer.” But this prayer that we’re
talking about is a
humble prayer, and it comes, and it creates a communion with God. This is the kind of prayer
that He’s called
us to. A sincere,
open prayer that God
would—prayer isn’t one-way, by the way.
Prayer is two-way.
We pray, and
we open it up to Him, and he said He’ll take our hearts from the other
side of
prayer. Another
thing that—another one of
the five things that we have to have in that one Lord and one faith and
one
baptism that we’re talking about.
We talked
about fellowship, we talked about faith; another thing that’s in here
is study.
Being able to
know God’s Word, so that
God’s Word might be that lamp unto our feet, and a light to our
pathway, that
we can know where we stand with God, and that we can understand His
ways, and
we can understand His will. And,
another thing, men, we have
to have worship. Men
have to have
worship with God. For
the Father, the
Bible says, seeketh the true worshippers to worship Him (John 4:23). The true worshippers to
worship Him. Fellowship,
faith, study to know His ways and
to know His will, to have worship so that He can come in and fill us. I will say this right
quick: Whenever we
go to worship God, we are never
going to give more than we receive.
When
you really worship the Lord, you will not beat the Lord in giving,
because He’s
waiting for the opportunity to fill us. And
the last thing, the last one
of the five that I wanted to talk about, is, you’ve got to tell people
about
this Lord in your life. You
have to take
the Gospel from you on to the outside.
And, just right quick on this one, as we share, as
we evangelize, as we
testify to what God has put in our life, we create, all over the place,
foundations and candles for God’s grace.
So, as we testify, if we were to—You know, when I
got my F-150, I had an
F-150; this was a few years ago—when I got my F-150, I could not shut
up about
it. I loved to
drive it; I hated to fill
it, but I loved to drive it and I—it was hard to talk about, and
whenever I got
the victory to shut my mouth a little bit, somebody would say, “Hey,
that’s a
nice truck.” As
soon as my mouth would
open, “Blah, blah, blah, blah… 5.4
liter. You know
what? That’s a
monster truck; it can go
anywhere. It can
handle anything.” I
would tell them all about that little F-150
that God probably took from me because I talked too much about it. So, whenever you have
something that you
desire, that you love, that is wonderful, that is great to you, you
find
yourself testifying about it. You
find
yourself talking about it. Let
God be
that one thing. At
least, one of the
things that you find so great, so loving, so appealing that you have to
talk
about it Just as we
have excitement
about a new gift, a new car, just got married, new job, we should be
excited
about the Lord that we serve and commune with. And
then there is that one
baptism. The one
baptism. I’m not
going to take a long time on this; I
know I’m starting to run out of time.
But, in that one baptism, the Bible talks about
baptism—of course, it
means to be completely overwhelmed with a liquid or a force, right? So, how much of you is to
get baptized? Every
part of you. Every
part of you is to be brought under the
grace of the Lord. Every
part of you is
to be washed by that regeneration of water.
Every part of you is to submit to His perfect word
and Hs perfect will. Every
part of you is to be buried into His death,
that you might know Him in the likeness of His resurrection. Every part.
That is that one baptism; one Lord, one faith, one
baptism. And
lastly, my last point, is to
know; let everyone know that God wants to bless you. God
wants to bless you. He
doesn’t want to just give you a hope, He
doesn’t want to just give you the crumbs, God wants to fill you. He wants to make your life
wonderful. Psalms 37:4
Delight thyself also in
the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Amen. Brother
Andy.
Andy: I
want to say, to echo Parrish, it’s an honor to be here this morning. And, I count it a
privilege to stand on this
side of the pulpit, knowing the men that we watched over the years,
taught us. I don’t
take that lightly, and I never want
to forget the things that I’ve been taught, or those that taught them
to
me. Because, I
haven’t always done
this. It’s only
been a few years that
I’ve been on this side of things; on this side of the blue chairs, we
used to
call it. But we all
had to start somewhere. And,
as men, we have a starting place.
We start off as sons, and we become men. Some of us become fathers. But, all of us have
responsibilities. All
of us have—even in society, we have
responsibilities, but that came from God.
God gives us responsibilities, as men. I’m
going to read from Second
Timothy. It’s a
liitle lengthy, but I’m
going to read the entire chapter, chapter three. 2 Timothy 3:1-15
This
know
also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
For men shall be lovers of their own selves,
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful,
unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers,
incontinent
[which means they have no self-control],
fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded,
lovers
of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but
denying
the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which
creep
into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away
with divers
lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the
truth. Now
as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the
truth: men
of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall
proceed no
further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also
was.
But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith,
longsuffering, charity, patience, Persecutions, afflictions, which came
unto me
at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out
of them
all the Lord delivered me. Yea,
and all
that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers
shall wax worse and
worse, deceiving, and being deceived. But
continue thou in the things which thou
hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast
learned them; And
we have to be the ones to take
a stand for Godliness. Because,
if we
don't do it, the world’s not going to do it. The
Scripture even talks about having a form
of godliness, but denying the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:5). There’s a lot of people out
there—it could
very well be us, sometimes—I’ll say that plain:
It could be me, sometimes, having a form of
Godliness, but denying the
power thereof. There’s
people out there
that know the Bible front to back.
There’s people that read the scriptures, that went
to college for
doctorates in theology, but that’s not what God wants.
God called us to preach His Word; He called
us to read and study. “All
Scripture is
given…” well, it’s no good if I don’t read it.
I’ve got to know the Scripture for myself. I can sit there—my
father-in-law is a pastor;
I have the privilege to sit and listen to him from time to time. And he talks about how
he’s got people on his
preaching team, and he told them, straight up, “If I catch you going to
the
internet, to find your sermon, you’re done.
You’re not preaching here no more.”
It’s a tool to use, but if you’re going to find your
sermon, if you’re
going to find your truth on the internet, (holding up his Bible) you
need to be
in here. We may
find a historical
reference, but your truth has to be coming from your own study time. I
had to learn something when I
first took a billet as a teacher in the Navy.
I’d been out in the field; I’d worked on electronics. I’d worked on fire-control
systems, radar
systems, large weapons systems. I
fixed
things when they broke; we’d be out to sea, and, all of the sudden,
this critical
system goes down. I
was able to do that;
I was trained to do that. I
got into the
classroom; I had students here, now, and they asked me a question. I knew how to do it if I
were in their shoes,
but how do I teach it? How
do I teach
them this principle? How
do I tell it to
them? How do I say
it in a way that gets
it across? Because
it’s fine for
me. But now I’m—and
I had to say, “I’m
going to have to get back to you on that.”
Because I had to go and learn what I had known
previously in a whole
different level. I
had to learn it on a
level to teach from. I
had to learn it
at a level where I could explain it, because I told them what I knew,
and he
looked at me with a deer in the headlight look.
“Huh? What?” Because I was teaching
something that I
wasn’t prepared to teach. I
could go do
it, but I couldn’t teach it. The
same
thing I’m learning here; I’m learning it every day.
And I’m thankful for the grace of God that,
as I stand here, every day, I’m learning more and more of the
Scriptures. Looking
back at the things that I have been
taught. A lot of us
have been taught
over the years. But
that’s not good
enough. I can’t be
comfortable with what
I was taught. A lot
of us talk about how
we sat in Bible studies, you know, several days a week.
It was great.
It was good for us, getting in those Bible studies. In my mind, I knew that
the world looked at
what we were doing as foolish. I
knew
it. You know what?
I didn’t care,
because I knew that what I was doing was keeping me from Hell; it was
keeping
me from sin. It was
building foundation,
and, men, that’s what we’ve got to do.
We can’t be comfortable in what we have.
I’m not saying all of us have to be Bible scholars,
but we have to be
comfortable in salvation. We
have to be
comfortable with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
We can talk about all these things in the Bible, and
somebody wants to
get into Revelation—it’s got its place—Do we know the Gospel of Christ? Do we know the story of
Abraham, Moses,
Isaac, Jacob? Do we
know that whole
story, of how Joseph was sold into bondage?
Do we know the story of how Israel came about? If we speak to someone
from Israel, do we
even know how that nation came about?
Those are all fundamental things that we’ve got to
know as men. Women
aren’t off the hook, either, but we’re
talking to men today. But,
the bottom line is, we talk
about Godliness. I
said it once, I’ll
say it again: The
world’s not going to
fight for Godliness. If
we don’t nobody
else is. And,
husbands and our
marriages, if you don't fight for your marriage, ain’t nobody else
going to do
it. If you’re not
going to fight for the
love of your wife, no one else is going to come and help your marriage. You may get people who
counsel you, you may
get people who share good things with you, but, if you’re not willing
to do
what it takes to foster that relationship, no one else is going to do
it for
you. No one’s going
to fight for our
kids. No one in
that school building is
going to tell them about Jesus. No
one’s
going to tell them about the love of God.
You might find a few good people in there, but,
overall, the world’s not
going to do it. We
have a responsibility
in our home to teach our children well.
I am so thankful for what we have back here; these
children, and our teachers,
and they do a wonderful job, but it can’t stop on Sunday morning. I, as a husband have a
responsibility to pray
with my wife. Sometimes,
she has to
needle me sometimes, “Hey, we need to pray.”
That’s because I’ve got a good wife.
We’re human; we make mistakes, but it’s my
responsibility. We
have a responsibility to pray with our
children, and sometimes that’s not comfortable.
I know that. Sometimes—I’ll
just
say it personally, in my flesh, I don’t like—I can stand up here and
pray, I
don’t have any problem; I get into my home environment, there’s just
something
in my flesh that doesn’t want to do that.
That doesn’t change the fact that I have a
responsibility to do it. That
doesn’t change the fact that, if I don’t
bring God into that home, I’m not going to have the blessings of God
that I
desire. I’ve got to
bring God into that
home. We
read a lot of Scriptures, and
we listen to a lot of customs, and:
So,
where does it start? I’ve
heard the
question, “How do you eat an elephant?”
One bite at a time.
That’s
something that, if there’s a daunting task, something that you don’t
understand, sometimes you just got to start.
Pastor Paine talked about something a couple of
weeks ago. He said,
“I’m going to tell you how to live a
perfect life.” He
was relating a story
that someone told him. The
point is, you
don’t live a perfect life, but you do live it one day at a time. You start off saying,
“Okay, God, this day is
yours,” and, if you make it through the day, great, day two; day three. If you mess up, you pick
up, and you start
over again. But,
that’s how we do
it. It’s one day at
a time. We have to
give God what’s His.
And,
I want to reiterate something that we’ve been talking about lately: It’s all in.
We refer to it as—we use the reference of a card
game, you’re betting
money on a hand. But,
when we talk about
our life with God, it’s really not gambling.
We’ve got the Book, here, we know the ending. It’s not a game. If you’re giving it all to
God, it’s not a gamble,
because we know the ending. It’s
about
faith. Faith
without works is dead
(James 2:20). It’s
about faith. You
trust in God. It’s
not like you’re hoping that that magic
number comes up, or you’re putting money on a horse.
You don’t know if that horse is going to
win. I know Jesus
is going to win. There’s
no two ways around it; it’s not a
gamble. That’s what
we’ve got to be, all
in.
I’m
going to ask Brother Parrish to come back up here, and we’re going to
take some
time to pray. We’re
going to take the time
to—men, if you want come up and pray with us.
If there’s more to be had in your life, if you want
to come up higher in
God, if you just want men to pray with you, because, Parrish and I
aren’t
anything special in ourselves, but the God we serve.
We want to call upon that God this morning.
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