"2015 Wrap-Up" By Brother Andy Giebler December 27th,
2015
A
few years ago the thought of me,
in my mind, standing behind a pulpit was quite foreign.
It’s a humbling thing.
It’s a humbling thing to—what’s it been?
Three years in February. Pastor
Paine
called us up, and said, “Let’s try this out for a year, and see what
happens.” They
couldn’t get rid of us, though. But,
I count it a privilege to be a part of
this group of people. I
count it a
privilege to be a fellow-servant, you know?
It’s easy to stand up here and say, “Yeah, I’m a
leader, and I’m a
fellowship leader, here.” All
I know is
sometimes, it’s just listening to God, and being a traffic cop. Sometimes it’s just
coordinating, and it’s a
privilege to know that God is using me. So,
we’re closing out 2015. I’ll
tell you, we were debating on how we
want to do some of this stuff, and we want to talk about some of the
things
we’ve accomplished this year. We’re
not
going to do it this Sunday, but we’re going to talk about things going
forward. We
normally do our State of the Church
address, which will be coming from our headquarters church, and this
year,
we’ll key off of Virginia, our headquarters church, our home church,
and we’ll
be talking about the State of our Fellowship, and we’re going to talk
about
it. And I’m kind of
giving you a heads
up about that right now, so that we can think about it when it happens. Think about, as a whole,
as a ministry, what
ae the ministries that we have? We
have
our men’s ministry, our women’s ministry, we have those that are
dedicated to
working on the navy base, and that’s an awesome thing.
Some people may say I’m biased towards that,
because I won’t miss a chance to tout that, because God didn’t leave us
with
this amount of people here, with men who have a burden for that base,
for no
reason. He didn’t
leave here for no reason,
on what we call the quarterdeck of the Navy.
Every single sailor that comes into the Navy, comes
through this
base. And, a large
percentage of them
stay here for, you know, a few weeks, up to a year or more, just for
their
training. Not to
mention those who come
back as staff. Sometimes
I tell the
story that, I’m from Illinois; I grew up in Southern Illinois, and I
joined the
Navy to see the world; to get out of Illinois.
What happens? I
come up here to
Great Lakes, and I wind up staying here for an entire year, without
even
leaving the state of Illinois, in the Navy, before I get to see
anyplace
else. It was not my
plan; it wasn’t
something that I would have asked for, but, it was something that God
did for
me, because, when I had—I remember in high school, that there was a
time when I
sat in my room, I had contemplated, two weeks before, my friends had
gone out
and done some things, they had fun, they talked about it. I’m in the conversation,
and it sounds like
they had such a blast; fun times.
And,
the next week, the next Friday night, I replayed that conversation,
and, we
went out that weekend and did exactly—to the ‘T’—the things in my mind
that I
had set up to say, “That was a lot of fun,” but, yet, we did those
things, and
it was all different. There
was more oy
in listening to them, and anticipating the fun that they had, than when
I
actually went out and did it. That
was
the point when I realized that there had to be something more than this. There had to be something
more than
that. More than
just driving the cars
around, chasing the girls, going to the movies; there had to be more to
it than
just that. And that
was when I said,
“God,” and that was a scary moment, it was then, I had gone to bed, and
I said,
“God,” because God had been really dealing with me, and I said, “God,
if I were
to die tonight, and not go to heaven, don’t let me go to sleep.” I did not sleep that night. I did not sleep that night
until I said,
“God, okay, I get it. Something’s
not
right,” and God let me go to sleep at about three in the morning. But, it wasn’t until I
asked God to let me go
to sleep that night, I did not go to sleep.
And, I really believe that’s what set the ball in
motion, because, I
don’t believe it’s a coincidence I came up here.
And I say that; I know I started out talking
about groups in our ministry, and I say that to encourage those in our
ministry
who are taking a personal passion and a burden for that, and those
that, even
if you can’t go to the base, when you see the sailors come in, and you
get a
chance to share with them, because, we’re not building our ministry on
sailors. We’re not
trying to shake them
upside down and take money from them.
That’s not what we’re about; we’re about ministering
to them. I was
talking to Pastor Paine about that,
because that’s something that’s been on his heart, and we’ve been
praying for. I know
he’s been talking to you a lot, Phil,
about praying that those that we see saved, and those that are saved
elsewhere,
you know, in our other congregations, come back here as staff, you know? It’s not enough just to
say, “Okay, this is
something that God put for us to do.”
It’s not enough to say, “God gave us that gift to do
something
with.” And, this
month, we talked about
gifts. You’ve got
to do something with a
gift, sometimes. I
mean, how many have
ever received a musical instrument for a gift?
How many could play that musical instrument as soon
as you got it? You
could stand up, and you could play in a
band as soon as you got it? No;
you had
to learn, you had to do something with that gift.
And the same way with our talents of God. Veering
off from what I was
talking about, but it’s very pertinent:
the gift and callings of God are without repentance
(Romans 11:29). God’s
going to hold us accountable for them
no matter what. One
thing is faith and
prayer, and when it comes to this area of the base ministry, I keep
touting
this, because it’s important. It’s
not a
matter of building our ministry, it’s a matter of God gave us a
responsibility
there. A
responsibility to minister to
anybody that comes across that Navy base, comes across that quarterdeck. And that’s not to say that
the rest of our
ministry is not important, because we’re not just a military ministry. Yes, we have been given a
great
responsibility to that, but we minister to whoever we can, wherever
we’re
at. We have those
that are dedicated to
ministering to our seniors. And,
‘Seniors’ is kind of an overused term.
We have a lot of people in our society, you know,
when we say senior,
well, senior is fifty-five or over.
We
have people that are older, that are really functioning well,
fifty-five,
sixty-five, seventy-five, and we’ve got people that are younger, in
their
fifties, that physically don’t function well.
And that’s not being critical, that’s just a
reality; those are people
that still need to be ministered to.
And
we have people in this room that are willing to take out time for
people that
have disabilities, that have physical challenges, that need help, that
need help
getting up and down the stairs, that need help taking care of, you
know, just
combing their hair sometimes. Just
their
physical things, you know, getting them to a doctor’s appointment. And I want to say that
that’s something that
I appreciate seeing that; that blesses me, because I don’t have to go
out and
say, “Hey, somebody go do this.” I
might
suggest it sometimes, but, all of the sudden I get texts on my phone,
on
Christmas Day, Jose and Nazira are down in Evanston, visiting a man
who’s in
the hospital. That’s
a blessing to hear
that. I didn’t have
to ask them to do
that. They took it
on their own to go
down there, because they wanted to minister to him.
And they’re not the only ones, but those are
the ones that stick out in my mind, because they told me they did that. Not that they’re trying to
vaunt themselves,
or lift themselves up, but they’re communicating, and it’s a blessing
to hear
that. There’s a few
others that do
that. Terry lets me
know about the Bible
studies at the nursing home. Jeff
I.
let’s me know when he goes and visits people, so that’s a blessing. And we have those who are
dedicated to our
kids, and we put out a plea for that a few weeks ago, and we’re going
to
continue to do that, because our kids deserve to be taught well. We don’t do that; we don’t
teach them what
other people teach. It’s
the parents’
responsibility to teach them at home, yes, but there’s no reason we
can’t
reinforce that. There’s
no reason why we
shouldn’t reinforce that. There’s
no
reason we shouldn’t have events for them, because the world bids for
their
souls. And they are
very precious. That’s
the future of our ministry. And,
we keep them on track; they’ll bring
their friends in. And
it can’t be just
about ministering just for the sake of them, we’re ministering because,
you
know, they can bring their friends out just as we can. So,
we have quite a few areas of
ministry. We have
music. That takes a
burden, and I’m glad for people
stepping up. I’ll
be looking forward to
some more of our youth stepping up into music.
Why? because I love playing the guitar, but I’ll be
happy when these
guys come up and start playing it better than me.
That’s not going to hurt my feelings one
bit. There’s a lot
to be done. We’ve
been able—because of the
things that you do, we’ve been able to do a lot this year. I don’t like to talk about
it; I don’t like
to ask for money. That’s
just one of my
personal things that I cringe on when someone walks in my door to try
to sell
me something. I
just—that’s kind of my
own personal phobia. I
see someone by
the side of the road with a cup out, just, in my own personal flesh,
that
grates against me. So,
I’m just being
honest in sharing that, because, because of that, I don’t like to ask
for
money, either. Now,
there are times when
God says to do something, and I do it.
I
do buy those things; why? because there’s many times in life, we have
to get
past our flesh, and say, “This is how I minister.”
And, yeah, maybe, sometimes that guy I’m
looking at is just going to go buy alcohol with it, but I don’t know
that. And I’m not
saying that every time somebody
rattles a can in your face, you’ve got to put something in it. I wouldn’t say that. But we’ve got to be
faithful and listen to
God. But, we have
had this box. Now,
I can’t speak to our tithes and
offerings on the international level at this point.
I know that earlier his year, there were a
lot of you hat were supporting electronically, on-line, or mailing
checks in,
and that’s awesome, because that shows that people are supporting
ministry. But, what
I can speak directly
to is, I know what goes in this box.
I
get a report from Rob every week, and I know what goes out of it, and I
wanted
to let you know some of the things that we’re able to do because of
that. We’re able to
help; you know, there’s people
among us that need help, financially, whether it be, just for a place
to stay,
and maybe for food, for a vehicle...
Sometimes we help people with that stuff. Christian Fellowship Great
Lakes wouldn’t be
able to do that if you didn’t help us in that area.
We’re blessed to be able to have our pastors
come visit, and, not always, but sometimes, they need help in their
budget, and
we fund their trips to come down here.
We’ve had Pastor Paine come down here, and his wife,
a few times, and we
had Pastor Ulysse come. That
was
definitely a good message to hear.
We
were able to help then with their transportation. We
had our humble beginnings
celebration. Without
support for that,
we wouldn’t have been able to do it, because we had to rent a building. We had to have food for
it; we had to have a
lot of things to go into that. And
I’m
going to tell you something, just a side note to that:
That Humble Beginnings, I was blessed by
that. It was kind
of our own revival
time. But, I want
to tell you that, just
from talking to people, Pastor Paine, Debbie, Jim B., Jim O., Holly and
Heather
and Sis were all so blessed to see this here.
They were blessed to see a foundation.
They were blessed to see that, when the
headquarters, when the bulk of
all the headquarters people left, when pastor Paine left, when all the
pastors
left, that there’s still a foundation here, and that’s not built on me
and
Parrish. That’s
built on the Gospel,
that’s built on Jesus, and that’s you guys; you guys are doing that. That’s something that they
were blessed to
see. They were
blessed to see that the
things that were taught were, you know, the Biblical principles that
were the
foundation that was laid, that we’re not letting it slip, that we’re
still
doing those things. That
really blessed
them. I
know we took up one offering, a
few offerings, particularly for our Thanksgiving celebration, here at
the
Grandwood Park District. With
that one
donation, and then the donation that you all brought with food and
money, we
didn’t have to go back in to the budget to fund anything for that. That is a testament to the
figure of your
generosity and your faithfulness.
We didn’t
have to go back. Normally
we had to go
back, “Oh, we didn’t get this, this, this and this,” and we’d have to
go back
and take it out of our fund. No,
there
was none of that. It
was funded straight
up. Well, it may
have been—I take that
back, it was thirty-five bucks, out of the whole thing. And,
just another blessing, how God’s
blessing us, because of our testimony, because of you, ho9w long have
we been
doing this now? four years. Grandwood
gives it to us for free, for the entire day, for Thanksgiving. To the point, I had Ed
call this year, just
to check on it, to make sure that we had a reservation, and she said,
“Oh, no,
somebody’s already got it reserved.”
Well, that somebody was us.
Because, as soon as the previous Thanksgiving was
over, they put it on
the calendar. And,
just a couple of other things
that come out of our, call it our benevolence fund:
We’re able to support our picnics out of
that, flowers for funerals, and there’s probably a dozen more things
that I’m
not thinking of right now, but it’s ministry that’s able to happen,
because of
your generosity, and that shows me that we’re growing as a ministry. Switching
gears, here, the sermons
for this year, the monthly themes, everybody liked having themes. Having a whole month of a
theme, and then
switching, it gives us something to look forward to; we’re going to
keep doing
that for next year. Parrish
is very
diligent about working with the preaching team, on setting a direction
for
those, and, not just random sermons, these are things that we get
together and
do for a purpose. I’m
going to kind of
walk through a few of them, here, just to kind of bring them out, of
the
year. Just to do
that, and not keep us
here all day, but I have to keep it short.
I’ve been blessed, just a little commercial, here: How many have been on
MyChristianFellowship.org? How
many have
actually seen the sermons for Great Lakes?
Just to have that to go back and refer to is very
key. We don’t have
the audio up there, but we do
have a write-up of every sermon, every—pretty much every comment and
every
Scripture is on there. That’s
a good
tool to go back and refresh. And,
I want
to put a plug in, it’s a good fellowship-starter.
If you’re ever in a fellowship time, go
through and listen to those before you have your fellowship, and use
that as a
springboard, because I am amazed when I sit with people and listen and
talk
about a sermon, a Bible study, and hear the things that Phil or Ken got
out of
a sermon or Bible study that I didn’t catch.
You know, the things that we bounce off each other,
and I learn even
more from that fellowship and talking about it than I would have, even
if I
listened to the audio again, just to hear other people’s experiences. So,
2015. We started
out in January with A New
Walk. And, the key
ideas we talked about
were a man who was lame, who was sitting by a pool.
And Jesus told him to take up his bed and
walk. And, one
thing I drew out of that
was he got up and did what Jesus told him to do, and all the religious
people
around him did not like it. What
I took
away from that is, we have a new walk.
If we’re following the Scriptures, and we’re taking
about those things…
You know, it’s amazing, how many people you see in your workplaces, and
they
talk about football. They
know every
stat, every score—and there’s nothing wrong with following that—and
everyone
wants to her that, they feed off of it.
But, when we come in, and I’m excited, and I want to
talk about, “Yeah,
I had a good time this week-end,” they don’t want to hear it. They get to the point
where they don’t even
ask us how our wee-end was, because we’re going to tell them, and they
don’t
want to hear it. They
don’t want to know
how our week-end was, because it’s convicting.
They don’t want to hear anything about Jesus; they
don’t want to hear
anything about the Bible, and that’s our new walk. And
people aren’t going to like what we’re
doing, even the religious people.
And,
if I walk in, and I know it’s not me, it’s a light.
It’s a light that shines in darkness, and
darkness comprehends it not. And
we’ve
got a light that shines, and people look at us and say, “Oh, you’re
judging
us.” If there’s any
conviction, and I
can’t always tell them this, but there’s a time and a place to share
it, and
I’ve said it, “You know, if you’re feeling a conviction, it’s not me. I’m not standing here
judging you. I’m
not trying to lay a conviction on
you.” I can
remember, one time, and this
is me, I’d shortly been saved, and this kind of a spirit or a mindset
came
across me, “Oh, they’re just trying to lay too much of a conviction on
you,”
and I realized it was not Pastor Brand, it was not any of those guys in
the
Servicemen’s Center, it wasn’t joe Watson, it was a conviction that,
okay,
there was a step I had to take to put away my flesh and what I was
doing, that
I didn’t want to do. But,
in my mind,
and in my heart, and in my spirit, it was, “Oh, they’re laying a
conviction on
you,” but that wasn’t it. It
was just
their life, and what they were doing.
So
that’s A New Walk, and one of the scriptures that was used was James 1:22-25 But be ye doers of
the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any
be a
hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his
natural
face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and
straightway
forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the
perfect law of
liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a
doer of
the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. How
do we get that new walk? Look
into the perfect law of liberty. I
can try to be as good as I want, but unless
I have something to guide me, unless I study the Scriptures and I seek
God and
His Spirit, it’s just vanity. But,
being
a hearer and a doer of the Word. All
right. February.
We find all kinds of things that don’t last,
sometimes. Things
in this life are temporal. Our
theme for February was, A Victory that
Lasts a Lifetime. The
Scripture was used,
1Corinthians 15:57, and I’m going to read verse 57 and 58: 1 Corinthians 15:57-58 But
thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ. Therefore,
my beloved brethren, be ye
stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
forasmuch as ye
know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. And,
some of the topics in the
sermons were Seeking God Early in the Battle.
The Scripture says, “There hath no temptation taken
you but such as is
common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above
that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to
escape, that
ye may be able to bear it.” (I Corinthians 10:13)
But that thought of seeking God early in the
battle, you know, when you’re in the fray, when you’re already I the
middle of
it, you might have missed what God had for you, because, sometimes,
it’s near
the beginning, or before the battle even starts.
The Bible says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added…”
(Matthew 6:33) Seeking
God first. Sometimes,
you know, there’s a way out, and
we find ourselves in the middle of something, and we’re faced with a
temptation, and we say, “God, how do I get out of this?” and we missed
the
off-ramp already, you know? We
got
caught up in traffic, and didn’t see the signs.
Seek Him early in the battle.
Listen to God’s battle plan and obey.
Sometime we seek Him early—I can put it
personal—sometimes I seek Him
early, “God, this ain’t the way I see this happening.
That ain’t the way I want this to go,” but
this walk is spiritual. You
talk to some
people, and you say, “God spoke to me.
God put this on my heart,” ad they look at you like
you’ve got four
heads, but we know that God speaks to our hearts.
Let me say that again:
God speaks to our hearts.
And it’s not always what we want to hear, but
it’s the best thing we could hear.
It’s
going to put us where we need to be.
You
look throughout the Old Testament, when God gave them a battle plan, it
didn’t
seem very, you know, when God says, “Just stand, and let Me take care
of
this.” “No, I got
my sword here. I’ve
got to do something with it.” “No,
you just stand here, and these people
will come here, and they’re going to kill each other.”
“That don’t make no sense.”
Or, you know, “Go march around Jericho. March around it seven
times. Go march
around. And then
you’re going to blow your trumpets,
and then the walls are going to come down.”
“Yeah, right.”
No, sometimes the
things God tells us aren’t going to make sense to our flesh, but the
times that
God says, “Do this, not that,” okay, and it’s just amazing to know,
when God
orders your steps, when God gives you the battle plan, when you obey
that
battle plan, things turn out in ways that you couldn’t have even
comprehended,
because we go through a situation—“All right, this is going to happen,
this is
going to happen, I’m going to say this, he’s going to say that,” and
there’s
only one way we can the outcome of this.
But, yet, God does it in a way that brings it out,
kind of, you know, we
think of a good outcome and a bad outcome, and God brings an even
better
outcome that we could never have comprehended.
Things that we didn’t even ask for.
So, listen to God’s battle plan and obey. How
God brings the victory, and
thank and praise God for what He’s done.
And that’s a big one.
Sometimes I
think we miss our blessings because we don’t thank God for what He did. I want to be quick, and I
don’t want to be
slothful. When
someone says, “God did
something for me,” I want to stop and say, “Thank You, Jesus,” and not
be
ashamed to turn around, and say, “Thank You, God.”
Because, sometimes it’s easy to not
acknowledge God, and that’s our flesh. When
we acknowledge God, when we acknowledge Him, we get even more blessings. But, even outside of that,
God is worthy of
our praise; God deserves our praise. God
deserves for us to take the time to stop and say, “Thank You for what
You did.” In
March, we talked about God’s
value system. Jeremiah 9:24 But let him that
glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am
the
LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the
earth:
for in these things I delight, saith the LORD. Just
a couple of sentences there,
but, “…in these things I delight…”
That’s important.
When God says
He delights in something. What
are those
things? Let him
glory in this, that he
understandeth… So,
we have lots of
things to glory in. But,
it delights God
that I understand, that I would glory in the fact that I understand God. There’s a lot of things to
glory in. I can
glory in the fact that I was able to
fix my truck, that I was able to put a wrench to it, put this part on
it, and
make it run. But
that’s not what we’re
talking about here. I
can glory in the
fact that I got an education; I got a good job.
But, “…in these things I delight, saith the LORD.” “…Let him that glorieth,
glory in this, that he
understandeth and knoweth me…” Just
to
know God, that pleases Him. It’s
such a
simple thing. I
mean, we look at
relationships, and look at just the relationship with my family, my
dad; I look
at my mom, and she died way too young, and I, if I have any regrets in
life,
it’s that I never got to know my mom well enough, but that has fueled
the fire
to get to know my dad better, to know my sisters better. And that takes work. It doesn’t just happen. For me, I had to travel
three hundred mils or
so to see my dad or my sisters. But,
even if we lived close to each other, it’s still work to get to know
your
family. It’s work
just to get to know
your brothers. You
could be sharing an
apartment, living in the same house; it’s still work.
Your wife, your husband, you’re sharing the
same tube of toothpaste; you’ve still got to work at knowing each other. Especially the longer
you’ve been
together. It’s
something that takes
work. It says,
“…glory in this, that he
knoweth and understandeth Me, that I am the LORD which exercise
lovingkindness,
judgment, and righteousness, in the earth...” Love
is the greatest gift of
all. 1 John 4:7-8
Beloved,
let us love one another: for love
is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that
loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. God
loves us. Sometimes,
we can lose sight of that. We
can easily forget that. Sometimes
we mess up. Sometimes
we do things that are wrong, and
then say, “I could never get back.
I’ve
done something too wrong; I’ve gone too far.”
You know what?
If God’s dealing
with you, follow that voice. Don’t
ever
give up on God’s blessing, don’t give up on His love, don’t give up on
what
He’s got for you. May
we talked about women in the
Bible. We packed a
lot in May: It’s
our Mother’s Day, it’s our women in the
Bible, we take the time to learn about women, and their role in
history, and in
Scriptures, and it’s a blessing to hear those things.
And, our last sermon, Pastor Paine visited
us, and the title was, “God Is Good, But Life’s Not Fair.” And the Scripture that I
took out of it was: 2 Corinthians 12:10
Therefore
I
take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in
persecutions,
in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong If
you’re feeling weak—and this is
a comment he said, I just want to read it the way he said it, he said,
“If
you’re feeling weak today, then I’ve come to tell you that’s good news,
because
that’s when God can be the strongest.
When we think we’re so strong that we don’t need
God, we’re like the fifteen-year-old
who says to his mom, ‘I got this.’”
I
didn’t say that, Pastor Paine did.
Yeah,
when we’re young, we kind of think we know more than we do sometimes. Not that we don’t know
anything, it’s just a
reality of where we’re at. And,
sometimes we’re like that with God; we say, “God, I got this.” And, sometimes, we don’t
even get that far;
sometimes we just, in our mind, don’t even seek God on it. But, in my weakness, God
is made strong. It’s
when I get to the point where I
surrender, and say, “God, I just can’t do this.”
That’s when I know it’s not in my flesh. When we move forward, and
say, “God, okay,
I’m going to put it in Your hands.
I
know that I can’t do this; I’m going to put it in Your hands,” and
that’s when
God says, “Stand back, and behold the glory of the Lord.” That’s when God can do
things in us. Because,
when I am strong, when I’m puffed
up, when I think I’m all that, when I think I can do this, that I don’t
even
bother to seek Him. Sometimes
we go out to find things
on our own. Now,
the Scripture talks
about all the things, how the grass, the lilies, how beautiful
everything is,
how the birds, you know, God provides for them.
But, yet, we look at all the things we think we need
sometimes, and say,
“God, I want these things,” but we go out to get them.
Sometimes, instead of waiting on God, we say,
“Oh, I can do that. I
can go out and
finance a new car. I
can finance a new
house. I can do
that.” And there’s
nothing wrong with that; there’s
a time for that. Or,
“I can go out and
get this job. Yeah,
I can do that. I
can go out and do this. I
can go out and get this education.”
And there’s nothing wrong with getting an
education. But,
it’s a matter of, what
does God want us to do? God
gave us this
flesh, this amazing temple, this amazing body, that can do a lot of
things. That
doesn’t mean it’s
profitable to do it. It
doesn’t mean
it’s God’s way; just because I can do something, doesn’t mean I should
do
it. The Bible says,
“Seek ye first the
Kingdom of God and His righteousness…” (Matthew 6:33)
Sometimes we say, “Seek ye first the
kingdom,” and stop there. You
know, seek
ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
The thing that I’m going to do, am I making
it hard, because I’m not seeking His righteousness?
Am I seeking some thing,
or am I seeking God’s righteousness?
##32:44## All
right, June. That
was our men’s day, we had our Father’s
Day, and Pastor Paine visited us once again, and that was our month, we
also
had our Humble Beginnings. Once
again,
that was a blessing, just to hear people tell of where they’d come
from, where
this ministry’s come from, and what God has done for us. And, I couldn’t do this
justice, Pastor Paine
and the story that he told. I’m
going to
read it verbatim. The
title of the
sermon was, “Long Distance Runner.”
I
heard a speaker say once, “How many in the audience would
like to have a perfect past?” and I thought to myself, “Well, that’s a
ridiculous question, because it’s impossible.”
The Bible says, “All have sinned, and come short of
the glory of God.” (Romans
3:23) Can the
church say amen? I’m trying to read this. And,
if you’re not a sinner, you’re a liar, and that’s a
sin, so… I think
we’re all covered; all
right? He said,
“How many would like to
have a perfect past?” I
thought, “Sign
me up.” I was
skeptical at first, but I
wanted to hear what this man had to say.
He said, “So, you live today, and you do everything
that God has for you
to do,” and he went down the list, and talked about how we can bring
every
thought into captivity, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on. I thought, “I could do
that,” and he said,
“You’ve got one day of a perfect past.
And then you do it again tomorrow.”
And he put it together very well, but the short
version is, he said,
“And then you’ll have two days of a perfect past.” And
then three, and then you’ve
got a month. It’s
one day at a
time. You know? I’m going to brag on Steve
for a second
here. Steve’s been
telling me—how many
days has it been smoke free? Eight
weeks. He didn’t
get there but by one
day at a time, and I’m proud of that. I
hope you don’t mind me sharing that, but I think it’s an awesome thing. And, we’re living in
Christ, it’s one day at
a time. Yep, we’re
going to mess
up. “I did it
again!” So, what do
we do? We pick up,
and start day one again. And,
eventually, the beauty of that is, when
you start being conscious of that frame of mind, conscious of that,
what’s
right and wrong, what God wants us to do, you start getting to the
point where
God strengthens you, to where, this thing over here that used to bother
me, well,
that’s not a bother anymore. Why? because I’ve already
conditioned myself to
it, because every time that comes up, I’m looking over here, I’m not
looking at
that. I’ve gotten
beyond the fleshly
addiction to whatever that is. And
it’s
one day at a time, because it’s always going to be there. If I go back and entertain
that again, it’s
going to grab me and suck me right in.
It’s one day at a time.
One day
at a time of saying, “God, I’m not going to do that.” July
was our month of Sound
Doctrine. I think
one of the biggest
things I got out of that was Jesse talking about the importance of
knowing and
speaking God’s Word, and the importance of prayer and fasting. And those are topics that
I’m sure we’re
going to bring up again next year.
Prayer and fasting, and just knowing God’s Word, the
importance of
that. And, I
remember hearing something,
years ago, people looking at men and women in our church, and saying,
there’s a
church that knows their Bible. And
I’m
going to keep that alive. Now,
there’s
some of us who have been around here for quite a few years, and we’ve
been
taught a lot of things. And
some of us,
not as long, but still learning. I’m
going to kind of put a plug in on this one.
A lot of us have a foundation that we gained from
Pastor Davis and
Pastor Paine teaching us. You
know,
Pastor Saniatan, when he was here, and Pastor Brand, and I could name a
bunch
of teachers that sat, and that God used to teach us.
And the sad thing is, some of them decided to
go do other things. God
gave them that
talent. God gave us
that talent. God
gave us the ability to learn. And,
we gained a foundation of knowledge, and
we were taught very well on baptism in Jesus’ name, and very well on
who God
is, and many foundational topics.
But,
now it’s our responsibility, not just to rely on, “Okay, here’s my
foundation,”
and, in a lot of circles, that foundation is good.
In a lot of circles, just that foundation
would be revered as, “Wow, he knows a lot!”
“She knows a lot!”
But, where do
we go with it from here? Just
the
general statement on learning, you know, we can’t ever stop earning. You’re going one direction
or the other;
you’re either getting better, or you’re going the other way. God has so much for us to
do, and learning
more. That’s why
I’m blessed when I hear
about the Bible studies we’re having.
Wednesday night, we have a coffee shop, some of the
guys get together at
their apartments. I’m
missing one. Where
the other one? Oh,
the Pavilion. Terry
has a chance to minister there. And
there’s probably some other ones that
come and go that I don’t know about.
It’s good to know that people are getting together
and building on that
foundation, to grow that, and learn more. August
was just a walk through the
Book of Philippians. Paul
said: Philippians 1:6 Being confident of
this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will
perform it
until the day of Jesus Christ: There’s
a whole-they did that in a
month, and they still have a lot to go, so I’m not going to try to
tackle a
whole lot of it now. September
was our month of
sanctification. You
might ask, why do we
do that? Why do we
have a time of
sanctification? Well,
we should be doing
that every day. We
should be sanctified,
holy—this is our royal priesthood, but, yet, this is the month that
we’ve
taken, set aside as our time of sanctification, a time of remembrance,
a time
of awareness, that these are the things we need to do, you know? If we’ve kind of strayed a
little bit, to get
back in here. If
we’re in a good spot,
and God wants to take us up higher, that’s a good time to take that
time to
fast and pray and say, “God, how do I come up higher?
What more do you want me to do?
What would you have me to do?
What would you have me to learn?
What area of my spiritual life am I
neglecting?” Sometimes
it takes a time
of prayer and fasting just to get through that.
Sometimes we’ve got to put our flesh aside. I know, you know, that
Scripture we talked
about earlier, when I’m at my best strength, that’s not hen God’s using
me;
it’s when I’m weak, it’s when I put aside, and it could be weak in the
flesh,
it could be setting aside something that my flesh wants. I’ve got to put it away,
because, it may not
be wrong, but it’s something that I want to do, and as long as it’s in
the
forefront of my mind, that’s a part of my mind that God’s not occupying
at that
point. God wants to
use us. We’re doing
good things, but God says, I want
more. That’s
something that God’s shown
me, “You need to set this aside.”
There’s nothing wrong with it, but, u know. That one hour of TV, do
you really need
that? One of the
programs that I really
got into was ’24.’ That
was mine. It got to
the point where I was, you know, I
would make fun of people that I would see watching their soap operas. “Oh, you’ve got to watch
that goofy soap
opera?” Even as a
kid, I would make fun
of that. And then I
find myself, it’s no
different, I’m watching this stupid show.
Whatever night it was, at seven o’clock, I had to be
sitting there,
glued to my television, watching my show.
And it’s something that sucks you in.
It’s something that’s a real—it plays to your mind,
and you’ve got to
know, these people in Hollywood, they know what they’re doing. They set this show up, on
purpose, and it’s
every single one of them, they set up a teaser at the end of every show
to make
sure you watch the next one. And
sometimes you have to get away from those things to get it to let you
go. Sometimes
you’ve got to just turn that TV off
for a couple of weeks straight. And,
it
may be gritting your teeth to do it, “Oh, I want to watch that!” But, yet, sometimes you’ve
got to get away
from that to let God speak to you. October. Working the Field of Souls: Lessons in Evangelism. One of the pieces I took
out of that: Jesse
asked us a simple question, “What’s my
part?” There’s a
whole lot to that, and
I encourage you, go back and read those on line.
Go back and find your notes.
There’s a whole lot to that; what’s my part
in evangelism? Because,
there’s a lot of
pieces of ministry that need to be done, and evangelism is one of them. We all have a part in it. November
was our time of giving
thanks. And the
topics for the sermons
were—they kind of speak for themselves—“My Words Are Spirit and They
Are Life,”
“Do We Recognize What God Did for Us?” “Sacrifice of Thanksgiving,” “Be
Ye
Thankful,” and, “Last Words,” it was a sermon by our Associate General
Pastor,
Pastor Ulysse. Paul,
knowing where he
was going, that he may not be back to minister to these people again. Sometimes we’ve got to
look at our last
words. I may get a
chance to minister to
somebody, and I may never see that person again.
I need to do what God has for me to do right
now, not say “Ah, I’ll see him again tomorrow.” And
December. “God Gave
Gifts to Men.” I
kind of touched on gifts earlier.
You know, our gifts.
God gives us gifts.
God expects us to do something with
them. But, there’s
seems to be some, you
know, if you look on a space of Christmas sermons, I don’t think these
are the
ones you would have picked out. But,
they’re facts that are important.
We
talked about the blood. We
talked about
the blood on Christmas! But,
it’s
important, you know? In
the Old
Testament, without shedding of blood there was no covering of sins. Without shedding of blood,
there’s no
sacrifice. Recapping
some of the
sermons, God’s got things for us.
Parrish compared it to an ATM.
I
go to an ATM, and put the card in, I’m only going to get out of it
what’s in my
account. If that’s
five bucks, that’s it. But,
God’s not limited. Whatever
He has for us is what He has for
us. I don’t have to
worry about a limit,
I just have to ask God. If
God doesn’t
want me to have it, He doesn’t want me to have it, but I don’t have to
worry
about limits. Ephesians 4:4-12
There
is
one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your
calling;
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is
above all,
and through all, and in you all. But
unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the
gift of
Christ. Wherefore
he saith, When he
ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
(Now
that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the
lower
parts of the earth? He
that descended is
the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might
fill all
things.) And he
gave some, apostles; and
some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
For the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the
edifying of the
body of Christ: We
talked about grace. This
is the Strong’s definition: [H5485]
Graciousness (as gratifying), of
manner or act (abstract or concrete; literal, figurative or spiritual;
especially the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in
the life;
including gratitude):--acceptable, benefit, favour, gift, grace… God gives us His grace. Grace is more than—what is
this act of grace
that He did for us? The
act of grace
that we talk about at Christmas is His Son.
And it says that grace is a divine influence on the
heart. It’s a
reflection. I—we
have to take on Christ. It
says we are buried with Him by baptism,
and we take on Christ, we put on Christ.
We take on—that’s God’s grace in our life. And, because we have that
grace, because we
take on that sacrifice and that blood, we’re covered, just as, in
Egypt, Israel
had to shed blood of the lamb for the Passover.
They had to strike it on their doorposts. And they were given very
specific
instructions on how to do it. It
wouldn’t have been enough just to kill it.
It wouldn’t have been enough just to eat it; they
had something specific
they had to do. They
had to strike the
blood on the doorpost. That
was their
grace. That was
their salvation, at that
point. But that was
temporal. In the
temple, they were commanded to
sacrifice. It was
blood. It was a
sacrifice that had to be made. And,
without that sacrifice, there was no
covering of sins. But,
it was
temporal. This
grace that we have today
is the one that lasts forever. This
was
the final sacrifice. There
is no other
sacrifice needed; none whatsoever.
Because this was the covering of sins.
Because this was our perfect sacrifice.
And, as we talk about Christmas, you know, we talk
about nativity, and
the Christmas story, and we talk about the Wise Men, the Magi, coming,
and
they’re looking for this Savior. They’re
looking for this Jesus, and they come in, and Herod, and all Jerusalem
are
troubled. This
wasn’t the Savior they
were looking for; this wasn’t the King they wanted.
They were worried about this; this was a
change. They’ve got
a king! Who’s this
other king they’re talking
about? But, the
thing is, they
knew. They may not
have known exactly
what was going on, but they knew something.
You know, all of the sudden, this group of people
come, looking for a
king… Of itself,
yeah, that would be a
spectacle, but to say all Jerusalem was troubled with them. That means they knew the
prophesies. That’s
how, in those days, things were passed
down by word of mouth. They
were taught,
handed down, from generation to generation.
So, they’ve been taught.
I’m sure
it was something that mothers taught their kids, and fathers taught
their
children and grandchildren. So
they knew
of this, and they were troubled. And,
then, when they finally get to Jesus, they bring Him these gifts, gold,
frankincense, and myrrh. It shows, once again, they –these gifts told
what
Jesus was all about, who Jesus was to be.
Gold was something very special; it had to be dug
out of the ground and
it had to be purified, and a lot of things had to be done to bring
someone a
piece of pure gold, today, is not an easy task.
They didn’t have all the technology we have today. That was something, not
only do you have to
find it, you had to find enough of it, and you had to purify it. And, to receive that, it
was somebody
special. Frankincense
had a very
specific odor. It
wasn’t given to just
anyone; it was given to royalty. It
was
given to somebody of stature. Not
just
anybody had that scent. Now,
if you’ve
got enough money, you can go out and buy any perfume you want, but,
there are
certain perfumes out there that, even these days, you’ve got to spend
big money
to get an ounce of the stuff, you know?
So, it’s only people with that much money that have
it. Well, unless
you were of that stature, you
didn’t get that. And
myrrh. Imagine
Mary, watching them open the
myrrh. Myrrh is
something you give—it’s
used in the embalming process. That
means somebody died. Imagine
the mother,
watching them unfold a package of myrrh.
And it foretold what Jesus was about.
They were preparing for His death, even there. They were foretelling His
death, even there;
they were foretelling what He was all about.
And,
as I start to wrap up, here,
a little bit, we talk about the gift, and the sacrifice, and the blood. What is that today? What does that gift mean
for us today? There’s
no Jesus hanging on a cross. We
can go to Israel and see about three
different places where they say the tomb of Jesus is.
But, they’re physical places.
Sure, you can gain—there’s sentimental
things, and, sometimes, just being in a place, just like going home for
the
holidays; there’s nothing special about your house, except for the
memories
that you have there. And,
other than
that, it’s just a tomb; just rock.
But,
what do we have today? The
Bible talks
about Spirit. It
talks about walking
after the Spirit, living after the Spirit.
Taking about the fruit of the Spirit.
Today it’s spiritual.
The Bible
talks about having those things manifest in our lives, talking about,
if you
live after the flesh, you’re going to fulfil the lust of the flesh; if
you live
after the spirit, you’re going to fulfil those things. The Scripture talks about
doing by nature the
things of the Law, not having the Law, you know, because of God’s Sprit. God will show us the
things that we need to
do. If I can add
anything onto the end
of this last sermon of 2015, it’s walking spiritually, walking after
the
Spirit, living after the Spirit, because that’s what’s going to keep us
on a
day-to-day basis. We
talk about,
sometimes, you know, the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace,
longsuffering… “Well,
I need those things.” But,
the cold, hard reality is, how do you
get those things? The
Bible says, you
know, it’s the fruit of the Spirit.
How
do I get fruit of the Spirit? How
do I
get that fruit? How
do I have that in my
life? You sew to it. If you have an apple tree,
you learn the
things that pertain to an apple tree.
You learn what kind of food it needs, what kind of
soil it needs, what
kind of light it needs, here it needs to be planted, you know, what
other
things to put round it, to keep down certain kinds of insects. You learn how to take care
of that
plant. And, if you
want love, peace,
joy, longsuffering, gentleness, kindness, sew to the spirit. Find those things which
are spiritual. What
are things which are spiritual? Fellowship,
studying God’s Word, being on
your face. Straight
up. Those are the
things that will enhance love,
peace, joy, longsuffering. Amen. Thank you.
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