"God Makes Provision" By Ken Avellino January 31st,
2016 I want to give God the thanks
before the message. He gives and takes
away. I want to recognize it. The world doesn’t recognize it, they just
think it just happens. This here is what I call a traffic
light sermon. You hear of preachers that
are sidewalk preachers, and we see soapbox preachers, but I sat down at night
and tried to put a message together, I fell asleep, so I kept a notebook with
me all week so that every time I came to a stop light I could write down
something. And God was able to, through
that, put a sermon together. Whatever way
you get there, just get there. Everybody
has their own style. But I was thinking
earlier this morning, and the message constantly kept changing, but the thing
is, if we were made in God’s image, and God’s likeness, why is man so far away
from God? Why are we so far away from
God? It’s because our sins and our
iniquities have separated us from Him (Isaiah 59:2). The Spiritual Being born again to me was the
deciding moment that I realized that my relationship with God was inadequate,
incomplete, and still distant. I was
given an opportunity to know Him on a personal level that would change my life
forever. I was raised in a Catholic
church, but I felt God pulling me constantly closer, and I would ask a lot of
people, “What do I have to do to be saved?”
And I would seek counsel, I would pray, and some answers made sense,
some didn’t. But, the first Scripture that I
have: Jeremiah 29:13 And ye shall seek
me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. With all of my heart. Now,
partially, I would seek God, and then go out and do something. I would travel around, I would hitchhike all
over the state of New York, looking for answers. I would go to colleges and visit my friends,
and end up partying, and doing all the things of the world. But God was still there in all those things,
trying to compel me to seek His face.
And I did, and I found some answers that were good, and I found some
that weren’t so good. But, it started
with prayer, reading the Bible and asking anyone with any knowledge or
philosophy to get me saved, and it was diligent, until I really sought Him with
a whole heart, and I was baptized in Jesus’ name. That changed my life forever. Once you're saved, you have a
calling and a direction, you have counsel, you have motivation, joy and peace,
and a confidence you did not have before. There’s a Scripture in Proverbs: Proverbs 28:1 The wicked flee
when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion. In this world today, I know a lot
of people, and I think of my mother. My
brother and I have been trying to convince my mother to move to Florida, where
it would be easier for her, because she’s always complaining about pain, and
such. I said, “Well, move to Florida;
you can be there with my brother, and such, and everything would be
great.” But she doesn’t want to go
anywhere. And a lot of people don’t want
to go anywhere in life; they’re paralyzed by fear, because they don’t know God. They don’t have any reassurance, they don’t
have any confidence. Like, at one time
in my life, I didn’t have any of that. I
had no direction, I had no counsel, I had nothing. But I was paralyzed by fear. You know, there was a few nights ago, I just
happened to be going through some channels, and, I remember as a kid growing
up, Evel Knievel, Bobby Knievel, you know, I think he’s kind of crazy, but, as
a kid, he was sort of an idol to a lot of us kids, and he said, “A lot of
people, they never accomplish anything because thy never try anything.” And I thought about that a lot, you
know? God enables us to do things that
we thought we could never do. I never
thought that I would learn the Word of God and become a Christian, but God’s
able to do more than we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). We live in a society today that
discourages any counsel or any Godly influence, and replaces it with legal drugs,
or illegal drugs, and medicine in order to try and stabilize people's anxiety,
depression or any other mental disorder. My mother used to say "You have the music
so loud that you can't hear yourself think," and I replied "That's
the point! Because I don't like what I'm thinking." If that doesn’t work, the government or
somebody will just form a committee which will just leave us more confused than
what we started with. The answer for
society is God, because God is truth.
People have moved so far away from God; it’s not in a lot of things in
our life. When we were kids, we just
took for granted, it was just there. Everybody
had some form of God, or religion, but, now, you can say, “God blessed me,” and
they look at you like you’re crazy. Romans 8:30-31
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called,
them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God
be for us, who can be against us? If God be for us, who can be
against us? A lot of us came here from
other places, and, I, myself, it was because of the Navy. I never thought I’d make it here; I could
have stayed in New York. I could have
gone back there, taken over my dad’s construction business, or something like that. But I took a chance. I took a chance when I went up to the Center,
and this was back thirty-something years ago, and the preacher there that was
preaching, he said, “What are you going to do with this man called Jesus?” I didn’t know what I was going to do with Him,
or, more than that, I didn’t know what He was going to do with me. What could He do with me? And, I got baptized in Jesus’ name that
night. And, God makes provision. And that’s not the title of the message; that’s
more of a topic. But God makes
provision. And God will equip us to do
His will. To do our will? You know, that gets complicated. We have to seek God. There’s many times that, when I have a need
from God, I will keep presenting it to God, I will keep praying about it, and,
usually when I do something, it’s a knee-jerk reaction; it comes with consequences. But when I have time to seek God, God will
show me; He will provide a way. He will
give me direction. You know, if it’s the
natural, or if it’s the—you know, maybe it’s a situation in my family. You know God will give me direction. I need the works; I need the works because
that’s the hardest thing. If I choose to
do everything my way, even to speak it sometimes, it doesn’t come out right; I
make quite a mess out of things. But,
when I seek counsel from God first, that works out. And, sometimes I may even think, “It’s not—if
I say it like this, it’s really not going to get the point across.” But when God gives you the words and the understanding,
it comes across right, and it does get the job done. And it’s not my way, it’s God’s way. The Natural This talks about the natural
things that God provides for us. Matthew 6:25-26 Therefore
I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye
shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more
than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold
the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into
barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? You know, I was thinking
again this morning, and, I was all set yesterday. I was at Vinnie’s house, and we got
everything all types up and set to go, but things still changed. Like Jesse was talking last week about the
things that come to you in the night, the moment that God really gets your
attention. Well, I had to wear a tie today. It’s grueling, it’s terrible, it’s very
painful. And, you know, I thought, a
simple infraction, like, maybe, a traffic ticket, where you have to go before
the judge, to the most hideous crime, you go before the judge, and you want to
present an image of innocence. What
about when you go before the Judge, the real Judge, the big Judge? The Judgment Day, when you’re before God,
what are you going to wear? What are you
going to be covered with? You won’t be
able to have a suit, or a nice dress; you’re going to be there, pretty much
naked before God. And, if the Bible says
that our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), our sins and our
iniquities are going to be the only things that God sees, unless you have the
blood of Christ. That blood of Christ is
going to hide that sin. It’s going to
cover our sins. So, you have to have
that relationship with God, the sustaining relationship. And not just a form of religion, but it needs
to be with you every day. It’s been with
me thirty-something years. And I can’t
see another way of living. I wouldn’t
want to go through life—life is very difficult, and even more so, these
days. It’s all the things of society and
the computer age… You know, the computer’s
in our mind. You know, how do we release
it? How do we manage it? How do we deal with it? It seems to get tougher all the time, and we
have to cast our cares on God, because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). We have to listen to that still small voice,
like Bob was talking about this morning.
And, most of the time, that still small voice tells me to shut up. That works better than anything else, because
my righteousness is as filthy rags, but God’s blood is what covers me. So, that’s my sermon today, and I
look forward to more opportunities. Thank you, Andy and Parrish, for the
opportunity, and it was a lot of fun.
Thank you.
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