"God’s Value System" By Brother Parrish Lee March 1st,
2015
Isn’t it wonderful just to know
that you come to the house of the Lord and you present yourself to a God who
can answer you, who can fill you, who can bless you? I shall not be, I shall not be moved/Just
like a tree that’s planed by the waters (from Psalms Chapter 1)/I shall not be
moved. Why? Because I done found something that I don’t
want to let go. Majestic. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your
name…? And thank You, thank You, thank
you, thank You, thank You, thank you, thank You. Here I am, Lord, to worship, and amazing
love. It’s so incredible; most of the
message has already been preached, so it won’t be as long today. Amazing—what’s so funny? Amazing love; amazing love. How can it be that You, my King, would die
for me? I got to thinking about my King,
and my King actually died for me. When
do you ever hear about that? My King
came and died for me. What a mighty God
we serve. Angels bow before Him. I’ve got a picture—I don’t know about
everybody else, but I’ve got a picture of the realm of Heaven itself the
angels—all of them—all at once bow before Him. Down here, Heaven and earth, we
all, with one voice, adore Him. What a
mighty God we serve. And then, because of
Your love. What an amazing God we
serve. What an amazing God we
serve. I mean, a god who is just
awesome! Rules all Heaven; moves things
in your heart, moves things in your life.
You come in one way, and God blesses you; and you can’t leave--you might
come as you are, but you don’t leave the way you came, not when you interact
with God. He never runs out. If anything, he has to throttle it down,
because, too much of a blessing, how much can we really handle? I’m just saying. We took this month that we would
have, for our theme for the month is God’s Value System. That could be so encompassing. Brother Andy Giebler and myself, we talk
about things, and we pray, as is always, that it’s a blessing for all of
us. Having said that, giving honor to
that same God that we revere and that we extoll, and that we exalt, Who is
above all, through all, and, the Bible says, in you all. We give honor to that same God who is both
our Lord and master, Savior, the One that we take everything to, Who hears every
prayer we pray, and is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask
or think. That God. Giving honor to Him. Giving honor to those who have gone before
us: Our founding pastor, he and his
family; our pastor, he and his family; to all those who have stood in the gap
to make up the hedge; and giving honor to God for all of you, who present
yourselves before the Holy, one true and wise God. As you can see, our Scripture for
today is: 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. If you could bow your heads for
just a moment. Lord, we come before You
and sometimes we are just speechless before Your Holy presence, because, Lord,
we have found that there is truly none like You. We thank You for a time when You pour out
Your Spirit to make connection with us, to bless us, that we might enter into
Your courts with praise, and into Your gates with thanksgiving. Yes, Lord, we thank You for the blessing of
our worship time, that we worship, and we ask for two things, here, God: We ask, first of all, for a blessing on those
with physical ailments. We want to bring
them before You, and, yes, God, we’ve had prayer already, but we are Your
children, Lord, and we bring everything to You.
We bring Pam Thomas to You who was diagnosed with cancer, Lord. Our sister, Michelle, Lord. Our brother who has kidney stones. We bring everyone who has a need before You
right now in Jesus’ name, that You would have Your will, and let people be
amazed at Your power, God. Let them be
amazed at how Your Spirit moves and how You pour it out. Let them ask about, not so much us, but this
God who is able to do these things. We
present them before You and ask in Jesus’ name.
And, Lord, we ask for a blessing on the reading of Your Word as we go
over the verses, and the Scriptures, and, please, God, let me be out of the way
and le Your Word minister, as You said in Your Word, that it will accomplish
that to which You sent it and will not return unto You void, to feed Your
people, to feed them with both knowledge and understanding so that we can be
what You have called us, asked us, and determined for us to be. So we thank You, and present ourselves and
claim this all in Jesus’ name, and everyone said amen. Amen. What a beautiful time to come into
God’s house this morning. I’m a little
excited. I’m a little excited. All of you guys got up here and were
worshipping, and all could see was pictures and visions. Anybody else in here God’s been talking to,
giving you dreams or visions, just moving you, maybe you’re in your car, and
God is just—you know He’s doing something with you? You don’t have to have a crowd around; you
ain’t got to have somebody there with you, God is doing something with
you. Anybody else here can say, “Yeah,
God, I been kind of feeling that; God is doing something with me?” 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. “…In these things I delight…” Delight.
So, the Lord says, “But let him that glorieth glory in this…” Glory, here, means to shine, or to celebrate,
or to laud. If you’re going to make a
big deal about something, if it’s going to shine, if you’re going to celebrate
something, God says, “Celebrate that you understand and you know Me, if you’re
really going to take this thing to the hilt.” Then He says, “…understandeth...” Understandeth, here, specifically means to be
circumspect. To be circumspect, which
means be careful to consider all the circumstances and all the possible
consequences. To be circumspect, it also
means to instruct and to teach and to have wisdom with. “…Understandeth and knoweth…” And knoweth.
And knoweth. And knoweth, here,
means to acknowledge, to be aware of, and also to delight in. To delight in, and to declare. “…That he understandeth and knoweth Me…” That he’s circumspect about this, and that he
declares it; that he delights in it. And
He says, in the last part, “…for in these things…” For in these things, when you do those
things, the Lord says, “I delight in them.
I like it when you do that. I
delight in it.” And delight here means
to be pleased with, or to like, and you know what it also means? “These things
move Me.” These things move the Lord;
ain’t that something? “These things I’m
pleased with and I like, and these are the things that move Me.” Mmm-mmm-mmm. When I was looking through the
encyclopedia, yes, the paper encyclopedia; whoever heard of that with the
internet out here and all? The paper
encyclopedia, in the paper encyclopedia it had a ruler, and it had a
picture. It really needed to have a
picture, because it said that the standard for rulers is actually in the
government. They hold the standard for a
ruler, because, because, somebody could say, “Hey, I need something about
twelve feet.” “Well, my foot’s about yea
big, so it’s twelve of those.” But, you
go over to somebody else, and they say, “Oh, you’ve got small feet. My foot is like this, and, so twelve of
these…” You got one guy with twelve of
these, and another guy with twelve of these; where is the standard? Where is the true value? They have to have it, so that all the other
rulers know what the true measurement is.
Once, we have—this goes along with
God’s Value System—once I was a work… I
work at a wonderful company; I’m very blessed.
God’s blessed me with a wonderful job that’s kept me, food on the table
and a roof over my head, for umpteen years.
Thank You, Lord God, because You alone can do these things. We had an expansion in the building. We were being successful, and they decided
it: It was a pretty expensive expansion.
In this expansion—it was somewhere around forty million dollars—but in
this expansion, they had a room where they were going to be making product; the
things that we produce. I saw the room,
and I walked up to it, and, as I was walking up to it, the plant manager was
also walking up to it, and he looked into the room, and I looked into the room,
and I realized that we see different things.
Whereas he would see marketing, and production, and he would see cost
analyses, and he would see depreciation over a period of time, and he would see
workers and compensation; he would see all that. I’m a technician, so I would see the wires in
the wall, and I would understand that the air flow through pipes and the
airflow through duct systems, and I would see the way that the floor was, and
the pitch of the ceiling, and the airflow, how it would take things; what I was
going to have to do to be successful at my job.
As I was standing next to him, I had to turn to him and say, “You know
what? You and I may be standing on the
same spot, we may be looking into the same room, but we see different
things.” I thought that was a kind of
clever analysis; being a technician, I thought I was being kind of clever about
that. He said, “Yes, but as long as we
see the same goal.” Because, the
standard here is the common goal. You
might have a lot of different parts, but the common goal is what we all have to
be working towards, here. We all have
value systems in this life; we all do.
We all have value systems, and they’re formed by environment, and
they’re formed by cultures, and they’re formed by personal preferences. It’s really, really interesting, whenever you
see somebody taken out of one area, or environment with all their value systems
and it worked fine in here, and they’re transported or transplanted to another
place where they have to learn or adapt or find out how to work with a whole
different value system. I think this is
none more evident than the military. You
might have come from one thing, and you get transplanted, and, any of you who
have ever been in the service, you realize that. I had to learn a new value system when I got
off the plane. Because they talk to
you—if you flew there or drove there or had a bus there—once you disembark,
they taught you a different value system.
A different value system. What
you had to learn is whose value system is going to supersede whose. Yes, yes, and you realize, “Well, I signed
the paper, so theirs supersedes mine.
Parents, also, they see this same thing.
You know, parents, they rear their kids, and they instill in them a
certain value system, and, as they do, they expect those things to be
upkept. Then, you know, as the case becomes,
sometimes, outside influences, and other people or other things try to teach
them a different value system. Usually,
usually, depending on what they are trying to teach them, the parents have to
come in and do some corrections. For
example, somebody may say, “Oh, my mom and dad, they let me get away with
anything I do; I can talk to them any old way I want, blah, blah, blah,
blah.” Maybe a child, I remember once
myself, trying to take that value system and take it to my house. I had to learn a whole different manner of
correction, as I had to learn to talk differently, as my mom had to rearrange
my speech. Letting me know, “That value
system ain’t working in this house. In
this house, this value system works, where you respect your parents, where you
listen to what they tell you. That I the
value system that works here.” It’s also
important to realize rarely do you ever find—and I myself have never found—you
hardly ever find two people having the same value system. You hardly ever—I’ve never seen it. So, what has to happen is, two people, or
groups, they come together, and they have to make some sort of, as you share
your value system, and they share theirs, there has to be some sort of
agreement and compromise. Somewhere
along the line, you give up some of the things that are not important for the
purpose of having a relationship, for the purpose of having a relationship,
and, in turn, they, likewise, make certain concessions. This is what we call compromise in a
relationship so that we can have compromising value systems, and you have to
make a decision, “Is this more important than my relationship, or no?” And, generally, if it’s a good relationship,
you say “No, because my relationships are so precious, I want to keep
that.” There is a way to make some sort
of compromise. This also is the case with
God. God has a value system. God has a value system. So often, we will find this to be the case,
God will say, “If you…” then “you…” this.
If you will be doing this, then you will be receiving this. So, God pleads for us to come to His value
system. Isaias 1:18-20 Venid luego, dirá Jehová, y estemos á cuenta: si vuestros pecados
fueren como la grana, como la nieve serán emblanquecidos: si fueren rojos como
el carmesí, vendrán á ser como blanca lana. Si quisiereis y oyereis, comieréis
el bien de la tierra: Si no quisiereis y fuereis rebeldes, seréis consumidos á
espada: porque la boca de Jehová lo ha dicho. Love to have a different turn,
because several of our people, there was nothing strange about that. As a matter of fact, some of them are kind of
happy about it. “It’s about time we got
some Español up in this joint.” But, in
English, it says: Isaiah 1:18-20 Come now, and let
us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If
ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse
and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath
spoken it. So, God pleads with us to come to
His value system, because God says, “If you come to My system, then, though
your sins would be as scarlet, whatever value system you had, this is the system that will take away
your sins. Though your sins would be as
scarlet, they will be as white as snow.
Please come to My system. Please
come to My system.” Which brings us to
our first topic: God Values
Love God
values love. Two Scriptures right quick: Jeremiah 31:3 The LORD hath
appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. “The LORD hath appeared of old
unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love…” An everlasting love. Ooh, that sounds great. “…therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn
thee.” I have drawn thee. Drawn thee to what? I have drawn thee to this everlasting love. The Bible says here: Ephesians 2:4 But God, who is
rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, Wherewith He loved us. Now, God’s love is immense. It is immeasurable by anything that we could
call a standard. God’s love is also
pure, and it’s able to reach us, it’s able to touch us, it’s able to do things
for us, it’s able to make a difference to us.
Now, it’s important at this point to realize that God’s love didn’t
start with us. God didn’t make the
universe, and then the earth, and then all of us, and then make a decision to
say, “Hey, I think I’ll love those people.”
God’s love started before any of us was ever brought about, before any
of us came to be. Because the Bible says
that God IS love. He is actual love incarnate. Before any of us came about, He was loving us
already. So, it didn’t start with us; it
started with God. God’s love has such a
purpose, and that is to be bestowed upon us.
And, this is why God also says, “Not only do I love thee, but I want you
to love Me, too. I want the reciprocal.” Mow, you have to understand, His love is—He
freely gave that love to us, but he desires for us to love Him, also; that we
should love Him with all our heart, and with all our soul, with all our mind,
and with all our strength, from the Book of Luke 10:27. The Lord speaking here: Luke 10:27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. God is not only interested in if we love Him, God is also interested
in how we love Him. He wants to know how
we love Him. Some years ago, I was at this
little organizational thing, and it was mainly for senior citizens, and I can’t
even remember why I was there, but they had all these little trinkets. So, a thought came to my mind, I thought,
“Hey.” I mean, they had like little pill
boxes, and they had the little baggies, they had all these little things, and I
thought, “Hey, I can gather all these things up, and have a little basket, and
I can give them to my mom. You know
what? that will kill two birds with one stone!
She’ll get a gift, and it won’t cost me a dime! Yeah!”
I thought I was pretty smart about it.
So, that’s exactly what I did. I
gathered all the little trinkets up, I put them in a little bag, and, when I
went over to see my mom, I gave her the little bag of trinkets. Yeah.
Well, let me tell you what my mom did.
She took that little bag, and looked at everything that was in it, and
she told everybody. She told all our
relatives, she told people at her work, I think she might have stopped people
in the street, and told them, “Hey, hey, you, look and see; you see this? This is what my son buys me, a bunch of
little cheap old gifts. That’s what my
son thinks of his mother.” Yeah, I
learned a lesson. I learned a lesson,
because my mom wanted to teach me not to bring her any old bargain-basement,
cheap old style of love. Don’t bring her
that; bring her a love that means something.
Bring her the type of love that she has for me. I learned a very important lesson
that day, and I’m very thankful for that lesson, because that lesson goes
directly to, and applies the same to the Lord our God. He is so much like that that He told them in
the Book of Malachi, He said, “These gifts, these sacrifices, you wouldn’t give
them to your governor! They wouldn’t
receive them, and yet you bring them to Me, and I am a great King.” (Malachi
1:8) Yes, yes, our Lord and Master has
unconditional love, fervent love, immense love, huge love, but, the fact of the
matter is, He’s still God, and you can’t just wipe your feet on Him. You can’t take Him things that don’t matter
to you. He’s God; He wants a similar
type of love, a love that means something, when we go to love Him. What a God. I’m about to close up this
subject. Still talking about God’s value
system: 1 Corinthians 13:13 And now
abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is
charity. The greatest of these… Now, faith,
faith is huge. The Bible says that
without faith, it is impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6). And hope?
The Bible says that hope actually takes away shame (Romans 5:5). Hope takes away shame. But, it goes on to say that the greatest of
these is charity. Charity? Yes, specifically charity. Charity would be that pure, Godly, meaningful,
touching love. It’s not the type of love
that, “Hmmm. I think I’ll measure it out
to you;” it’s the type of love that’s freely given. The type of love that doesn’t vaunt itself up
(1 Corinthians 13:4). The type of love
that, the Bible says in the same chapter, it endureth all things, it hopeth all
things (1 Corinthians 13:7). Yes,
charity. The second point, the second thing
that God values that we want to bring up: God Values His Name God values His name. Oh, yeah. Acts 3:16 And His name through faith in His name hath
made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath
given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. “And His name through faith in His
name…” Through faith in His name. You know, we’re living in a day and time when
very little is Holy, anymore. We’re
living in a day and time where one of the worst swear words you can use is the
name of the Lord, and you hear it used right on the floor. The name of the Lord Himself. Salvation in that name, and they’ll use it to
throw it out, and they’ll put it with any blasphemous thing that comes
along. And society, society condones
it. It even makes you to think that
there’s no consequence for just taking the name of the Lord and just wiping it
in the dirt. But, God values His
name. Exodus 6:3 And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and
unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known
to them. God values His name so much that
He doesn’t even reveal it to everybody.
Now, here is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they know Him as God
Almighty, and that’s enough for them. They
didn’t know Him by a name that came later.
That name Jehovah, they didn’t know Him by that; God revealed that name
to Moses. When he revealed that name to
Moses, he did it for a specific reason:
The people were in bondage, and God revealed His name to them, just
before deliverance. He revealed His name
to them, just before they were baptized, the Bible says, in the Red Sea (1
Corinthians 10:2). He delivered His name
Jehovah to them so that they might know who saved them. He delivered the name Jehovah. So valued, so valued is His name, that it is
the third commandment. The third
commandment says, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain;” and
it goes on to say, “for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his
name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7) Yeah,
commandment number three. The Lord
breaks it down, and says, “Yeah, this is a commandment, and you’d better be
careful with it.” If we go to the Book of Acts,
chapter four, and verse number twelve, we see, yes, that God has many names
throughout the scriptures; he does have many names. He is named everlasting Father, Wonderful,
Counsellor, Prince of Peace, He has many names.
We wouldn’t be able to finish it in this sermon today. He has many names. But, in the Book of Acts, chapter four, and
verse number twelve, He tells us something specific about this name: Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for
there is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be
saved. So, after our Lord and Savior was crucified,
spilled His blood for us to take away our sins, we realize that that name has
been given to all of us specifically so that we would have access to Heaven, to
make it to Heaven. You could say, “But
God has many names; I can use any of those.”
The Bible says there is none other name under Heaven; not another name
under Heaven given to men to be saved by.
So, he has many names, but that’s the name He gave us to be saved by;
the name Jesus. We have salvation in His
name. The next part of God’s value
system that we’re going to mention today is: God Values
Pride Yeah, God values pride, but, in a
negative sense. God values pride in a
negative sense. God has a value system
where we are to see, yeah, He has many things that He values, but there is a
level of importance on things. Absolutely. Proverbs 8:13 The fear of the
LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward
mouth, do I hate. “…Do I hate.” So, we see that in the Book of Jeremiah, God
said, “These things I love,” but here, we’re seeing that God says, “These
things I hate. These things I hate: Pride, arrogancy, and the evil way, and the forward
mouth. Pride will get you to put
yourself above anything or anyone else, including God Himself. It will make you listen more to yourself than
God. It will also cause you to cast off
the love that you might have for somebody else, to take it away and put it more
on yourself. Pride will cause you to
take credit for things that are not yours.
Pride? Oh, yeah. Pride will cause you to think that if you even
have a great fellowship time with somebody, “Oh, it’s because I was there. You know, I’m the one.” That’s pride.
Pride will cause you, if God blesses you to teach or share some
scriptures or a study, pride will get you to think, “Yeah, it’s all about me.” “Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.” Pride.
Yeah. Pride will cause you to, if
it’s a share time, if it’s a singing time, “It’s me. God blesses everybody, but, you know, it’s
me.” Pride. Pride will make you think that, if you prayed
a prayer and it got answered, once again, it’s all about you. But God has a specific thing that He thinks
and feels about pride. There’s a good
example, there’s a good example in the Book of Acts chapter twelve verses
twenty-one, twenty-two, and verse twenty-three—specifically verse twenty-three—about
a certain king, and the Bible goes on to talk about how he gave this great
oration and people lauded about it; they were happy about it. They went on to say, “It sounded like the
voice of a god; this man is so special.”
But, then, the Bible says, because he gave not God the glory, God had an
answer for that. Acts 12:23, I should
let y’all read that one. Go home and
read that. But, in the Book of Job, God
has a whole different exposé, explanation; He expounds on pride a little bit
differently, and very much more clearly.
We’re almost over; we’re almost done, Saints. The Bible goes on to say, here: Job 41:34 He beholdeth all high things: he is a king
over all the children of pride. “…he is a king…” Now, this talking about Leviathan. Leviathan the great serpent, the great
sea-serpent, and it goes on to talk about nobody can handle that one, that
Leviathan, that great, big snake that’s been around for a long, long time. We, of course, know leviathan by a different
name; we just call him the devil. We just
call him the devil, and the Bible says that he is king over all the children of
pride. So, if you find that pride is
rising up, and you want to give more into pride than anything else, then all
you have to do is say, “Yeah, I am a child, and that is my kingdom.” That’s God valuing pride, but in a completely
negative sense. But, God also values one other
thing that were going to mention this morning.
God Values Listening
to Him God values listening to Him. He really does, Saints. Romans 10:1-3 Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal
of God, but not according to knowledge. For
they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their
own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for
righteousness to every one that believeth. “…To every one that believeth.” Here, Apostle Paul teaches us that the Jews,
unfortunately, they had gotten God’s value system wrong. You see, it’s great to have zeal. Zeal is a wonderful thing, and a necessary
thing for us to have. But, that’s
providing that it’s used in God’s way.
Just because you have zeal, doesn’t mean that you’re right. Zeal, but it has to be done according to
knowledge. Anybody can understand
this. Anybody can understand that, when
you have a certain task, whether it’s a professional task, whether it’s
housework as a task, or whether it’s driving a car; zeal to do these things is
wonderful, and it needs to happen so that it can be an effective job, but zeal
to do it right is what’s
necessary. Doing something is not the
same as doing something right. It goes
for everything from washing the dishes, vacuuming the floor, it goes for—even if
you have a value system on the job where you work. I’m sure that whoever your employer is will
make sure that this is what the edict is, this is what we are directed to do,
and this is the proper way to do it. That
is the way it winds up—don’t just say you showed up and you did something, show up and do what I told
you to do. So, zeal is good, but it has
to be done according to knowledge. So,
there is a complete remedy for that: And
this is our last scripture: Psalms 86:11 Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy
truth: unite my heart to fear thy name. “Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will
walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.” So we ask the Lord to teach us. Lord, teach us. Then we can make sure we’re walking right,
and we’re doing right, and, then, Lord, I’ll have that unity with You. You will be able to unite me with You, and
our unity will be closer, and closer, and closer, and closer, and closer. Amen.
Give the Lord a praise.
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