“Let God Be God” By Ken Avellino October 29th,
2017
Jesse,
good job. Would you come back a second and
just have a prayer with me, for God’s anointing on the service? Jesse: Holy and
righteous Father, as Brother Ken
prepares to deliver this message, Lord, you've already been preparing
him all
week, Lord God. God, give him calmness and peace in his mind, and his
heart.
Let the words flow through, to our hearts. And, let us be not only
hears but
doers of your Word. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Well,
I first want to start out with a praise report.
I want to thank everybody. Some of you know, some don't. But, I got a
letter
from Lake County, saying to vacate the premises of my shop within 90
days. And,
I immediately mentioned to a lot of brothers, called brothers and said,
“I need
prayer.” The attorney for the lady that owns the building said, “You'll
be
lucky if they give you until summertime.” So, I wrote a letter and I
sought God,
and God answered prayer, and they gave me three years. Because moving a
business is a very large operation. So, they gave me three years. And,
even
people that were just friends of mine, I would send them texts and I’d
say,
“God did this for me.” They didn't go to church or anything, but God
did this
for me. And, I just wanted to tell everybody thank you for your prayers. My
wife and I have two grandsons, I think they're six
and eight; I always get it wrong, but that's close enough. Anyway, the
other
day, Daniel says to me, “Papa, I love you.” And I said, “I love you,
too, Bub,”
I call him Bub, in that way, Bub. And he says, “You know what? I love
grandma,
too,” and I said, “Well, that's great. That's good.” But what really
surprised
me, what really got me, he goes, “But most of all, I love God.” You
know, with two
boys in the house, there’s always a big wind up for that big high five,
and
they love it. They'll even climb up on the chair to reach up, and it's
whack; that
big high five. I was very impressed, and I said, “I'm very happy to
hear that
from you, Daniel.” You know, we're talking about the love of Christ.
Then the
first Scripture today will be from Deuteronomy, chapter six, verse four: Deuteronomy 6:4-5
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all
thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Now,
if you think about that, God loved us first.
Well, how do we know that? Because, that's where it starts, right
there, that Scripture,
where it starts. And, where does it end? I don't even know if it does
end. But,
when Jesus said, “It is finished,” this whole book, this whole Bible,
from start
to finish, is what shows where God loves us; He mapped it out for us.
He made a
plan. Now, what if the whole thing was turned around? What if our God
was an
evil God, and a hateful God? What would this world be like? We would
have no
opportunity to get back to Him, to be saved from our sin. If we were
just like
our God and we served an evil God, we would have no way to get back, no
way to
be saved, no forgiveness of sins, nothing. So, by following God, and
loving God,
and allowing God to love us, it’s reciprocating back and forth. What if
one day,
out of the blue, for no reason at all, we say, one day, “God, I love
you. God,
I thank you,” I do that all the time. You know there are days, and even
last
week, was one of them, you know, it can get pretty rough out there, it
can get
pretty depressing. You know when I go to the VA, one of the first
questions
they ask, is, “Any thoughts of suicide or depression?” And I say,
“Yeah, every
Friday, when I look at my check, I get that for a few minutes.” But,
anything
that goes wrong in life, and when things get tough, I have learned to
reach out
to God, to start praising God, to start thanking God for what He has
done, and,
all that depression and all that anxiety just melts right there in
front of us,
in front of me. I have another Scripture here, you know, this talks
about: They
will know that we are His disciples because we have love, one for
another (John
13:35). And Second Timothy, three, and one, I'm going to read a little
passage
of Scripture here. 2 Timothy 3:1-4 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,
fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded,
lovers
of pleasures more than lovers of God; You
know, for my family, for my
children, I have to live a testimony, my wife and I have to live a
testimony.
We have to speak to them in love. We have to show them that they need
to fall
in love with God for themselves; we can only take them so far. Now, we
have
daughters, and maybe some of you have sons or daughters, and they like
to
argue. And, this Scripture here, we cannot argue with the world, we're
going to
lose. The world is going to outdo us, the world is going to out-lie,
out-cheat,
out-steal all of us. There's only one way to combat it, and that's
through the
love of God, via Scripture. I told my wife, especially with my oldest
daughter,
she always says, “God, God, God everything with you is always God, God,
God.”
Yeah, exactly, because, if you put a Scripture out there, a Scripture
in love—Not
to fight or to combat it--put a Scripture in love. You know, one day I
said to
my dad—It’s very emotional—because, I said to him one day, I was
fighting with
him, and I said, “I wish you were dead.” I'll never forget this. And,
he goes, “I'll
gladly die the day that you straighten up.” I never forgot that. I am
very
thankful that I still have my dad with me, today. And, somebody told me
not too
long ago—You know, I was frustrated with my dad and I was shaking my
head. If
you know my dad, you know we go, him and I, we go around and around.
two ants
will be crawling up a wall, and he and I will argue over which one is
going to
get to the top first—and, he said, “You know you need to respect your
dad, even
if you don't like what he's doing. And, you need to be thankful to God
that he’s
still here.” He said, “I lost my dad, you know, and I've known a lot of
people
that have lost their dads. It's a very tough time. It's very emotional.
It's
like a piece of your life goes with him when he goes.” So,
anyway, I have another Scripture
here, and we’re talking about family, and the love of the family, and,
I want
to talk about the prodigal son. Now, if you don't know who the prodigal
son is,
there was a father, and he had two sons, and one of his two sons said,
“Father give
me of my inheritance.” And, he sat down and gave both of his sons at
the same
time—even though only one asked for it—He gave both of his sons the
inheritance.
And, then, it was a few days later that the one son got up and left.
Now my
children—and I've said it to my family, too—”I can't wait until the day
that
I'm eighteen, because I'm leaving home.” So, the day came when I was
eighteen,
my dad said, “Well, you’re eighteen today; you leavin’?” And I thought,
“Well…”
and, I said, "Well, just give me a few more days; I'll be out of
school,
then I'll go.” Then, that day came, too. My dad said, “Are you
leaving?” Well,
you know, but God had a better plan, so he drove me to the recruiter.
So, I got
another six months, but I'm still leaving. Well, this son left, and, he
went
and wasted his substance among the world. And then he came back, but
when he
came back, he said to his father, “I am not worthy to be called your
son.” Now,
the thing is, we think in our mind, that, when we come back, that we
have to do
something, that we have to measure up, I guess for lack of better
words. So,
the son said, “I am not worthy to be your son, so just let me be as one
of your
servants.” And the father had love and compassion for him, and, he put
the robe
on him, put a ring on his finger, shoes was on his feet, you know,
killed the
fatted calf. Jesus loves us so much, it is so highly above our
comprehension
how much He loves us, because He mapped it out, He gave us the Word, He
gave us
His Spirit, and His love, His Holy Ghost. You know, it's like a map, a
GPS, you
know. I don't use my GPS as much to get somewhere; I use it more for
when I go
off track. So, God's GPS, His prophets, His Scriptures, God's GPS
enables us to
get back to Him. And we think it’s because we have to earn our way
back, but we
don’t earn our way back. We get back to God because it is His love. His
love is
greater than anything we could ever imagine. God loves us. We hear this
saying
all the time, well, Jesus loves you. I know a lot of people that say,
“God can't
love me, I have done all this.” The two brothers that received the
inheritance
in the prodigal son story; one was there all the time, and one left.
But they
received both the inheritance. Some people think, “Well, I’ve done so
much,
I've gone so far.” But God's love is outstanding, it’s everlasting, it
is
always there for us. No matter what we think, what we try to achieve,
to get
our way back, it's because of God's goodness; God loves us through all
our
mistakes, all our failures. And, when we receive that love from God, we
are not
perfect, but, we receive that love from God, and we keep trying we keep
going,
because it's God's love in us that saves us, we can't save ourselves,
we can't
do anything to earn that love back. It's God's love. So,
this is what I've really been
thinking about: we know that if we're going to be a disciple of God, we
have to
follow God, but we have to let God be God instead of us trying to do it
ourselves. That's really the thing that I'm trying to relay is that
they will
know, people will know that your disciple of God because through all
things you
love Him and He loves you, He loves you first, and He gave His Word,
and we can
receive strength. We can do the impossible. We can do things that we
never
thought we'd be able to do. I tried so many times to quit the things
that I was
doing. I would wake up in the morning, feeling guilty and I didn't know
why,
but it was God calling me because God loved me first. In closing, I
just want
to say, don't give up. If you want your family to be saved, you have to
love
God, and let God work through you, and let God change you, let God do
the
impossible in your life. Nothing else matters. That's the truth, and I
just
want to thank God for the opportunity. You know, I'm learning, I'm
learning
every day. And, I appreciate the opportunity—Parrish, Andrew—for the
opportunity because, I just want to be saved, and that's all it was,
and I just
want to be saved. So, thank you and God bless.
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