"Preparing Ourselves for our Blessing" By Brother Parrish Lee September 18th,
2016
Thank you, thank you, thank
you. I know, I know, right? I know, you still feel it, right? Right?
Oh! You may be seated. Ain’t it hard to stop, when you talk about
the lamb that God has prepared for you?
Ain’t it hard—anybody ever get a good dose—just a pinch, just a touch, I
mean, just a taste of God just showering down on you, and you get feeling what
it’s going to be like when those clouds roll away. And, when, as He says, “Ye shall see when you
see the Son of man coming in all the glory, with the angels, from one end of the
earth to the other and He gathers His elect, to take His elect home with Him.” (Matthew
25:31) I get happy about that. Giving honor to that same one true
and wise God. Giving honor to who is the
protector, and the provider, and who gives us the presents for our souls. Giving honor to who is the only true one, who
is the only anointed one, who is that only full of goodness and brightness,
that Daystar, that Rose of Sharon, that Lily of the Valley. Giving honor to who Him walked up to Golgotha’s
Hill, looked at every single one of us, worldwide, down through creation, forward
and back, and spread His arms so wide, and said, “This is enough. It is finished.” Giving honor to Him. And, giving honor to all those who have
followed Him, Old Testament and New. Giving
honor to those who paved the path for us, us, here in 2016. To those who were the founders of this
ministry; to our founding pastor, he and his family, to our pastor, he and his
family—looking forward to seeing them next week. And, giving honor to those who’ve come, and
stood in the gap, to make up the hedge, their labor, their labor. And, giving honor to all of y’all, who say,
you know, “That’s enough; I come to You, Lord.”
And y’all don’t come just to a building, you come to the Lord, and
present yourselves to his presence. If
the building were gone, you would still present yourselves to the Lord. He is the One who gives the blessings. He is the One who never fails. That is some kind of God. Giving honor to y’all. We’ve taken this month to be our
time of sanctification, and, this is what Christians do. Christians do this, they periodically, set
things aside, to concentrate, to focus.
The leaders call it a sabbatical.
People more serious, they say, “I’ve got to take a sabbatical because
I’ve got to tune things in.” And they do
that. They’ll do that in sports; they’ll
go away to a sports camp where they’re dedicated towards it. They’ll do it in education; they’ll say,
“Hey, I’ve got to go away. I’ve got to
get tuned up, get some better techniques.”
They do that; they’ll go to seminars and stuff. Well, we’ve taken this month to be our time
of sanctification, and we’ve taken as a Scripture theme, from the Book of First
Chronicles chapter thirteen and verse number fourteen. And that is going to be along the lines of
our thought for today. 1 Chronicles 13:13-14 So David brought
not the ark home to himself to the city of David, but carried it aside into the
house of Obed–edom the Gittite. And the ark of God remained with the family of
Obed–edom in his house three months. And the LORD blessed the house of
Obed–edom, and all that he had. If we could just bow our heads for
a moment. Oh, God in heaven, we thank
You so much, for Your goodness, and Your grace, and Your mercy towards Your people,
Oh, Lord. You never fail, never come
short; God, You are always on time. We
thank You for the opportunity to praise You.
We thank You for having our right minds this morning. We thank You to know who You are, today,
God. We thank You for relationships,
God. We thank You for all Your good and
perfect gifts. And we thank You for the
opportunity to praise You in the beauty of holiness with brothers and sisters
of like minds ad like hearts that love You , and You above all, Lord God. And we ask, we ask, as we turn ourselves to
the reading and Scriptural portion of this day, of our service, of our worship,
we ask, God, that You pour out Your blessing, Lord. We want everything from You, God; we don’t
want to come behind on any gift! Have
Your way in this service, God. Lord,
have it go over every verse, every word, God; have it go with every unction of
Your Spirit, that You have for Your people, because You said Your Word won’t
return void, but it will accomplish that to which You sent it. And we claim the victory, we claim the
essence, we claim prosperity, we claim every blessing You have for us this
day. This we do claim and pray, in
Jesus’ name, and everyone said, amen.
Amen. Part 1: An
Example in Obededom So, if we were to take a thought this
morning, it would be on preparing to be blessed. And, that, indeed, is going to be the title of
the sermon, actually, “Preparing Ourselves for our Blessing.” “Preparing Ourselves for our Blessing.” And, we have an example of this; we have a
great example of this. It doesn’t even
talk about this guy a whole lot throughout the Bible, but it talks about him
some. But, as he said, we’d like to look
at verse number fourteen. That is our
thought for the entire month, our theme for the month. 1 Chronicles 13:14 And the ark of God remained with the family
of Obed–edom in his house three months.[in the house of Obed-edom for three
months] And the LORD blessed the house of Obed–edom [and
the Lord blessed the house of Obed-edom],
and all that he had. We talked a little bit about the
setting for this, and how the Children of Israel had gotten a little bit
away. See, this is David’s time, and
they’d gotten a little bit away from the time of Moses and Joshua, and they
knew about how the blessings and the victories, that, whenever they had in the
Ark; it just seemed that the presence of God would be blessing. And, if you don’t have that relationship, you
begin to take it as a token, you begin to use it as a good luck charm. It will replace relationship. That’s how the Children of Israel used
it. They were about to go to war—we
talked about this—they were about to go to war, and they said, “Hey! We don’t think we’re strong enough. We need something to be on our side,” ad they
ran and got the Ark, and they believed, because of its physical presence, that
that would be enough to ensure victory.
And, of course, it was not. It
got captured by the Philistines, they took it, and then, it just wreaked havoc
in their whole lives, so the Philistines sent it back on a cart. And, as it was coming back, the Ark of the
Covenant, the Ark of the Testimony, as it was coming back, they started
rejoicing because the Ark was coming back into the camp. And then, one of the mighty men, one of the
heroes, as the cart—they didn’t have paved roads back then—the cart began to
waver some, and Uzzah put his hand to the Ark, and God slew him. And everybody got afraid, saying, “How are we
supposed to handle this? If God slays
our hero, then how is the rest of us going to fare with this?” And David the king sent it over to be in the
house of Obed-edom. But, here, the Bible
says, it remained with him for three months, with him and his family. With him and his family. And God blessed the house of Obed-edom. We’ve got to take a little thought
on this word. God blessed his house. Now, this
word, ‘blessed’—there’s many definitions and ways that blessed is used, but
this one, this one, is a special type of blessed. Now, see, the Children of Israel had many
ways they would bless God. In fact, I
counted over a hundred and seventy, and then I kind of lost track, and started
counting over; I kind of got a little confused.
But, there’s over a hundred and seventy ways that they blessed God.
There was the quiet way—woo!—the quiet way they blessed God. That was a blessing. And there was—when they would sing, that was
a type of blessing to God. And, also,
there was a jumping, when they would jump, that was a blessing to God. They would laugh in the blessings of God,
getting happy about it, that was a blessing to God. There was one where they would just whirl
around; I don’t know if anybody ever been caught up like that, but just getting
so excited you can’t sit still. You find
yourself going in circles, and you don’t even care. That is a blessing unto God. But, this one, when it says, “…and the Lord
blessed the house of Obed-edom…” when He blessed him, this is the barak
blessing. The barak blessing. This blessing, when they would bless God with
this blessing, it means they blessed Him loudly. It wasn’t that soothing, smooth and
comfortable; it means it was on the outside.
They blessed Him with all they got, with a loud voice,
enthusiastically. They blessed Him with
all that they could; they put it out there.
This was the barak blessing. They
normally would use that for how they would bless God, but, this time, this is
God blessing Obed-edom with a barak blessing.
He blessed him with a blessing that everybody is supposed to see. A blessing that couldn’t just be contained in
one house. That’s the kind of blessing
that God poured out for Obed-edom. This
type of blessing. Barak -to kneel; by implication to
bless God (as an act of adoration), and (vice-versa) man (as a benefit);
abundantly, altogether, praise. Now, it’s one thing to serve God
and keep His commandments; follow His Word.
That’s something that we are supposed to do. If it's written down, we’re supposed to
follow God like that. Thank you, Brother
Terry; thank you, Brother Kirk. Y’all
took half of the message today. And
Brother Greg, you took another part of it.
I don’t have to go so long today.
But, it’s one thing to follow God, just going by the letter—“God says I
need to do this and do this and do this and this and this; I’ll do that.”--and
it’s another thing altogether to seek God, “God, what do You have for me to do? I will keep Your Word—I’m going to do it—but
that’s not enough.” Anybody ever love
somebody, and, you know you’ve got to do things for them, but, then you look
for somehow to bless them? You look for
something that might make them happy.
Well, there are the two services of God, and we don’t even have to go
any further in talking about this than—thank you, Brother Terry—the young rich
ruler (Luke 18:18-24), amen. We don’t
have to go much further than this, in Luke, chapter eighteen, just right quick,
it talks about the rich young ruler, and how he came to Jesus, and how he said,
“Hey, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
And He said, “Oh, you know what you need to do; keep the commandments.” But he said, “All of them have I kept from my
youth up.” And, then, the Bible says, then
the Lord looked at him. In the Book of
Mark, it says He looked at him and loved him (Mark 10:17-25), but, here, in the
Book of Luke, it says, “One thing you lack, go sell what you have, give it to
the poor, and come and follow Me, and you will have treasures in Heaven.” But the Bible says he was sorry about
that. Because it’s okay to keep the
letter, it’s okay to do that minimum thing, but, “God, don’t ask me to further
than that, you know? Don’t ask me to do
outside of this.” Now we see what type
of love somebody has for the Lord. This same thing, this same
mentality had permeated Israel. This
same mentality. It’s not about love,
it’s about doing whatever God says, and then we can do our own thing. This mentality had trickled all the way down. It had trickled all the way down to where we
find, in the Book of—well, let’s do this first:
We see, in the book of Leviticus, chapter five, verses six and
seven. We’re going to read a couple of the,
the letters of the Law, where people had to keep, and these were things they had
to do before God. Leviticus 5:6-7 And he shall bring
his trespass offering unto the LORD for his sin which he hath sinned, a female
from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats, for a sin offering; and the
priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin. And if he be not able to bring a lamb, then
he shall bring for his trespass, which he hath committed, two turtledoves, or
two young pigeons, unto the LORD; one for a sin offering, and the other for a
burnt offering. So, it said that, for a certain
type of trespass, you had to bring a lamb offering, and, if you couldn’t do
that, then you would go ahead and bring two turtle doves, or two young
pigeons. Leviticus 6:2 If a soul sin,
and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour in that
which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by
violence, or hath deceived his neighbour; Leviticus 6:6 And he shall
bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, a ram without blemish out of the
flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: So, even if you lie, if you lie to
your brothers or sisters; if you lie to your neighbor, you had to bring some
sort of sacrifice to cover that lie, that treachery, that trick. Leviticus 7:12 If he offer it for
a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving
unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and
cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour, fried. Now, here it talks about a
different offering that we’re bringing, and, it’s amazing how, when God talked
about, “If you’re going to bring Me a thanksgiving offering, an offering to
bring thanks unto Me, don’t mix it with anything else. Don’t bring your thanks with things attached
to it.” You know in Congress they say
that they pass a law ‘for the people,’ and then they add what they call that
pork-barrel stuff where they add it in there.
“Let’s slip this one in there; let’s slip that one in there.” And, you see the big thing, but, really,
people are wanting to pass what they want.
I want to be able to have a tax cut for people, but, in order to get the
tax cut for people, I also want to pass this bill where, you know, we can get
the roads improved, and, you can pay for the municipalities, and…” “I’m sick of
that!” God says, “Don’t do that to
Me! If you’re going to thank Me for
something, thank Me! If you’re going to
ask Me for something, put that later.
Make My thanks holy; don’t mi other stuff in when you’re thanking Me!” So, it’s mighty interesting, mighty
interesting, if we were to go back to chapter six, and verse number
thirteen. Chapter six, verse number
thirteen, God was talking about how you’re going to make His altar, He said,
“When you make My altar, there’s a place where you’re going to have to burn
that offering. That offering that I
consume, that I can have.” And He said,
“That fire, that you’re going to have for Me:” Leviticus 6:13 The fire shall
ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out. In other words, God’s saying, “Any
time you want to bring me an offering, I’m here. You want to praise Me at midnight? I’m ready for you. If it’s on your way to work, and you just
want to offer a, ‘Thank You, God, thank You,’ I’m listening. Any time you want to bring Me a blessing, I’m
ready for it. My fire never goes
out.” That was a symbol of things to
come. Now, that was just the first part
of our offerings unto God. The second
part is (Thank you, Brother Kirk): Part 2: God Has
More for Us As you brothers was sharing, I was
listening, and I was like, “Okay, I can take that out, that out, that
out…” It is something when God’s going
to have His people of one mind. It is
something when you’re going to be in agreement, and you’re not clacking elbows,
and discussing everything, and can’t figure out how to follow God, and
everybody is trying to get, in following God, God’s way. God will take care of it. To bring this point across, God has more
for us, we don’t have to go any further than the prodigal son. And, to go over the story, right quick, the
prodigal son—this certain father had two sons.
He had a younger son and an elder son.
The younger son said to his dad, “Dad, you know what? Kind of give me everything I’m going to be
inheriting, anyway. Why should I wait
for a long, long time? Give it to me
now, let me go out and take care of myself for a little while. I want to go out and have some fun, while I’m
young.” And the father gave it to
him. Gave it to him, and let him go
enjoy himself, so he thought. You see,
at this point, the younger son was preparing himself for increase, but he was
not preparing himself for the blessing. He was not preparing himself to be blessed by
God, he was preparing himself for materialism.
Well, he did, and after he spent all that he had, he got so hungry, he
said, “You know, Lord, if I was in my father’s house, I could have something to
eat and sleep, because his servants do that.
I tell you what I’m going to do:
I’m hungry, and I’m poor, tired, I’m broke, I’m going to go back to my
dad and say, ‘I don’t need, I don’t need a whole lot of stuff, just let me be a
servant, and that will be enough. I’ll
serve you, now, and you can treat me like one of the servants and I’ll be
fine,” and this is where he began to find his blessing. It wasn’t until he was
humble and destitute that he had the attitude of a servant, the attitude of a
servant. This is where he found his blessing. As he was going back to his father to show
him that he was going to be just like a servant, the Bible says: Luke 15:22-23 But the father said
to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring
on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And
bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: “Let me put a robe on my
son.” And this just symbolizes—there’s a
lot of things it symbolizes, but, right now, it symbolizes the covering that
the Father gives. The covering. And then, they put a ring on his finger, and
this shows relationship; there was a bond between the father and the son. There is affection, here. And then, they put shoes on his feet, that he can
be prepared, wherever he goes. “And, let
me kill the fatted calf, and he will know he has provision, wherever he
goes. Wherever he goes, I will provide
for him. Now, this had to be something
for the younger son to come back and be treated like this, because, I’m sure he
wasn’t expecting it, and, yet, the father pulled out all the stops for him. What a blessing this must have been! But, as we said, the father had two sons, he
had two sons. And, his elder son was about
to miss out on a tremendous blessing, a tremendous blessing his elder son could
miss out on. If we go down to verse
number twenty-five, the elder son begins to speak, here: Luke 15:25-31 Now his elder son
was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick
and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things
meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother
is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received
him safe and sound. And he was angry [the
elder son], and would not go in:
therefore came his father out [because he wouldn’t even go in the house to
celebrate his brother coming back, so the father went out to him], and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo,
these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy
commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with
my friends: But as soon as this thy son
was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him
the fatted calf. [What an attitude
the elder son had. And, here, he’s about
to miss out on the biggest blessing, the biggest blessing. The father answers:] And he said unto him, Son, thou
art ever with me, All that I have is thine. You see here is where the elder
son could easily miss out. The robe that
was given to the younger son, he already had the covering. And the ring, which would show a bond and
relationship, he already had that relationship with his father, because he was
ever with him. He had prepared, having
his feet shod with shoes. He was
prepared, the father had prepared things for him already, wherever he might
go. And having provision, having
provision in his house, it always was being provided for, he was always being
provided for. But, there was more than
just the calf, and the ring, and the robe, and the shoes. If we were to look at Hebrews, chapter six,
the Bible says He has made us partakers of His Holy Ghost; that’s more than
those things before, to be a partaker.
If we were to look at the elder son, in the first place, there also was
testimony. There was testimony,
something in his life that other people could see, appreciate, and use for
their own encouragement. Testimony. There was also an anointing, “I go in the
name of my father.” An anointing on
him. And there were many other things: There were gifts that were given unto
him. There is the gift of vision and the
gift of discernment, and above that, the father had already called him, the
Bible says, us to sit in Heavenly places. Oh, God doesn’t stop at just the ring, and the
robe, and the shoes, and the fatted calf; he has more for us. Thank you, Brother Kirk. More for us.
We are ever with Him, ever with God.
All we have to do is come and ask. Part 3: Position
Yourself for Your Blessing Positioning ourselves for our
blessing. In the Book of Luke—spending a
lot of time in Luke, today, but, we’re almost done. In the Book of Luke (positioning ourselves
for our blessing): Luke 19:2-6 And, behold, there was a man named Zacchæus,
which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and
could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a
sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to
the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchæus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide
at thy house. And he made haste,
and came down, and received him joyfully. And so, here was someone who was
trying to position himself, but there was things in the way. He couldn’t get to the Lord, because of the
press, but he had a desire, so he had to position himself so that he could get
to the place where he could see the Lord, to see the Lord. And this is a familiar thing to all
Christians. There are times when we say
we’re going to pray, and we find out, you know what? Just to get to prayer, I have to pray, to get
to prayer. Just to find myself—I can’t
just walk up into a prayer meeting and enjoy a song. Sometimes it just don’t feel right. And, see, I’ve got to go reposition myself to
get my blessing. You see, things are in
the way; I’ve got to clear my mind! I’ve
got to get the clutter out of my heart!
I’ve got to change my—maybe I had some bad thoughts about somebody. “God, take them away, cover them, move them,
because they’re in the way of my blessing.
Lord, I’ve been saying, ‘no’ to You too much, that’s why I’m not being
blessed. Let me change my ‘no’ to a
‘yes.’ Yes, Lord, okay, I realize, I
realize, it’s about You, and not about me. Yes, Lord.”
So, Zacchaeus had to position himself to see the Lord. It says he was little of stature and he
didn’t have enough to get true line sight with the Lord. And there is a response here, there is a response. After he positioned himself, after he made
sure that he moved so that the press of all the things on him wasn’t in the way,
after he did all that: Luke 19:9 And Jesus said unto him, This day is
salvation come to this house [You have positioned yourself, this day is salvation
come to your house. This day is salvation
come to your house], forsomuch as he also
is a son of Abraham. A son of Abraham. Salvation to the house? Yes. Jesus,
Jesus, who is the Ark of the Testimony for us, in the New Testament, bringing
Himself to our lives. He is the Word of God,
He is our provision, He is the authority of God, coming to our house. Amen. Amen. We could go on from there, and we
could talk about the life of the disciples who said—I don’t even have to read
it now, because it was up here, Brother Terry—who said, Lord, increase our
faith. And he said, which of you—as you
already said—which of you, having a servant, out toiling in the field, when he
comes in, do you say, go, do whatever you want? No, but you say gird yourself,
feed me. And, then, afterwards, you can
serve yourself. And He was putting the
disciples in the stand, in the place of servants, letting them know that they
were servants. And, he was letting them know,
“You can stop short in your service from your blessing. You can serve God a little too less to achieve
the blessing that I have for you.” More
love, more power? Amen. So, afterwards, when we serve God, as it says
in the Book of Hebrews, Hebrews 10:36 For ye have need of
patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the
promise. After you have done His will, you
might receive His gift, you might receive His presents, you might receive all
these things that God has for you. You
have need of patience, that, after you have done the will of God, you might receive
His promise. So the lesson becomes quite simple,
the lesson becomes quite simple at this point: In preparing yourself to be blessed, you must
first have the persona of a servant, you must first have the persona of a
servant, and serve God first. Because, when we put God first, it clears room,
it opens up the avenues for Him to usher in His blessing. Thank you very much, Sister Rebekah, who
shared this, last Wednesday. When we
serve God first, according to this Scripture, it says: Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good
measure, pressed down, and shaken together [Give, and it shall be given
unto you], and running over, shall men
give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be
measured to you again. How you serve—it’s not just
important who you serve, that’s very important, but it’s also important how you
serve, it’s important how you serve. I
want to thank our two sisters, both Sonya and Abby. They’re not here; they had to go to—basically,
it’s a ceremony for their dad. But, I want
to thank both of them for a testimony they both have. In the midst of what they were going through—and
they’re not the only ones with this testimony, here, have had a testimony like
this, with me, personally. Just to be
able to see God move in their lives in the midst of what these two sisters was
going through. Sonia had mentioned to
me, she said, “You know what I can say?
I really like a song that I’ve heard lately, a song called, ‘Bigger.’” And it—she said, “Well, the song means so
much to me, because now I know, I agree, that God is bigger than everything
that I go through. He’s bigger than every
challenge I face.” And the song goes on
to say He’s bigger then the universe, and He’s bigger than all diseases, and He’s
bigger than everything. But, the way
Sister Sonia was sharing it, “He’s bigger than anything the devil throws at me. And he might throw it at me, and it might
just clip me a little bit, but God’s bigger than that! He’s going to take care of that.” I thought, “Wow! That’s powerful!” And Sister Abby, she turned
around, and she shared, “You know, I had a little misunderstanding about some
things. Some things were hard for me. But, when I turned to God and asked Him, what
a faithful God He is, He even treated me like a daughter. He poured out a blessing, He poured out understanding,
He poured out connection. And I received
direction, I received encouragement, I received correction. Man, what a God I serve!” And all I can hear, coming from her was, “Wow,
this is how God treats His children.
Enough to encourage me to stay on track. And our last Scripture. Positioning ourselves for our blessing. Why?
Why do we have to make sure we’re positioned for our blessing? Revelation 3:18-19 I counsel
thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white
raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do
not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be
zealous therefore, and repent. Why position ourselves for our
blessings? This is why. Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the
door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to
him, and will sup with him, and he with me. “Behold, I stand at the door, and
I knock.” For every one of us, the Lord
is wanting to pour in a blessing that we can’t even imagine in our minds. To every one of us, he wants to shock us,
surprise us, He wants to shake us, and He wants to… You ever packed luggage or something? You try to fit everything in. Maybe at the grocery or whatever. I remember, I was going down to Haiti, I took
a bag, and I took an empty bag, because I knew I was going to be leaving from
Virginia, and, once I got to Virginia, I planned on filing that bag up. And I did, I went over to the store and I
bought little TastyKakes, and fitting them in there… There was too many to fit in there, and I had
to keep rearranging, and shook it up, and tried to get them all in there, until
I finally got them all in there. That’s
just a small microcosm of how God wants to push the blessing in us. Pack it in.
He wants to fill it until it comes right out of our pores. Until our nostrils, every place we smell, we
smell the presence of God, everything we turnaround to. “I stand at the door and knock,” He says: Revelation 3:21-22 To him that
overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame,
and am set down with my Father in his throne.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the
churches. Amen. Give the Lord a praise.
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