00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord,
when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer
me. When thou saidest, seek my face,
my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek? Hide
not my face far from me. Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave
me not. Forsake me not, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother
forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me thy way,
O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over into the
will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against
me and such as breathe out cruelty. I'd fainted unless I had believed
to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good
courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on
the Lord." I think it's an encouraging psalm. We could go a lot of different
directions with that. David's past deliverance has
given him strength and courage and confidence in the Lord, the
Deliverer, His salvation, His light, the rock, the very rock
that his world is founded upon. And of course we could look at
that in so many ways that in the New Testament with the church
and you and I's daily, us needing our daily deliverances. And yet
he still cries out for mercy, Lord still don't put me far from
you, Lord still withhold your anger from me. Now we should
know that David was in a place one time where he was feeling
the anger from the Lord and it felt like, I think it felt like,
the Lord was not with him. It felt like he was being forsaken.
And maybe in a timely sense he was separated from the Lord,
but of course we know the Lord eternally is that rock that he
will never be separated from and never be forsaken by. So
a beautiful psalm that we can, and I like that verse 14, we
could probably preach a sermon on that about waiting. You know,
we talk about, we tell our children to wait. It's a good thing to
wait, wait in line. We say, be patient, wait your
turn. But really, and that's a good
thought, it's a good thought to be impatient, because patience will add some
other virtues to us through that patience. But I think the waiting
here, there's a whole other aspect to it, and we can think of it
when we think about when we go to a restaurant and we have a waiter. When the
Lord tells us to wait, when we read about waiting, it's not
just waiting and doing nothing, waiting for the Lord to come
again a second time. but it is a waiter like you would have
in a restaurant, a servant, one that would be there for you,
asking you, I mean, you've been there, and trying to chase this
rabbit trail, but you know, it's kind of irritating to think that
we're almost, we feel obligated to tip, even though the waiter
didn't necessarily go above and beyond what he was supposed to
do, but then when we get that good waiter, you know, you almost
want to give them that tip, that bonus, because they have been
there, and they've had a smile on their face, they've served
you with a smile on your face, waiting on your every need, You
know, they're asking you, what can I do for you? Even before
you ask, they're bringing you extra. Would you like more of
this? And we need to think about that as we wait on the Lord. David said it twice there. Wait
on the Lord. Yes, wait on the Lord. Yes, patience. Be patient
throughout all the things that we do in this life. Be patient
with one another. But wait, serve the Lord as that
perfect, that great waiter you would love to have at the restaurant
who would just, every need, every desire, just waiting on you.
Being a good waiter. But let's go back and look at
that verse number four, and this is where I hope I'm not spreading
out too much, but David said, One thing, one thing have I desired
of the Lord, and that will I seek after. I'd like to maybe challenge
you tonight, if you could think about, if you had a limited amount
of time, and we do have a limited amount of time, our days are
numbered, we don't know that number. We know the season of
death, but we don't know that number. But if you had, say a
day, or say this next week, just the rest of this week, what one
thing, how would you spend that? You know, I think about that
and I think about how much I need to go back and tell my wife how much
I love her, and my children, one more time, how much I love
them, and cry out for mercy, forgive me for what I've even
done just this past week. And just what's that one thing
you would tell someone to let people know your love for them
and your love for the Lord? Would you tell other people about
your love for the Lord? You know, sometimes the courage
is not there, but if you just had just a small amount of time,
if there was one thing, you had that one week, how would you
spend that day or that week? Would your words be different?
Would your words be to the use of edifying, full of grace, and
not be pulling those, even that you love the most, be pulling
those down? But think about those one things. Paul talked about
that one thing. He said, I've been apprehended. I've been obtained
by something, and I've not yet apprehended. I haven't yet got
a hold of Jesus. He's got a hold of me, but I
don't quite have Him all figured out. But Paul said, this one
thing I do, this one thing I do, forgetting those things that
are behind and reaching forth to those things which are before.
Paul said, I press towards the mark. I press towards it. That's
a diligent effort for the prize of the high calling of God in
Jesus Christ. Paul said, and there are some
things that we ought to remember, the past deliverances. We ought
to remember that the Lord is merciful through the times in
our past sins. But in general, friends, we've
got to, if there's one thing, Paul said his one thing is, to
forget those things. And we know Paul saw in the persecution
that he had put on the church and the sin, the evil that he
breathed out as he said, he said, I've got to forget those things
and I've got to reach forth to that thing that is before. It's
so wonderful to think about the Lord and His mercies being new
every morning. He's a God of newness. He's a God of newness. And so if we think about the
old things being passed away when He makes us a new creature,
a new creation, And not only that time in that new birth of
that new creation, but day by day. Day by day we can, I messed
up yesterday, but I can do better tomorrow. And so we press towards
that mark, the high mark. And I want you to see that mark
is high. I want you to see that plumb line, that standard is
very high. It's not about comparing ourselves
with ourselves. It's not about comparing ourselves with the
church down the street, it's about setting, it's about pressing
towards that high mark, that high standard of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that was Paul's, he says,
one thing I do, I press the mark. Well, David said this one thing,
he said, and that will I seek after, to dwell in the house
of the Lord. You know, and actually this was
a time, remember David was the man who wanted to build the temple,
but he didn't get to build the temple. He did a great thing
though, he laid up for his children, Sometimes we don't get to do
things and accomplish things and reach things in this life, but maybe
our children will, and David laid out for that. But David
was speaking of not necessarily the temple, and maybe he was
speaking of the tabernacle, but I think he was getting at more
of the place of God, the dwelling place of God. Jerusalem, the
tabernacle, wherever God manifested Himself, that's where David wanted
to be. He calls it a pavilion. We see
lots of other names for this. But he said that I may dwell
in the house of the Lord, the house of the Lord, the place
where God dwells all the days of my life, to behold the beauty
of the Lord. I think about sometimes when
we go to our Lord in prayer, maybe again when we come to the
house of God, we might think about, we might have that grocery
list of prayer requests and the things that we want that God
to bless us, or in other words, to see. We ask for God's hand
in doubts. We seek his hand and his hand
here, but what are we seeking? Are we seeking His face? Are
we wanting to behold His beauty? Are we wanting to kneel at the
feet of our King and say, Lord, what will thou have me to do? Prince, to behold the beauty
is to be moved by the very manifest presence of God. I love to, I
mean, not every time we attempt to preach are we beholding the
beauty. I firmly believe that a man of
God ought to be able to teach the Word and to read it and to
give the sense thereof so that people might grow in grace and
knowledge. But there come special times
when the Lord will bless with power and demonstration of the
Spirit and you can feel God and you embrace Him in that worship.
And I believe that's beholding the beauty of our God. And he
says to inquire, to inquire in his temple there. I think our
hearts need to be in a place, a humble place, a place of inquiring. You know, I'll tell you that
a pastor, a preacher, there's many things a preacher will love.
A preacher loves to see somebody come down the aisle at the end
of services. But a preacher will love if you'll ask him a question
about the book, not about, you know, different preachers have
different expertise, whether it's computers or car, you know,
if you call the preacher during the week, and, yeah, yeah, your
wife hands you the phone, and, yeah, I've got this problem with
my car, and you're like, okay, I thought, I was hoping for a Bible question
that went inquire in his temple. You know, God wants that. I think
our hearts are prepared that way. When we come to the house
of God inquiring, Lord, what will that have for me? What do
you want from me? And to seek his face in that
way. So that was David's one thing, and Paul's had his one
thing, and I ask you, what's your one thing as far as what
would you do? But I think about what is my
one thing to preach about? What's the one subject I might
preach about if I had one opportunity to preach about it? I don't know
if I can preach this one subject, so I'm gonna say the word balance. And so I wanna take a little
bit of time to talk about a couple three-ish subjects tonight, but
balance is the idea. That's the idea. We need, Paul
said, I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. And it's easy for us to get off
on our favorite subjects and to stay there. Now, I believe
if we just go through God's Word, it's all gonna be there. But
that's the trick, is making sure we're getting through God's Word.
We need overviews, we need details, we need one verse, we need lots
of verses, we need all the counsel, we need a balanced diet. Just
like when we eat food, we need, each different food group. It
keeps us healthy. It keeps our bodies strong. Well spiritually,
friends, spiritually we need the same thing. We need a balanced
diet. And so I would say if I was to preach and, you know, Maybe
not necessarily even know who I'm preaching to, but for sure
one thing, of course, I'm going to go back to the essentials
and get a couple essentials about. We believe in salvation by grace. And what does that mean? Salvation
by grace, friends. Grace is that unmerited favor
on the unworthy recipient. You know, we didn't deserve,
why did God hate Esau? Why is that the question? Why
could he even love Jacob? So we believe in this grace,
this love that was unmerited. Jacob wasn't a good guy there
and God yet bestowed his love and chose him to be a special
man, a special nation he would become. But this salvation by
grace, you know, there's some things that happened before the
foundation of the world. Before he created, he spoke the
world into existence about 6,000 years ago. Before he did that,
he chose us. according as He has chosen us,
He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having
predestinated us." Now, I like, in my Bible, if we were to turn
there, I've got all those little us's circled. It's very interesting
that he didn't speak about choosing or electing. That word choose
means chosen us, means electing, that's the doctrine, the teaching
of election. And so we see that, but we don't
see that he's speaking of choosing things or predestinating things. What we always find is this election
of a people and this predestination of a people. Very, very important
to rightly divide that, to understand the difference and that God did
not look out before time and as some confessions of faith
would say errantly, wrongly in my opinion, they would say that
God has decree all things whatsoever to come to pass. I don't see
that in Scripture. I see He predestinates a people to come to pass. Now,
He's omniscient, He's all-knowing, and we won't ever be able to
comprehend that, but His knowingness doesn't write things in stone.
The Muslims believe that, Allah, it is written, and we don't believe
that. Well, we believe that God the Father played a part, and
God the Son We're talking about salvation by grace, that's what
we're talking about. And God the Son played a part, and God
the Holy Spirit played a part. And in that, what we call sometimes
the eternal or that everlasting, we call it the New Covenant,
but it's also the same thing as the everlasting or the eternal
covenant. The New Covenant is actually older than the Old Covenant,
if you can stay with me on that, because the New Covenant is the
everlasting covenant. It stretches both ways. It's
the one that you and I had nothing to do with nada, plus zero, plus
whatever that title of that book says. But before the foundation
of the world, there was God the Father. And He looked down. He
loved the people because He purposed to love the people. He chose
the people because He loved the people. He predestinated a people.
And that's God the Father. And that was His job in that.
And then He gave a job to the Son. And the Son came down from
heaven, not to do His own will, but the will of the Father, which
is set in Him. And His will was that all the Father gave Him
in that election, in that choice, that He should lose nothing,
but He should raise it up again the last day. And He's going
to secure those people. But you know what? The Holy Spirit
also played a part in it. There's lots of ways to look
at it. We use lots of different words when we're describing these
beautiful thoughts. And I love it. It's meat and it's gravy
and it's, you know, is it meat? It is meat. I think it is. It's
delicious to talk about and to preach about and to hear about.
But then the Holy Spirit had that part, that third part of
the Trinity, of the God in there. The Spirit, Jesus Christ ascended
to heaven, but he didn't leave his comforter, he sent the comforter.
He sent the Holy Ghost down into every child that had been chosen,
every child that had been, can I say, redeemed, and that means
purchased. There was a purchase there, there
was a legal transaction, there was a redemption. Jesus Christ,
once he ascended back into heaven, died on the cross, went into
the grave, rose again, he ascended upon it, he entered in once into
a holy place, into that holy place, the holiest of holies,
heaven, the abode of God, and the Bible says, having, past
tense, obtained eternal redemption for us. We know that, we know
he's redeemed us, he's bought us, he's purchased us, we're
purchased with a price. You know, this eternal covenant
of salvation by grace over here, this God part that we're talking
about, it wasn't unconditional, but it was unconditional on our
part. It was conditional based upon, God says, there's got to
be a spotless lamb that's a man that has to die. And that condition
had to be filled by Jesus Christ, and it was filled. It was fulfilled.
And that's the good, that's why this gospel that we preach, the
fellowship that we share, this gospel we preach is such good
news. We preach a successful Savior. And Jesus says, it's
finished. I've finished my work. And then he says, I'm gonna send
a spirit, the Holy Spirit. And that Holy Spirit comes down at
a certain time between conception, natural conception, natural death,
to give us, we say, spiritual life, to make that new creation
in us, to born us again, to regenerate us. We use those terms, to spiritually
resurrect us. And that's the work of the Holy
Ghost, the Spirit. Now all these are God. And I don't know if
I'm comfortable with calling each of these the Godhead persons.
I don't know if I'm comfortable calling them manifestations.
But I know it was God the Father. I know it was God the Son. I
know it was God the Holy Spirit. It was God that did these things. These
things were unconditional on our part, but they're very conditional
within the agreement that they had. And boy that three-fold
cord, that three-fold cord is not going to be broken. All things
are ordered and sure when it comes to that everlasting covenant.
Even though our house might be broken, our house might fall,
our decisions might be wrong, that house, that decision, that
perfect trinity will never fail and will never fall. And we must
understand when we preach salvation by grace, We must rightly divide
the scriptures. I think it's pretty easy to make
a little T column, T chart. We have these things that are
unconditional as far as man goes, or God's side. Here's the thing
that God does. And then we've got this side
over here that I'll first say God enables us to do. But when
God chose the nation Israel, and He comes over there and now
He says, now you're my people. I've saved you, I've delivered
you, I've chosen you, you're special people to me. Now, Israel,
I set before you a blessing and I set before you a curse. And
if you're obedient, you're going to be blessed. And if you're
disobedient, you're going to be cursed. Still going to be
Israel, still going to be the people I chose. But now there's
this condition placed upon the children of Israel. And we have
to understand throughout all the scripture, as a matter of
fact, I think probably Let's not even get into percentages
or even majorities, but a lot of the scripture is speaking about
that side. He's speaking about how during
time, that we can be delivered based upon our actions and our
obedience in Jesus Christ. He's got to enable us. I mean,
He's got to be there first. Grace has to be there first.
Nothing is pleasing, no offering, no obedience is pleasing to God
without the heart of man being changed to a special thing, to
a spiritual thing, so we can bring those offerings by faith
and we can have obedience by faith, not just outwardly meeting
the command. But dividing those things and
seeing throughout the entire scripture, he teaches that, I
mean, who is the Bible written to? It's written to you and I.
And what do we see? What warnings does he give us?
Paul didn't want to become a castaway. He warns people from falling
from grace, not from the eternal grace over here, but falling
from the favor of God, falling from the fellowship of God, not
falling from the sonship or that relationship, but falling from
that fellowship that we have. He teaches us lessons like, whatsoever
a man soweth, you plant, whatever you plant, that you're going
to reap. Who's gonna reap? The world out
there? Well, sure, the world, that principle's true, the world,
but the Bible, it's talking to me. It's talking to Jeff. If
you do that, if you make that decision again, you're gonna
reap what you sow. And by the way, don't ever say
something about children, oh, they're just. sowing their wild
oats, just let them go. No. That is a sin. Do you want
them to reap what they sow? And as a matter of fact, you
know what? Our sin doesn't just affect us. It affects those around
us. And it's like leaven. It affects
us to sin, but it also affects us, it just makes us sad when
those that we love would not sow to the Spirit and reap those
spiritual things, that spiritual, special, abundant life that we
can have right now. But time and time again we find
in the New Testament. I mean, even when you go over there to
Romans chapter 10 and somebody tries to, somebody is maybe off
on their theology and we read about, Whosoever shall call upon
the Lord shall be saved. I say amen to that scripture.
Whosoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved. But friends,
if we study that out, As a matter of fact, that's a quote from
the Old Testament in the book of Joel. What word does he use there instead
of save? He says, who shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be delivered. That's what he is. It's delivering
from something to something. And that's what we always have
to ask when we see the word save. Save, salvation, deliver. We
see those things in the New Testament, we have to say, okay, what is
he talking about here? Saving from what? To what? I read over there about a promise
about this child being born, that this man, this boy's going
to be, she's going to have a boy, his name's going to be Jesus,
for he shall save his people. And from their sins, and from
the punishment of their sins, and from an eternal damnation
in hell. That's what the from was. Then I read over here in
Acts, and we got these preachers, these apostles saying, save yourselves. And I got Paul writing about
saving thyself. So I've got all these saves. I've got to draw
my little chart down, I have to understand, my T-chart, I
have to understand, God has done some things over here for me.
He's chose before the foundation time, He's redeemed by sending
His Son in time, He sends the Spirit down to regenerate, and
He's done those things without any conditions on my part. We
use a big, big word sometimes, mono, what's more, mono... I lost that word right there,
I was about to say that word. Monergism? Monergism. And synergism. Synergy, you know, working together
as a group. No, this part over here, this
side that's God's side, it's God's side. God has done it,
I have nothing to do with it. But there is a part over here,
and it's time and time again we find in the New Testament
scripture that he gives us something to do. You and I can do it, you
and I can fail doing it, you and I can fall, you and I can
stumble, I mean, study how the Old Testament saints, how they
stumbled and fell and looked. I mean, sometimes they did not
even look or sound like a child of God, but I think they were. Well, that's rightly defined
in the Word of Truth as far as when it comes down to What's one thing? I've already covered several
subjects, but the one thing I think I would divide it into the salvation
by grace and understanding salvation by grace is understanding there's
a part that God has done that comes to saving us from hell
to heaven. And there's a part that he's given us to do. And
it's, I mean, there's so many scriptures that we can learn
about. how to deliver ourselves away from this wicked world and
deliver ourselves into the peace and the joy that we have, the
abundant life that we have in Jesus Christ and following Him
and keeping His commandments, setting that mark high in doing
that. But another thing I would talk
about, and I will say this is a problem, but I'm doing it right
now, and that is we sometimes compartmentalize things and we
talk about doctrine and duty and practice. But I think we
realize what the word doctrine means. The word doctrine means
teaching, and so teaching is in all of that. There's teaching
about salvation by grace, there's teaching about the duty of the
believer, and there's teaching about the practice in the church.
And I think if we do it right, and this is where one thing,
balance, this is my thing, and I hope and I try to do this,
and I fail. But, you know, if we just go
through the book, if we just go through God's inspired and
preserved Holy Scriptures, if we just go through it, it's everywhere.
It's not about me figuring out if this chapter is a duty chapter
or a doctrine chapter or a practice chapter. I mean, I think it's
all over the place, everywhere. I mean, I should be able to read
through it. I mean, you really could take even this psalm tonight
and teach about the things that God has done for you and not
the things that He would have you do for Him. And we can find
it throughout all Scripture. So thinking of that, I would
go to something that's been life-changing to me. It's been life-changing
to me to have children. I've been blessed to have a sixth
child now. And children are changing. Now, I'm gonna chase another
rabbit trail. Let me just say one sentence
about that. Experience, experience is a good teacher. But as some
would say, the tuition is very high with experience. You can learn through experience.
Are the Jews going to have to experience it themselves? Well,
maybe, but the best teacher is wise counsel from a godly man.
It's the Word of God. It's not having to go through
it yourself. Listen to your parents. Listen
to your grandparents so you don't have to go through that. It's
not about just turning them over, turning somebody over to the
world and just letting them experience it. That's not, I mean, the tuition
is high. The scars will be there. It's
like when Jesus said, come to me and you'll find rest. that my yoke is easy and my burden
is light. There's a yoke there, there's
a hard work there, and we can learn of Him, but that, it's
not, it doesn't leave scars like the teachers and the experience
and the yoke of the world and the yoke of sin will leave. So
there's a couple of Bible verses that changed, that stirred me
up and changed my mind. And one, I might read it, and
it's in the very end of the Old Testament. Actually, let me go
to the Gospel according to Luke. The Gospel according to Luke.
He's going to quote, he's going to quote part of it. Luke chapter 1. Because,
see, I told a brother that, you know, we're talking about that
Supreme Court nonsense and the definition and the redefining
of words. And the problem is, there's plenty
of problems there. One of the problems there is
the advocate arguing for pro-marriage and pro-cognitive marriage is
that he doesn't use this. This is all we have. And Jesus
himself quoted Genesis. He believed that there was a
beginning. He believed that there was an Adam and Eve. He believed
that there was a creation 6,000 years ago. He said in the beginning
it was not so. He said in the beginning God
made them male and female. That's what marriage is. That's
our definition of marriage. That's what we stand upon. The Word of God
is our authority. That's what we stand upon. And
so when it comes to the mess we call politics up there in
Washington, really all this stuff, it's symptoms. It's symptoms. And so we can fight the symptom
and we can fight the symptom politically. We might win a few
battles and get rid of that symptom. Let me read this verse here.
If I were to ask you a question, Luke chapter 1, verse number...
I'm not going to tell you the verse yet. If I were to ask you
the question, how would you prepare a people for the Lord? How would you prepare a people
for the Lord? What would it take? Well, Luke
chapter 1 says in verse number 17, speaking of John the Baptist,
John, this one that was prophesied, and the spirit of Elijah to come,
and it says, And he shall go before him, go before Jesus,
in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers
to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to
make ready a people prepared for the Lord. That verse right
there, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord, and then
I connect it to turning their hearts to their children. Then
I go back and check where that's quoting from. So let's go back to the book
of Malachi right here. And we find in the book of Malachi,
at the very end of Malachi, I mean we're talking about the last
scripture of the Old Testament. This is what left them hanging
before the Messiah would come. And he speaks over here about
this prophet. He's prophesying of Elijah that will come again.
Elijah will come again before the Messiah. in Malachi chapter
4 in verse 6. And he shall turn the heart of
the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children
to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. We're talking about turning,
we're talking about hearts here. We're talking about turning,
first of all, before we turn the hearts of our children, because
that's, because I'm telling you, what's going on right now is
symptoms of what has started a generation or so ago, and there's
no, you can't put your finger on one thing, and there's no
blame to go around. But when people start stealing minds in
education systems and they start stealing hearts from everything
from an education system to a TV show, to a sport, to a youth
group pastor, it doesn't matter. If somebody steals the heart,
when they start stealing hearts and minds, and they start changing
hearts and minds, And there's lots of ways to do those things
these days. And that is their agenda. And they have been successful
because now we're seeing the fruit of that. We're seeing the
symptoms of the minds and of the hearts. I mean, people maybe
talk bad, and maybe we shouldn't talk bad about dignitaries. I
believe in Scripture it says that. But sometimes people talk
bad about maybe the President. The President's just a... He's
just a product of the system. He's just a product of the government
educational system and the philosophy you get in a college. He's a
product of that system. You've got 80%, 90% of the people
that are teaching teachers, training teachers. They're all about the
decision that the Supreme Court – the bad decisions they may
make. They're all about the redefining
of marriage. It's a product of the systems
and the answer. We should, as I will always speak,
use our civil liberties in every way we can to prevent and to
treat those symptoms. We can do that. We can vote,
and we ought to vote. We can speak of, and I believe
we should preach about good things and preach about issues and whatever. I don't know why people even
argue about that. Of course we should preach about the things the Bible
speaks about. So we preach about those things. You might have
a passion to go picket or go protest or whatever, but those
things are gonna treat the symptoms. What's really going to change
things? Do you want to change the world? Let me ask you this.
Do you want to change the world? If you change the world, you
can change the world by changing hearts. First take our heart,
and fathers, I'll put it on you first, because it's the same
goes, the buck stops here. I'm gonna look that up, what
that saying really means. The fathers, and God has given
us that, the fathers have been given authority, but they've
also been given responsibility. And it starts with the fathers
turning their hearts, but we can also say the mothers turning their
hearts, the grandfathers turning their hearts, the grandmothers
turning their hearts, turning our hearts, To our children,
what do you mean turn them to our children? Of course I love
my children. Well, where is our hearts? You know, I wonder about
that. You meet a man, and sometimes the first question that comes
to our mind when we meet a man is, I bet you could, I would
think you could think of the first question. Usually it's,
so what do you do? You ask about their job. You don't ask about
their family. You ask about their job first.
So I wonder how many hearts are stolen by the job. We work eight
hours, we work 12 hours, we work 14 hours. Not just that though,
but then we get home and we're tired, of course, and then our
hearts want to just veg. We just want to retreat because
we've had a hard day. We're trying to provide for our
family. We're sticking with it. We're sticking with that family.
We're providing for our family. Now I just need some me time. And
we get home and we just need time alone. And for instance,
this is me. This is everybody. We all struggle
with this very thing. And so instead of giving and
doing the hard thing and spending that extra time, turning my heart
to my child. Sometimes we turn our hearts
maybe to our hobby, or our TV show, or our video game, or our
boat, or fishing, or college football, or NASCAR, or the list
could go on. And I would hope that our toes
feel a little stepped on when we think about those things.
And how much of those times, if we have, if we want to redeem
the time, if we think about that one thing, if we think about
turning the hearts of our children, if we think about changing the
world, it's about turning the hearts of our children Turn our
hearts to our children and it's about bringing glory to God and
bringing the essence, the picture of God the Father to our children.
Turning our hearts back to our children and that's the first
step. And then we can maybe, then we can pray, then we can
get our children's hearts And we can change that next generation.
We can apologize. That may be the first thing we
need to do. I've done that many times to my children. I've apologized
for my anger. I've apologized for the way I've
spent my time, the way I shouldn't have spent my time. Maybe you're
even a grandfather. Maybe you're a grandfather or
grandmother and your children are already raising children.
There's still time. There's still time to go and apologize and
say, I made this mistake. Look at this mistake. I made
this mistake. But my eyes have been opened.
And I want to tell you that I'm sorry. And I want to tell you
I wish I would have done it this way. And maybe you can do it that way.
And when you have time with the grandchildren, don't joke about
spoiling the grandchildren, reinforce what the parents ought to be
teaching. And if they're not teaching it,
then subtly, and don't overstep your authority there, but subtly
drop seeds and help them in that and training them up in the way
they should go. We're talking about preparing
people for the Lord, making ready people prepared for the Lord.
Prepared to do what? Prepared to meet the enemies
in the gate. prepared to meet the enemy in the gate that that's
that mighty man over there and that Psalm speaks about children
in the hand of the mighty man are like arrows and they when
you shoot those arrows out they're gonna meet the enemy in the gate
that's what we're doing we're preparing for the next generation
if we think we've lost this generation to don't we still have hope yeah
hope is in the Lord look forward to that but friends if we can
if we can turn our hearts back to our children then get those
children away from the iPod and the the video game systems, and
the handhelds, and the TVs in their rooms, and the sports.
You know, I tell you, I can't go into that. Anyway, there's
so many people out for our children's hearts. My heart was spread out
all over the place. My heart was not for my parents
as it should have been when I was young. And it may even be in
the I mean, even somebody would say, you know, and of course
there are reasons why we don't, biblical reasons I think we don't,
that we worship together as families. That's the way we ought to say
it. It's not that we don't have Sunday schools. We worship as families, and we
believe that's the way to do it, the biblically prescribed
way to do it. But somebody who would have a, even a youth group
pastor, They're usurping the authority over the father. They're
stealing the heart away of the father and of the mother. In
so many other ways, coaches steal hearts. They do. They steal hearts. And boys and young men and young
girls, they live up to that coach and that teacher and even the
boss at work. You need to be careful with that
kind of thing. Satan is out. He's looking for
a way. He's a roaring lion looking out
there how he can steal hearts and destroy families. That's
one of the bullseyes that Satan has on that family, to prepare
people for the Lord, to turn our hearts back to our children,
turn our children's hearts back to us, to apologize to them,
to start today, to start tomorrow, to meet together as a family,
to tell them about the Lord as a family. I love that verse over there
in Deuteronomy 6. If you're not familiar with it, you can write
it down next to this one, or you can look it up later. But over in Deuteronomy 6 and
5, we try to get the boys to memorize this on the way down
here. It's speaking of the Ten Commandments, and the commandments
that Moses is getting. So Moses has just gotten the
commandments, and he says, These words which I have commanded
thee this day shall I keep in thine heart. He's telling that
to the parents. And then he says, and thou shalt teach them. He's
talking to the parents. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto
thy children. And that's a talk of them. Talk
of them when thou sittest in thine house, and thou walkest
in the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
That's what he says. He says, teach them to their
children diligently. And here's how you do it. You
talk of them. You talk of them when you're sitting down at your
meal. Get one of these books, these daily devotional books,
and break that book out at the meal. Read that, get a little lesson
there. Start with a once a week reading a Bible verse to your
children, have them ask questions, sing some songs at home. work
with it with bring in the children the grandchildren and have 50
start somewhere you can just start somewhere start 15 minutes
10 minutes 5 minutes a little Bible reading time and turn their
hearts and teach them diligently when you sit in your house and
then when you walk in the way when you're when you're out in
the way you don't just say how beautiful that is you say look
at God's beauty and you bring it up and you put God in everything
God isn't the top top row on a ladder seeking first the kingdom
of God. But God is that center spoke
in a wheel that touches every part of our lives. And God is
in every subject in education. He's in every subject. Education
should not be secularized and take God out of all these things,
but God must be put into all these things. That's how we're
going to change the world. That's how we're going to prevent
the symptoms in the next generation. That's how we're going to make
ready a people that are prepared for the Lord. And that's how
we're going to also prevent, as he says here in the very last
verse of the Old Testament, that's how we're going to prevent what
looks like is coming in this nation, and that is a curse.
I'll smite the earth with a curse, if you don't do that. If you
let, like that verse, it's somewhere in Isaiah, I think. I can't remember
exactly how it goes. Something like, when the children
and women rule over you. Something about a curse in there
too, I think. That's a bad sign, when women and children are ruling. And you can see, you can go to
Walmart and see how children rule over their parents. It's
like, you can almost make a little comedy skit about, hey Joey,
watch me make my mom a count of ten. They pick up something
and, I'm gonna count to ten. One, two, and they start to count.
You know, and they train us. What happens? The children train
us. And it's hard, friends. I'm not saying it's easy. It's
hard, and it takes daily deliverances by God, and it takes God enabling
grace as a foundation. You know, David's one thing,
he said this, one thing, I have a desire to the Lord, and that
will I seek after. I will dwell in the house of
the Lord all the days of my life, behold his beauty, he says behold
his beauty and inquire in his temple. So I ask you, I challenge
you to think about the one thing in your life. What are you passionate
about? I hope you can find a zeal, a passion to lay hold on. Now we need to have knowledge
with that zeal. We need to keep on studying God's word. Everything
I said tonight, we need to be a good brain and seek it out,
search it out to see if these things were truly so. We need
to try all these spirits. But I think, friends, we need
a passion. We need a spirit of zeal stirred up in us to change
the world, to change the world for Jesus Christ, and God is
in control, but I encourage you to think about, my one thing
was balance, and I believe that God's word needs to be taught
with balance, preach with balance, preach with what he's done for
us, and celebrate that, and don't hide from it, but also don't
take it and beat somebody over the head with it the first time
you meet him. It's beautiful and it's wonderful and it's savory,
that salvation by grace, wouldn't be anywhere else. I can't find
that anywhere else. I can find bits and pieces of
it in different places, but I can't find that anywhere else. But
we must have that balance and preach to all the counsel of
God and we must preach about this training our children and
teaching our children and turning the hearts and keeping their
hearts and keeping our hearts for the Lord, for the Lord Jesus
Christ our King and Redeemer and teaching them and turning
them back to us to follow us as we follow Him. I thank you
for a good
Balanced Preaching
Series Mt. Olive PBC (Roanoke VA)
Preached at Mt. Olive PBC in Roanoke, VA on 3/27/13
| Sermon ID | 10921154523792 |
| Duration | 38:40 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.
