Praise the
Lord ye saints of the Lord most high! Praise the Lord everyone! I greet you in
the wonderful, matchless, awesome, incredible, name of Jesus Christ. May His
blessings pour forth upon each and everyone who calls on His name today. God is
great and He’s greatly to be praised. I lift up His name on high. I will bless
the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my
mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof,
and be glad. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. I
sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
I thank
God and the congregation for this opportunity to bring for the word of the Lord
as he has given it to me. I thank God for blessing me by allowing me to be the
pastor of this church. I thank God daily for those of you who have been
attending this church. I thank God for the guests that he’s going to allow to
come to this church.
Let us all
stand at this time and thank God for the wonderful things that He’s done for
each of us.
· For waking us up this morning.
· For giving us strength to make it to
church.
· For blessing us with clothes to wear.
· For blessing us with food to eat.
· For blessing us with transportation to
make it to church this morning.
· Whether it be our own, or that of others.
· For blessing us with His presence here
this morning.
· Most importantly for saving our souls!
· Let everything that hath breath, praise ye
the Lord!
Let
us remain standing for the reading of our Text this morning.
1 Kings 7:51 So was ended all the work that king Solomon made for
the house of the LORD. And Solomon brought in the things which David his father
had dedicated; even the silver, and the
gold, and the vessels, did he put among the treasures of the house of the LORD.
Webster’s dictionary defines dedicate as:
“To set apart and consecrate to a Holy
purpose; to give ones self wholly to a worthy cause; to inscribe a book or
other object to someone as a mark of appreciation or admiration.”
1.
To set apart and consecrate to a Holy purpose.
King David was not allowed to build the temple of God.
He desired it, but due to things in his past, God didn't allow him to do so.
Sometimes we have things in our past that prevents God from using us in the way
He would have liked to use us. That doesn't mean that we're not forgiven, we
are, but we can still disqualify ourselves from doing certain works for the
Lord.
That doesn't mean that we will never be able to do
anything for the Lord. It just means that certain things are out of bounds.
However, there are always things that we can do for the Lord and King David did
what God allowed him to do with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength.
David was allowed to stockpile materials for the
building of the temple of the living God. He dedicated, that is, He set apart
materials that could only be used for the building of the temple… Not for any
other purpose could they be used. We’re talking wood, stone, gold, silver,
brass, jewels, and other very expensive items that would be hard to come by in
the amounts needed on short notice.
But what about us? Does God want us to dedicate
anything to Him or for Him? Absolutely He does! He wants us to dedicate many
things to Him but we will get to those a little later in this message. But another
question to ask is: Has God dedicated anything to himself? If so, what is it? Let’s read:
Titus 2:11-14 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath
appeared to all men, 12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present
world; 13
Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and
our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem
us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of
good works.
Webster defines peculiar as: “Belonging solely to.”
God has dedicated us as belonging
solely to Him. We don’t belong to the devil, although he would long to have all
of God’s creation. Not that he loves us, he just wants to take us away from Him
who does love us, and have us suffer forever the consequences of falling away
from God.
But God does love us; Jesus Christ is
the lover of our soul. He showed us how much he loved us by stretching out His
arms on an old rugged cross and dying the cruelest form of death that man could
devise at the time, in order to redeem us, to Him. He dedicated his human life
that we could live our eternal lives with Him. Let’s read:
1 Peter 2:9-10 But ye are
a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people;
that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of
darkness into his marvellous light: 10 Which in time past were not a people, but are
now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained
mercy.
·
We have obtained
mercy because of the dedication of Christ to die for us.
·
We have obtained
mercy because of his payment in full for the ransom of our sins.
·
Because we have
obtained mercy, we now belong to Him if we so desire to do so.
God is too much of a gentleman to force himself upon
us. It’s still our choice as to whether we'll dedicate our lives to God, or to
the devil. Because you're going to dedicate yourself to one of these two! If
you do not dedicate yourself to God, you will by default, be dedicated to the
causes of the devil. Who will you dedicate yourself to today? As for me and my
house, I’m dedicating my life to God! What’s your choice?
The second
part of Webster’s definition of “Dedicate” is:
2.
To give ones self
wholly to a worthy cause.
Joshua 24:15-16 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD,
choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers
served that were on the other side of
the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me
and my house, we will serve the LORD. 16 And the people answered and said, God forbid
that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;
Joshua just backed up what I was
talking about. He knew that you will either serve God, or you'll serve the
devil. Joshua took a stand for God. He dedicated himself and His family to
serve God. Joshua was not only the leader of the people of God at that time,
but he was their spiritual leader as well. As their spiritual leader he was
proclaiming that God was the only one worth serving! Any service other than to Jehovah
God was serving false gods!
I say to you today church:
·
Choose you this
day whom you will serve!
·
Will you serve
the Lord our God?
·
Will you serve
the God of all creation?
·
Or will you serve
the god of this world?
·
Will you serve
that which was created by God?
·
Or will you live
for God?
·
Will you dedicate
your lives to God?
·
Or dedicate your
lives to evil?
·
As for me and my
house, we will serve the Lord!
The bible says in:
Luke 14:27, 33 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after
me, cannot be my disciple. 33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that
forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.
We need to forsake this world in order
to live for God. That doesn’t mean that we're to leave this world and live on
another planet. That’s not an option at this time, albeit that’s pretty much
what the pioneers of this country did. They left Europe and came to the “New
World” in order to freely worship God.
But what it means is; that we need to
forsake the ways of the world in order to show forth the goodness of Christ.
When the world sees us, do they see us or do they see Jesus? We forsake our own
will in order to conform to the will of Jesus Christ, in order to be His
disciple.
Webster defines a disciple
as:
“One
who receives instruction from another; one who adheres to a particular school
of philosophy; religious thought, or art; a follower, especially one of the
twelve disciples of Christ.”
If we’re going to give ourselves to a worthy cause, we
need to know what that cause is. We need to know what that cause stands for
lest we be found to be supporting the devil’s agenda. If we don’t know what the
bible says, it’s easy to be deceived. We don’t want to be deceived! We want to
know what the bible says on any given subject that we may have to deal with in
our lives. Because the bible tells us
in:
Mark 13:22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall
show signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the
elect.
Therefore it behooves us, as the elect of God, to
learn the word of God, to hide it in our heart. If we claim to be a Christian,
shouldn’t we know what the bible says a Christian is? Shouldn’t we know how
we’re to live our lives as Christians? We need to understand the theology of
Christianity so that we'll recognize false doctrine when we hear it. We don’t
want to be deceived, we want to be the elect of God most high!!!
3.
To inscribe a
book or other object to someone as a mark of appreciation or admiration.
Jeremiah 31:33-34 But this shall
be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those
days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in
their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And
they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother,
saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto
the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I
will remember their sin no more.
King David in the Psalms
said thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. God
wants to write His word on our hearts, he wants to sign His name on our hearts.
He wants us to dedicate ourselves to Him so that he can place His seal in our
foreheads. That way when the rapture happens the angels know who to harvest and
who to leave behind to suffer punishment.
But if we want to
dedicate ourselves to God, there are things we need to do. I’ve compiled a
short list of those things which we need to dedicate to God in order to be his
disciples.
A. Things
we must dedicate to God
1.
Our Bodies
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Our bodies
are not our own, we've been bought with a price. Our redemption cost Jesus His
life. He shed His blood that we might be set free from the law of sin and
death. Therefore, if we're dedicated to God, we need to dedicate our bodies to
Him. We need to refrain from sinning. We need to refrain from partaking of the
lust of this world.
We need to live for God in the
way that God would have us to live. If the things we like to do; are things
that God says not to do, we need to stop doing them! If the way we dress does
not agree with the word of God, then we need to change how we dress. If the way
we talk, or if the things we look at do not glorify God, then we need to lay
those things on the altar of sacrifice unto God. The bible says in:
Romans 6:12-13 Let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13
Neither yield ye your members as
instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as
those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
If need be,
we must sacrifice our lives for God rather than live for the devil. But what
are we losing if we do so? Absolutely nothing! If we seek to live for the devil
to keep from dying, we'll die and be lost forever. If we lose our life for God then
we'll live forever with Him in paradise! But we have to love God more than
anything in this whole world! We can’t put anything before God if we want to be
saved. The bible says in:
Matthew 10:37-39 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not
worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of
me. 38
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. 39 He
that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake
shall find it.
Dedicate
yourself to God today, don’t wait until tomorrow. It takes time to develop that
kind of relationship. It takes time to learn to live for God! It takes time to
build the inner strength through the Holy Ghost that will be necessary in order
to live for God should those times of trial and tribulation come upon us.
Another thing we need to dedicate is:
2.
Our Minds
Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this
world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove
what is that good, and acceptable,
and perfect, will of God.
How do we
transform our minds? How do we renew our minds? We do this through the reading
and hearing of the word of God. King
David told us in:
Psalms 119:9 Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by
taking heed thereto according to thy
word.
We need to
apply the word of God to our hearts daily. We don’t need to be without the word
of God in our heart at any time. The word of God is like food to our soul. If
we don’t eat we will eventually get physically weak. If we don’t partake of the
word of God we'll get spiritually weak. Don’t starve yourself spiritually, but
feast daily on the word of God. The
bible says in:
Romans 8:5-6 For they that are after the
flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the
things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
If you fill
your mind with the things of the world, if you feast on the things of Satan’s
domain, you'll be carnally minded. That’s why we need to be partakers of the
heavenly things. We need to keep our minds on spiritual things and not on those
things which are of no profit to a Christian.
·
If we want to have spiritual strength to fight the good fight of
faith.
·
If we want to be overcomers.
·
If we want to live for God and not the devil.
·
If we want to hear “Well done thou good and faithful servant”.
·
We need to renew our minds through the word of God.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 For though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war after the flesh: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of
strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that
exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every
thought to the obedience of Christ;
We need to
bring “every thought” into line with the word of God. That’s why it’s
so important that we read the word of God, that we meditate on the word of God.
Another thing we need to dedicate to God
is:
3.
Our Speech
1 Corinthians 15:33 Be not deceived: evil
communications corrupt good manners.
There are
people I know that claim to be Christians who curse like a sailor. The say all
kinds of words that I would never dream of repeating in private, much less over
the pulpit! They think it’s ok to say these things because they can always
repent. Problem is, I seriously doubt they ever repent. If they do ever repent,
it’s probably only in word, but not in deed. Repentance means that you are
sorry for what you have done. It means to turn away from whatever it is that
you were doing and not turn to it again. I understand that in a weak moment you
might repeat a sin, but we are never to make sin a lifestyle. The bible says in:
1 Peter 2:12 Having your conversation honest
among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may
by your good works, which they shall
behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
The Greek
word we translate “Conversation” is: anastrophe. This word means both
“conversation” and “behavior”. The Greek word which we translate “Honest” is kal-os' which means literally and morally good. So what we say and what we do
before the lost are to be without blame. We can’t glorify God if we're spewing
words out of our mouths that are not fit for hearing in polite society. The bible says in:
Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that
it may minister grace unto the hearers.
The Greek word we translate
“communication” is log'-os which means in
part thoughts, words, or topics. In other words everything we talk about needs
to be pure in all ways. No foul language, no impure thoughts, no talking about
things which bring shame upon Christ. Another
thing which we need to dedicate to the Lord is:
4.
Our Prayer Life
1 Timothy 2:8 I will therefore that men pray
every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.
There are
far too many prayer scriptures to even begin to cover that topic today. That
will be another topic which we'll teach as a part of our “Basic Christianity”
series of lessons. We'll start on that series after Labor Day and we'll be
teaching on it for several weeks. But as Timothy says, we're to pray everywhere
we go. We're not to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, but we're to humble
ourselves before God and praise and worship him wherever we are.
We're to
take time to make time to pray. We're to spend time in fellowship with God
every day. If you want to be a disciple of God, if you want to have a love
relationship with God, you have to be involved in intimate fellowship with God.
That love relationship will only happen if you spend time in prayer. In fact it says in:
1 Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
We're to
continually be in a state of prayer. Whether we're at home or whether we're at
work, we need to pray. When we're at home, we can go into a private place and
pray. When we're at work, we can pray inside our hearts where nobody can hear
us. But we need to be talking to the lover of our soul at all times. Our
salvation is not only dependent upon obedience to the word of God; it's also
dependent upon our relationship with God.
Another area which we need to dedicate to the Lord
is:
5.
Our Finances
Malachi 3:7-10 Even from the days of your
fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return
unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? 8
Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed
thee? In tithes and offerings. 9 Ye are cursed
with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even
this whole nation. 10 Bring ye all the tithes into the
storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith,
saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour
you out a blessing, that there shall
not be room enough to receive it.
If we want
to be blessed of God instead of cursed by God, we need to dedicate our finances
to God. If we're not paying our tithes to God, we can’t expect Him to bless us
financially. God is going to get His money from us one way or another. We can
give it to God freely and watch Him multiply the rest; or we can watch it go
down the drain on a transmission repair, or dental work, or a new water heater.
Paying tithes is a commandment of God. This is another in our series of “Basic
Christianity” that we will teach on after Labor Day.
But we also
need to understand that this passage said those who robbed God also did it in
offerings. Our tithes are required by God, but our offerings
will determine the blessing we get from God. Our offerings are showing God how much
we love him. If we give a little, God will bless us a little. If we give a lot,
God will bless us a lot. It’s the law of sowing and reaping. The scriptures
teach us that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. If we want God
to bless us and not curse us, we need to dedicate our finances to God and watch
Him work!
If
the musicians will come to the platform at this time….
The last thing which we will talk about in this
message, which we need to dedicate to the Lord, is:
6.
Our Time
Hebrews 10:25 Not forsaking the assembling of
ourselves together, as the manner of some is;
but exhorting one another: and so
much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
We need to
make the time to be in church every service that we can possibly make. Remember
that we're supposed to be a living sacrifice to the Lord. We need to take the
opportunity to be in church to learn God’s word. We need to fellowship with
like-minded people that want to serve God with all their heart, soul, mind, and
strength.
I believe that
God will not only hold us accountable for what we hear in church, but for what
we could have heard if we would have taken the time to be in church. If we skip
services just because we're being lazy, I believe that God will hold us
accountable. Hebrews tells us “so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
This passage is talking about the last days, days that we're currently in.
Things are happening so fast that we don’t dare miss an opportunity to be in
church! And finally:
Acts 2:1 And when the day of Pentecost
was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
Not only do
we need to be in church, we need to come with our minds on Christ. On the day
of Pentecost, they were all in one accord. They were focused on God, and on
serving God, and on hearing from God. We need to come to church with that same
focus.
Because I
know how hard it is to be that focused due to traffic and family issues, the
church doors are open an hour before every service.
·
That way we have time to pray and get our minds on Jesus before
the service ever starts.
·
That way the sanctuary is permeated with the prayers of the
saints.
·
That way the pastor will have more anointing in his messages.
·
That way when guests show up, they’ll feel the spirit of God
before the service ever starts.
·
That way, more souls will be saved!
·
And that’s the bottom line!
Give an Altar call