Everything by the Numbers
Ladies, is your man the type of man that generally follows instructions? Does he do things by the numbers? Whether it is putting the gas grill together or hanging the ceiling fan does your man follow the instructions completely or does he do what I like to do, which is to “refer” to the instructions only when I have to. Do you want to know why most men do not like following instructions? Because those instructions generally start with the complete obvious, which a guy with one eye and half sense could figure out.
They tell you about ten preparatory things to do before you can really say that you have actually started. That’s why I start at number 7 or 8 because that’s where you start.
But I do have to be honest and say that I usually miss something in those first seven to eight steps that I need at the very end. So I have to basically start all over again! You see, it’s not easy being a man!
Yet how true this is in life and especially when it comes to doing the Lord’s will. What you thought you didn’t need at the very start; what seemed so simply and obvious is now the source of grief and brings our life to a grinding halt! This is more common than you think. Because we see what we want to do or be; and we live to get as close to that just to find out that we have missed some much basic things! So needed and basic that we can’t progress forward until they are secured!
When it comes to the Lord’s will for our lives this makes up another common risk to avoid. Which is skipping some detail of God’s will. It’s like going from step one to step three. Totally missing the second because we think that it was just not needed! And boy how soon are we proved wrong! Every Christian gets a little head of themselves, even some great men of God in the bible that had nothing but God’s best intentions in mind; but were forced to back up and retrace their steps and do everything by the numbers!
I think this is no evident than with David. We read the scripture that mark a clear truing point in the life of the nation. Saul and his reign of self were over and now for the very first time David can actually do what he was anointed all those years ago; which was to be king. I can imagine that he’s excited; he’s just chomping at the bit to get to reigning as king. The first order of business is to bring God back to the program! During the reign of Saul and especially in his later years Saul could have cared less for God! That was displayed in his careless attitude toward the ark of God. The ark of God represented something very special; it represented the very presence of God! Guess where the presence of God is today? Jesus put it this way; “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Mat 18:20
God’s presence is said to be where the people of God are, and of all places where to find the people of God, is none other that the church of God! I can’t understand Christians that say they love God and don’t love the church enough to make it apart of there lives? That’s like saying I love my spouse but I can’t stand being around him or her! I can’t wait for them too leave, but I love them. No, the real deal is that they don’t love God like they think they do! They have a perverted version of love that Saul had; he loved God for what he could get out of God. He loved God when he was in trouble. When it was convenient to love God.
You see, your love for God is foundational to the rest of your life as a Christian. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments”. Joh 14:15 There are some commandments that I do because I’m jealous of God’s blessing. There are commandments that I do because I just fear God. But there are some that I do because I simply love God! Every failure in ourlives is first a failure in our love to Him! No price would be too high, no cost would be too great, no sacrifice would be too personal if we loved God like we ought!
Saul just didn’t love God like he should! Do you love God like you should? The way to tell is doing something that you wish you didn‘t have to do, (that’s different for all of us) but instead you do it with the right spirit because it pleases God that you love!
David was to Saul, what day is to night, when it came to loving his God!
David was on the right road bringing back the ark to the nation; but him just being human he overlooked one of the most important details concerning the ark.
Notice how he brought back the ark, v7. This new cart was a wagon pulled by horses or donkeys, they placed the ark on it and it all seemed good until, v9-12. The cart jerked somehow and the man Uzza put forth his hand to steady the ark and God struck him dead! The incident scared David so much that David let the ark stay at the house of Obed-edom v13. What went wrong? Why did God kill one of the men that had the task of bring back the ark to the city where it belongs? I’m sure David is thinking, “Lord, I’m only trying to do your will here?” “Lord, I have nothing but your glory in mind here?” “Lord I knew that man’s family, how am I going to tell them that you struck him dead?”
“Why Lord, Why?” have you ever found yourself asking the same question?
I think David’s heart was concerned with nothing more than God’s glory, so why this sudden death?
David was skipping an important detail in God’s will concerning the ark of God. David had just got so caught up in the moment that he had skipped over some detail and that man paid the price for it.
After three months worth of thinking the part that David skipped starts to come to his mind and now David is ready to do things by the numbers. Notice 1 Chron 15; 11-14. The ark was only to be carried by the poles that the priests and Levites slide through the holes to carry the ark. The ark was to always to carried by those poles that rested on the shoulders of the priests and Levites. This new cart wasn’t God’s idea at all, but was just an easier method it seemed to bring what they knew to be God’s will. David says, “For because ye did it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.” 1Ch 15:13
What did David mean? He meant that you can’t skip any of the details or steps when it comes to doing the Lord’s will! Not any. It may have not mattered to David how the ark got back to Jerusalem but it did matter to the Lord. You have to do things in their “due order”, you have to do things by the numbers or you will have problems with the Lord! That’s the irony of it. We want to do this or that for the Lord yet we have the Lord bringing in some adverse things upon us because we have skipped some detail that he won’t just forget!
I want to give you some areas or things where a lot of Christians skip whether they know it or not. Sometimes we skip these and wonder why things are the way they are.
I. Abiding Jn. 15:1-11
Here Jesus tells us of the close relationship that we are to have with him. We can’t do anything of eternal value unless we are abiding in Him.
Here are the things that we miss if we skip this abiding in him.
A. v4 Fruit
What is the fruit of Christian? Another Christian. That maybe our child, our friend, a stranger, a co-worker, a loved one. How many people have you snatched off the road to hell? How many people have you shared your faith with? You say, it doesn’t feel natural, belabored, and funny. Exactly! It will feel that way if you haven’t keep close to the one that you are talking about! We have to have this abiding relationship with the Lord if we will see fruit in our lives. You ought to have some fruit of your own by now. You won’t win everyone you talk too, even Paul didn’t. But you will help someone to Christ. Don’t be content to let the missionaries do your witnessing for you, there are people in this city, at your work that will be hell before the summer’s end, before the year’s end. What have you done to change that? If you confidence in your witness, you can not skip this closeness with Jesus.
B. Answered Prayers v7
The secret to having your prayers answered is to be in the right position for the Lord to answer those prayers.
When we are abiding in Christ; we ask and we have them answered. By the way, “no” is still an answer as well as “yes” is. Prayer takes on a whole new meaning when we are in a right position to pray. The old timers used to call say, your on “praying ground” when you are right with the lord. We want our prayers answered but we skip the close relationship that puts us on praying ground.
C. Fullness of Joy v11
Jesus doesn’t want us long faced and sad. Jesus wants us full of joy! Guess what? You can’t get this joy if you skip the abiding with Him! Joy is a by product of being with the Lord in close fellowship! If your joy is running on empty you don’t go looking for things that will create joy in your heart; you should go a get as close to the lord as possible. Abiding Christians are joyful Christians.
And how do we abide? V10
That presupposes 3 things. Bible to find out what his commandments are and prayer and just simply child like obedience.
We can skip this close abiding relationship if we want these things apart of ourlives.
II. Obedience
Some want to skip obedience and go straight to blessings, that doesn’t happen. There are two types of promises that God made with humanity. Conditional and unconditional. Unconditional promises is like what God told to Abraham about his future posterity and land. Abraham didn’t have to do anything for these things. I.e. the fulfillment of these promises did not rely upon Abraham at all. The promises to David are unconditional; David just had to receive them to be fulfilled.
But the other area is where we get lost in. the conditional promises is where God said he would do this, “if” we would do that. These are promises where if we didn’t want them we just did nothing about them; we just let them pass us by.
“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.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts.” Mal 3:10-11
God promised to bless but only if the condition is meet. What was up to these folks? To bring what was the Lord’s to begin with. The tithe and offerings into the house of God. So if they chose not to bring their tithe’s and offerings, I guess they could be surprised if the Lord didn’t bless them, right? What were they skipping? Obedience.
Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, 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. Luk 6:38
Here again God wants on us to fulfill the condition before he fulfills the promise.
Salvation is given on a conditional promise. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Rom 10:13
Though God desires for all to be saved, he only saves those that believes enough to call upon his name! If they call in faith, then he saves them! Why? Because they are meeting the conditional promise.
I want God’s blessings more than I want a lot of things. I believe you want God’s blessings on your life as well. The only way to get to those blessings is through over all obedience! Ask yourself is there any area where I’m not obeying what the Lord has said?
Is there any promise that have made to the Lord that I have forgotten? God doesn’t forget vows that are made to him? In the OT, Lev 27 says that that the only way to get out of a vow is to pay what every value God places upon your age. You basically had to pay your way out of your vow and it wasn’t cheap at all. For a man 20-60, it was 50 shekels of silver! God’s point was, just keep your word, that’s cheaper!
We can’t skip obedience and go straight to blessings.
III. Preparation
But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour.
If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. 2Ti 2:20-21
So many workers and Christians want to go straight to being used of God in a major way without being prepared. Paul tells timothy that the man of God, the pastor and for that case any Christian that wants to be used of God, they have to be first useable. Paul says that Christians are like cups in a house. There are cups that you would use to catch the oil from your car if you changed the oil. And there are cups that you won’t use to catch the oil from your car. There are cups that you use to drink from because they have been cleaned, separated from the ordinary rank and file cups, why? Because they are more useable that others.
Paul equates this to us a Christians. There are some who prepare themselves to be used of God, they separated from known sin, they stay clean and pure in their lives, they are available, reliable, they are just waiting to be used by the master when the time best suits him. They are content to wait!
Guess what?
That’s who the Lord is looking for. Someone whose is prepared and useable. Think about this, when you are thirsty and want some water do you just go and find just some old dirty glass you found in the yard and brought in? Do you use the one that has oil stains on it from when you use it to hold oil?
Sure you don’t. You use the best one you can find and if you don’t find one you buy one!
The secret to being used, is to make yourself useable. Yes, God uses some to greater existent that others, but he uses what he finds to do a certain job.
Spurgeon used to say that the Lord need his ram’s horn as much as he needed his silver trumpets! Spurgeon considered himself a ram’s horn!
The sure way to be used, to not to skip the process of preparation. And when the times best suits Him and when we are to the place where we need to be; rest assured that God with use you!
Closing:
Skipping details of the Lord’s will may seem like a short cut but it is really the long way! I could have talked about skipping holiness to get to happiness.
Are you skipping apart of the Lord’s will? It will come back to haunt you and stoop you!
Make sure that you are doing everything the lord wants of you by the numbers!