Sunday Service - "Separate" - 4/19/2020
Welcome to our assembly this morning. We thank you for tuning in to us. And we pray that your hearts would be blessed as we are blessed here as well. Let's open with a word of Prayer. Grace's Father in heaven, we thank you that we can gather in your house that we can come before you and Worship You The Mighty God and that's what we do when we come and sing praises and pray and open our hearts to you father. May you bless us richly in our time and may we find ourselves being drawn to you in fellowship? And we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our reading this morning is taken from 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 verse 16 through 7 1
what agreement is there between the temple of God and Idols we are all the Temple of the Living God is God is dead. I will with them and walk walk with them and I will be their God and they will be my people therefore come out from them and be separate says the Lord touch no unclean thing and I will receive you. I will be a father to you and you will be Sons and Daughters says the Lord Almighty since we have these promises to your friends. Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit perfectly. Perfect perfecting Holiness out of reverence for God. I don't have any specific requests. If you would like to look on the site and you have a request go ahead and write it down and will receive it and pray for you specifically, but let's go to prayer now and ask God's blessing on lives. Father we thank you for your precious nussen your Holiness for your amazing guidance of Our Lives for you or the mighty one the great Creator Creator God the one who sustains and holds things together and we have life because you have given it we praise you. Oh Father and give glory to your name and pray that your spirit would continually be moving throughout our world to touch hearts and lives for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for a part from knowing you we have no hope in this life our hope lies and rest in the understanding and knowledge of you. The living one the holy God who will carry us into eternity. And so we pray for those who know you that you would bless their hearts, richly and that they would stand firmly is ambassadors of Jesus Christ in the sake of the gospel and that you would be with those who do not know you father that they would have ears to listen and hearts to yearn for understanding the great gift that you promise to all who will receive you. And father for those who have needs that have not been mentioned, but they are still learning in their hearts. We pray for your covering of their heart and their desire for we know that you here and you do answer prayer. And so father we pray for your Mighty touch to be there to reach out and to move in hearts and lives. And now father is we go forth. And this worship today. We pray that we would do. So in your power and your strength and that we would honor and glorify your name and all we do say think pray. May you be blessed in Jesus name. Amen.
Let's start with a word of prayer and then get into God's word how we thank you for the power of your word. The truly has a way to transform our hearts and lives and father. We thank you for the work of the spirit in our hearts and our lives that truly opens up our hearts to really receive what you have for us. May your spirit be active and alive in the hearts of everyone who hears this message and father especially in my heart is so I bring this message to those who are listening. May you take control of my life for father. I don't want my words to be heard. But yours your power and your strength to go for we pray this in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, we're going to begin a new series on the life of Abraham and we're going to look at Abraham the man of faith and the interesting thing about faith is sometimes it's hard to figure out and describe what faith truly is. We wanted be described as people of faith in something and hopefully in God and we're going to look at Abraham's live from the point of what makes him a man of Faith. Why do we call him that and why does God call him a man of faith? The episode where going to look at begins in Genesis chapter 12 today, and we're going to be looking at Abraham as one who is been called to be separate. And that's part of being people of faith that were people that are separate that doesn't mean that we gather together as Christians and getting a little hobble over here away from everybody else. That doesn't believe what we believe that isn't being separate. Not by God's standards was being separated by God standards as we choose to follow God from what he has to say and what he has to say is in his word the Bible. It is the true word of God. God says it hits this is his word and he is giving it to each and every one of us so that we can understand who he is and what he has to say to us in our lives. I want to begin with a verse today from 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verse 33 is a real short verse it says do not be misled Bad Company corrupts good character.
In other words when we choose to follow those who are not following God. We're in Bad Company.
Whether they are Christians are not Christians, we can be in Bad Company.
You know, sometimes we forgotten what God's word has to say to us. I kind of remember back to the 1950s when I was growing up. I remember things that were important to people one of those things was marriage. God has called us to make the marriage sacred.
And I remember that people that were married back then the expectation was at that marriage would be together for the rest of their lives.
And I remember that the idea of having somebody living with somebody else that they weren't married to that was adultery and that was absolutely wrong.
And I remember that if somebody decided to gossip a little bit about somebody else that they were called on the carpet.
And said, that's wrong. That there was Integrity in our lives and I was taught from a very young age that that integrity was important. I remember a little story. I went to little store down the street. They had baseball cards and I was a baseball card collector. And so I went in to collect cards and I got maybe three or four packs and I had a change in my pocket. I pulled the change out and I was a bit short. And the store owner said oh, that's okay go ahead and take the cards. And so I went running home several blocks away. Look for the change that I had missed and I ran back and I gave him the money. Because I knew that that was the thing I want to do. I wanted to be a person of Integrity even as a little boy and those were things that were taught. but I sense that in the last 60 years from that point that we have changed a great deal even in the church and they were not no longer doing the things that we've been called to do that the whole idea of marriage is Not held to the standard it ought to be.
death people that call themselves Christians are just as often divorced is those that are not called Christians and yet we read in God's word in the Book of Malachi. God says I hate divorce. With God hates divorce wind. We involve ourselves in it. We are not working to keep the marriage together.
In one God calls us on the carpet about our physical relations with people of the same sex homosexuality the Bible clearly states.
And we can go to Mini. Sections of scripture we can go to Romans chapter 1 and it says that because man was involved in sin. He gave them over to those relations that were not proper.
we need to take into account those things that God has called us to and the whole idea of being separate is not dividing away from people that are not Christians, but in living as God has called us to from his word. So let's take a look at Abraham and God's calling Abraham comes in in Genesis chapter 12 will start with the first three verses from Genesis chapter 12 Abraham's call by the Living God. Says the Lord said to Abram leave your country your people your father's household and go to a land. I will show you I will make you a great nation and I will shoot you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you. I will curse and all the people of the earth will be blessed through you.
In that section God says here is something I want you to do. And if you do what I tell you to do there are three things that I'm going to do 3 or 5. That will be amazing. Okay. So what did he call them them to do? He called them called Abraham to separate himself. From the people he lived with and even from his own household. He called him to separate himself. And go to another will he did go to another land Andy little and he didn't separate himself necessarily from the people, but he separated himself from the things that the people were doing.
That word of blessing to the Lord in other words. He honored God wherever he went. Little episode happened to Saul the great persecutor of the early church. He had been taking Christians and putting them in prison and having them killed and he was on his way to Damascus to take a bunch more into prison. And on the way, Jesus met him with a great and powerful light and blinded him. And so he went in to Damascus to think about what was going on and he's there and in that story God goes to a man named ananias and he tells ananias that he is to go to Saul and to heal him. And then say Nia says no way he's a persecutor. He will kill me. And here's what God Said ananias. But the Lord said to ananias acts 9:15 go. This man is My Chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings in before the people of Israel. He did not say go to him. He's not going to hurt you. He told him go to him. Because he's going to be a blessing for me. In other words when I tell you to do something don't debate over it do what I ask you to do and ananias did go to him and touch Paul and healed his eyes so that he could see.
God's promises are real and alive and his promises to Abraham were real and alive. If you will do what I ask you to do. I will bless you what what are the three blessings the first of all he was going to make Abraham into a great nation Abraham at this point and that he tells him I'm going to make you a great nation will sometimes when God tells you he's going to do something with your life. It doesn't necessarily mean he's going to do it right away.
But he fulfills his promises when he promises to do something. They are fulfilled. We can jump forward 500 years. The people of Israel have been in slavery in Egypt. They've come out and they have March for 40 years in the desert and then they've come to the border of the land that God had promised. to give Abram And Moses is standing on Mount Nebo in God is having him look out at the land and he says this to Moses Deuteronomy 34 for a then the Lord said to him. This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham Isaac and Jacob when I said I will give it to your descendants. You see Abraham wandered back and forth in this land and he recognized it. But it wasn't until after he passed away and was gone that he actually received that land if you're a Christian and I believe our God has promised you a land. That is absolutely perfect. It's far better than the land of Palestine.
But you know what you have to go through this life and live your life for his honor in his glory in it.
Before you get the land and that's God's promise to each and everyone of us. The second thing that God promises Abraham is that he will be blessed. Think about the blessing I will make you a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be blessed a blessing I will bless those who bless you and I'll curse those who curse you God promises blessing to Abraham Abraham at this point again. Later on in Genesis 24:1. We see these words Abraham was now old and well advanced in years and the Lord has blessed him in every way.
You see God didn't hold back any blessings from Abraham. Whether those blessings were in this present age that Abraham was living or into the future.
God was blessing Abraham. Any promise that blessing and so he blessed Abraham and every way why? Because Abraham was willing to separate himself.
And be God's man. completely and that's what he did. And the last thing God promised was like lime for those who followed in his footsteps life for those who were willing to live by faith in Jesus Christ. If you have come to Jesus Christ and ask him to be your lord and savior asking for forgiveness of sins, then you are one. Who is a follower?
God is your god.
You don't have to wait until you get to heaven to have him you're gone. Jesus is talking to the people. about Abraham and about living and about him being your God and he says I am the god of Abraham the god of Isaac and the god of Jacob he is not the god of the dead but of the living UC he looked at Abraham's life is still being alive. This was 2000 years after Abraham's. Yeah.
Jesus saw Abraham alive and real and that's the way he will see us, but we are called to be people who are separate.
And the question is for each and every one of us. Do you really believe what God's word says? It is powerful and it is mighty to those who truly believe each of those words.
Let's read on Verses 4 and 5 from the Texan Genesis chapter 12. So Abram left as a Lord and told him and lot went with Abram was 75 years old when he set out from hearin. He took his wife's there. I his nephew lot all the possessions they had accumulated in the people that they held had acquired in Heron and they set out for the land of Canaan and they arrive there.
Abraham Abraham believed God
any did what God had called him to do. He listened to him and the big question for each and every one of us today is are we really listening to God? Are we listening to ourselves are we making ourselves little Gods because God's given us a clear picture of who he is in the word of God and if we take that word and try to adjust it to our own desires and needs we are not listening to God. We are not believing our faith is impotent.
Galatians 3:8 says the scripture for saw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance to Abraham. All Nations will be blessed through you. In other words, what is saying? Is that obey me follow my desire for your life? And All Nations will be blessed through you and Abraham went ahead and did would God call him to do. And the question for us today is am I willing? To do what God has called me to do to live by the face that he has called for in my life and it begins with our desire to be obedient to him.
I need to obey what he has to say to me Hebrews. 8:11 says this of Abraham. By faith Abraham when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance obeyed and went even though he did not know where he was going.
You say you don't have to understand where God is taking you what you need to understand is that he has called you to do things in this world that are are what he has blessed you with through his promises in his word.
He's called us to walk by faith in him just as he called Abraham. We're no different. We live by faith and that promise. You know and sometimes we think okay, what are those things that God has promised us and we think of all those possessions that we have tried to accumulate through our lives. Does it make any difference in our lives are in Eternal value to any of that? And the big answer is no there's no value to it. Little story of a man in the scripture called Zacchaeus. We see his little story in Luke chapter 19 the first 10 verses there and we see Zacchaeus. He's a man who has been a tax collector. He's been taking money from people and sometimes he's even been cheating people in getting that money. And yet he's heard stories of Jesus Christ. And Jesus has been going throughout different cities and Countryside in the land of Palestine. And here he is coming down to Jericho and he's going to be there that day and the Crowds Are grayed out there waiting to see him and Zacchaeus climbed a tree so that he can see Jesus and Jesus is walking along and all of a sudden he stops looks up into the tree and he says that key is come on down. I'm going to your house today. And Zacchaeus is life was changed. It was changed. Why because he recognized who Jesus was verse 8 of that little section says that this is his shopping said to the Lord the Lord Jesus Christ. Look Lord here, and now I give half my possessions to the poor and if I've cheated anybody out of anything. I will pay it back four times the amount.
In other words that man who has spent his life achieving possessions is now readily ready to give up. all those possessions for a relationship with Jesus Christ
Those aren't important. What's important is that relationship with Jesus Christ? And that relationship is found when we choose to obey what Jesus Christ says who the power of His word.
and it is for you and I for people God has called us as people to come out and be separate just as Abraham was 1st Peter 2:10 says once you were not a people, but now you are a people of God once you not receive Mercy, but now you have received Mercy. If you receive Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, if you've gone to him and sought that forgiveness and sought his relationship you are a changed person your life as received Mercy. By the Living God so that you no longer have to look forward to an eternity of suffering and pain but one of joy and happiness in the presence of the Living God. Isn't that worth? the whole concept of separating yourself for God in our world
Let's finish it off as read versus the six through eight. And conclude this Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree Moray at shechem in tonight's were in the land the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to your Offspring I will give this land and so we build an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. And from there. He went on toward the Hills East of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel in the West in the AI on the East there. He build an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. the whole idea here is be separate be in the land in the Canaanites were still in the land non-christians are still in the land.
but live in obedience to the Living God follow him. The Israelites had an up-and-down relationship from the time. They entered the land and took possession of the land. They were up and down as a matter of fact they were They were thrown out of the land a number of times. But the first time they were thrown out and sent to Babylon and then Persia allowed them to return to the land then return to the land and they came as people to the Lord ready to do his will and after a little while they began to falter in fall apart and they began to go out and take wives from the Nations that surrounded them. And then Nehemiah step forward and call them to repent of their sin and be restored.
and so they voluntarily gave up these wives that they taken from other lands and it says these words of them those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers. You see we take steps of faith and we move there, but God calls us to identify. Where we've gone wrong. where we've struggled and so they were called who identify their sins and the wickedness of past Generations even and then God forgive their sins and brought that them to a renewal patient ship with him.
We are called to dwell with the Living God and Abraham was called to dwell with God even though he was in a land that he did not possess himself, but later on others would possess and we are called to do that. Hebrews 11:9 says by faith Inu is home.
His home in the promised land like a stranger.
By faith, he made his home. Excuse me made his home in the promised land Like a Stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents as did Isaac and Jacob who were heirs with them in the same promise. Living the land. Well there we live in a country. Where there are people who do not believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior we aren't to dwell among them. But we are also to make sure that we keep our eyes and our focus upon the Living God. As we go through our lives and the way to do that and I understand God is to be involved in his word because this is the guy that the director for our lives. And if you say oh well that didn't wasn't written for me. Yes, it was written for you and to reject that is a simply to reject God. And say no, that's not for me. That's a terrible thing to reject the Living God. Because God has made promises to our lot if you'll do what I ask you to do. I promise I will bless you just as he promised to bless Abraham if he would simply do what he was called to do.
We have in Luke a promise of God if you're calling out to me and if he starts with prayer, but the idea leads into relationship. You see prayer was part of that relationship with the Living God and God promises a relationship if we will come to him. Luke 11 verse 10 and 13 be for any everyone who asks receives he who seeks finds and do him who knocks the door will be opened how much more will your father in heaven? Give the Holy Spirit to those who ask you see that relationship that significance that we have is the Holy Spirit dwelling in our lives because if the holy spirit is dwelling in our lives, we truly are believers in Jesus Christ, if the holy spirit is not there, we're not believers. But that's Begins the asking point of the Living God to have that spirit of God there to guide and direct us and if he is guiding and directing us, he will lead us through with power through his word to understand who he is and what he desires from your life and my life.
God is calling us to come back to him to fall on our knees and present Our Lives to him faithful and true and it continually happens in our lives.
Jumping back to the idea of Israel moving into the promised land they did. So if we go back to Joshua the Book of Joshua tells of the conquest of the land and most of the conquest it'd been done and the leader that Conquest was Joshua and he had called the people to him to challenge their lives. Because he knew that the possibility of their faltering would come and they would need to be looking to God to find that restoration. And Joshua chapter 24 verses 14 a in 15 V. He says this now fear the lord and serve him with all faithfulness choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve as for me and my house I will serve the Lord. each and every one of us who call ourselves Christians have a daily opportunity to choose whom we will serve.
Are we willing to set our lives aside and look to Jesus Christ and say I'm serving you today each and every day. I will serve you I will set my life apart to serve you and serve you alone. You know as we look. Adar Nation today we have gone a long way from really focusing on the Living God and it being obedient to who he is to being obedient to our desires and our will and we see that in the church.
So much of the church is now become this becoming disobedient to God's will he calls us to be faithful and true people to our lives. He calls us to be pure and holy not adulterating people. He calls us.
To take care of the people around us to not gossip and be concerned about them. He calls us to be people of Integrity doing the right thing. He calls us.
Two people were willing to follow his commands completely.
And if we do not we can look back over and over again and see how God brought judgment upon people who refused to become obedient. You can look at the lives of the people from Noah from Abraham's day. From the people of Israel in their time from the time of Jesus Christ. And we can look at today. Are we truly being obedient to the Living God?
You know each and every one of us has those times when we falter but we need to turn to the Living God and cry out to him and there is a call in Scripture that is used often. I've seen lately but it's a colomber and we find that and 2nd Chronicles in 2nd Chronicles Solomon built the temple and they're doing this great dedication to it and God comes and he's speaking to the people and he's recognizing that they won't always remain faithful that there will falter and fail, but they must turn around and look at the Living God and become obedient to him. And in these words, he says from 2nd Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14 If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their Wicked Ways. Then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land.
God is not talking to unbelievers there. He's talking to believers. Our nation is altering. And it's not faltering. Because we have a bunch of unbelievers in our land. Is faltering because we have a bunch of Believers that are not willing to be obedient to the Living God. And God is calling to us to be obedient. And that's what we can learn about the life of Abraham. Why is he a man of Faith? He's a man of Faith because he was obedient to the Living God. And that's the call for each and every one of us. Are you willing to fall on your knees before the Living God and confess your sins and the sins of those who have come behind before you and to seek God's will for your life is calling to us to do that. As those who cry out. Yeah. I'm a Believer in Jesus Christ. We need to listen and we need to repent. Listen to God's word. SECU let's go to prayer.
Grace's Father in Heaven, you are the mighty one who sees and knows all and you look deeply at my heart and the Heart of each and every person that is listening today.
You know where they are, you know, whether we are walking in the Holiness that you call is too or whether we have strayed. But wherever we are our father may we truly see you and recognize that we have faltered and we have failed and we need to come before you and confess our sins and identify where we have following confessed the sins of those who have gone before us and where they have fought failed in faltered and know that if we confess you will hear And you will respond and you will heal our land.
Help us to recognize his Believers in the Living God in Jesus Christ the true savior of the world. Did we have an obligation to you to be obedient separated people? May that be our cry this day. Oh Lord our God. in Jesus name amen