Untitled Sermon (2)

1 Corinthians 6:12 “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”

English Standard Version

12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.

We heard at family camp this past weekend from Bro. Andre. He talked about a true sacrifice. How something has to die within us for it to be a true sacrifice. We can’t keep entertaining or keep things around that will separate us from God. We need to completely kill it and sacrifice it and get rid of it, or it will come back later and distract us from our ministry or are calling.

In the book of Exodus is the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt, and finally being set free. After being slaves for over 430 years to the Egyptians. After all the plagues and diseases and death of the first borns. Pharoah finally gives permission for the Israelites to be set free.

Exodus 12:31-35 “And he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as ye have said.

32. Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also.

35. And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment:”

While the Israelites are leaving, they take all the silver and gold from the egyptians. They were only instructed to take their flocks and heards. (Their animals, their camels, their sheep, their chickens, and goats). But they ended up also taking the silver and gold with them also.

And you can say having gold and silver is not wrong. They deserved to take it from the egyptians. After being slaves for so long. Being in poverty, being poor, they finally deserved to have some nice things. They deserved to dress up and look good like the egyptians did. The chosen people of God, took the things of egypt and tried to look and mimic them. Instead of being different and seperate from the world, they tried to look exactly like it when the were sent free.

It matters the way we dress, it matters the way we look. Holiness is still a standard. We cannot expect to win the lost when we look exactly like them or worse. God chose us to be different to stand out. not to conform to this world and fit in. Young ladies watch they way you dress. Young men it goes the same for you watch the way you dress.

All things are lawful, but not all things help.

as we countiue with the story of the israelites, we read that they are in the desert. They have been walking around for years, looking for the promise land. They are getting tired, some even start complaining and wishing they were still salves in egypt. At least we had food and water. The egyptians took care of us.

This is why is it important who you keep around you. What you keep around you and in your life. When things start to get hard. If you start to listen to the wrong voices. They will tell you. Remember how life was before you gave your life to God. remember how we use to always have a good time, you could just drink or smoke your problems away. But now that you are living for God and seems like life is always just hard and lonely. Becareful what voices you turn to for council.

We read on and see that Moses is up on the mountain top. In the presence of God. Receiving the 10 commandments. And while the man of God was gone, they turned to the things they saw in egypt for years. They turned to old habits and gave aaron the gold and silver that they had borrowed from the egyptians. and had him turn it into a golden calf that they could worship too.

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful.

What do you have in your life that keeps distracting you from doing the work of the Lord?

What keeps you from reading His word?

What keeps you from coming to church?

What keeps you from evangelizing and sharing the things of God with your friends and family?

All things are not bad for me, But what is keep us from doing the Lords work?

There are things in our life that we need to get rid of and not because they are necessarily bad, but because they keep distracting us, and if we are not careful they will slowly pull us away from the things of God and we will not realize it until we are worshiping a golden calf.

Israel didn’t start worshiping the golden calf one day to the next. It was years of keeping things in their life that they didn’t kill or sacrifice. There was no reason for them to take the gold or silver from the egyptians. There was no reason for them to take the egyptians cloths. But because they looked nice, they looked valuable. Every one else had one. or everyone else did it. they kept it in their lifes. For each and every one is of us it is different. we don’t all struggle with the same things. But just because if is not a sin to have it around in our lives, does not mean it won’t have control over us someday.

There are some relationships we need to kill. For some it might be social media, video games, tv,

King David decided to stay back from war. The bible say in the time King went out to war. He was not suppose to stay home, he was suppose to be out there fighting. Directing his men in battle. But because he stayed back. He saw basheba bathing, and wanted her, slept with her, got her pregnant. Tried to cover it up and ended up killing her husband. A decision to stay home, not really a bad thing but when he was suppose to be at church and decided to stay home. 1 service turned into missing 2 service then he missed 3 service and so on till your only coming once every couple of months. and wondering why God wont change your situation.

What do we got to sacrifice? to make sure out relationship with God is good.

What to we got to sacrifice? to make sure we don’t lose our ministry.

Better yet what are you willing to sacrifice, so God can use you. We all want to power of God, we all want the gifts that Bro. Gonzalez release upon us at camp but we don’t want the pain and suffering and loneliness that comes with it.

If we want to go deeper in the Lord, we need to sacrifice and get rid of things in our lifes, even those things that may not be bad or a sin in our lifes but distract us from fully committing to God.