Sermon Tone Analysis

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?