Lessons Learned
Bible Text: Psalm 19 | Speaker: Pastor Jerry Irwin | It really matters where you start your journey of faith. If you don’t start right, chances are, you won’t end right.
Lessons Learned
Psalm 19
1. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.
2.Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
3. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
4. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
5. Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
6. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
7. The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
8. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the iudgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
10. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
11. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward
12. Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
13. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins: let them not have dominion over me: then shall I he upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
14. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.
CS Lewis declared this to be the greatest lyrics in all of history.
God’s Word Works
1 Corinthians 1:17
17. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
18. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
19. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
20. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
21. For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
It really matters where you start your journey of faith! It’s important how you start everything! If you don’t start right, chances are, you won’t end right. That’s true in marriage, in business, church, school, in everything!
Some of the greatest sermons I preach, is with my life, not my words. In fact, as we said last Wednesday night, if I preach what I do not live, I lose my testimony, and as a result, my identity. When you lose your testimony, vou lose your influence, and that makes ministry impossible. I once encountered a retired pastor who went faithfully everyday to the nursing home where his wife was living. She didn’t know who he was because Atzheimers had stolen her memory. Every day he would arrive at the facility as soon as visiting hours came and brush her hair and take her to McDonalds to get a biscuit and a cup of coffee. He said, “She may not know who l am, but I know who I am “.
Moses who, by his own admission could not speak well told God about his inability to preach, so God gave him a stick. The staff may have been just an inanimate object used for herding. He probably used it for directing the lambs, and beating off the wolf and the bear. But when GOD said “Stretch it Forth” miraculous things happened. God’s power to do the miraculous makes up tor any inadequacy that we may have.
You see, the power is in the STRETCH! Deliverance is in the STRETCH! Supply is in the STRETCH! It’s in the STRETCH that you discover the supernatural! God told Moses, l’ll use that stick to display my power and preach an illustration sermon in which I won’t need your speech, just lift it out over the waters and I’ll part them. Hold it up and battles will be won, water will come out of a rock, as earthquake will swallow up enemies, and magicians will be confounded. God said, “You don’t have to be eloquent of speech, my power will make it known WHO I AM.
The Apostle Paul
It was the Apostle Paul who spoke of his credentials as a learned, formally trained in Jewish tradition and practice. He wrote over half of the New Testament, and was the architect of the early church. but listen to this “brand plucked from the fire” talk about his preaching:
I Corinthians 2:4-5
4 And my speech and my preaching [was] not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
The Apostle Paul is credited for writing the foundational pillars of our faith.His letters to churches have given us the most critical information on doctrine and church policy. But he also was a tremendous tool in the hand of GOD for proclaiming Jesus and the Resurrection. At Mars Hill in Athens, Greece, he preached a message that stirred an entire city. But by his own admission, he declared that all of his oratorical skill was nothing apart from the POWER of God.
The Apostle Paul once raised a man to life who had been killed by a fall from a window. He once shook a deadly viper off his hand and into a fire on the isle of Malta. Paul and Silas were preaching in the city of Phillipi, but one day Paul turned to a little girl following them about who was possessed with a spirit of divination. Paul with great authority cast the spirit out of that little girl. Preaching about Jesus will stir a city, but people delivered from sin and its bondage will stir up the devil.
O Great GOD don’t ever allow our ministry to become a form of godliness but denying the power! Yes we need preaching, but we need anointed preaching in the power of the Holy Spirit. Preaching without power is what Paul described as “one that beateth the air.” Oh, but preaching with anointing is the “power of God unto salvation”, of which we should never be ashamed.
Sinful Woman of Bethany
A little woman, who Luke said was a sinner, heard that Jesus was in the house of a prominent Pharisee. She went inside and put her worship on display with little regard for the important people who reclined in typical manner for Jewish men to eat. She didn’t have to proclaim, “I love Jesus.” Her worship spoke volumes of her love and adoration for the Savior.
One critic was concerned about the size of the offering!
Another was concerned about worthiness of the worshiper.
A third was offended by the lack of rebuke by the SAVIOR.
Mark 14:3
And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.
The smell of her actions in breaking the box and pouring out the spikenard upon the head of Jesus, washing his feet with the tears of her eyes and drying them with the hairs of her head, displayed the power of her worship.
Jesus declared that for eternity, wherever this gospel is preached, the worship of this woman will be procalaimed forever.
Whenever preachers preach about sold-out, all- or-nothing commitment to God, they will tell the story of this woman’s bold act of courage and gratitude.
Proverbs 27:21
21 [As] the fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; so [is]a man to his praise.
That means when your worship is placed in the fire of testing, and your relationship is placed in the melting pot of trial, hardship and difficulty, how will that affect your praise.
Three Hebrew Children
Daniel 3:23-29
23. And these three men, Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
24. Then Nebuchadnezzar the kind was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.
25. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
26. Then Nebuchadnezar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came forth of the midst of the fire.
27. And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king’s counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.
28. Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.
29. Therefore I make a decree, That every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other god that can deliver after this sort.
These three young men had determined that they were not going to lose their identity, testimony and influence in a foreign land, in captivity, and away from their customary worship. Forced to make a decision, they opted to go through the trial rather than to bow to a pagan deity.
I find it interesting that there was no sign of fire about them. Their hair was not singed, their clothes were not stained, and there was no smell of the furnace and its consequences on them. O, isn’t it great to know that our praise does not have to be tainted with the smell of what we have been through! Our praise and worship retains its fragrant aroma of the anointing! It’s a sweet, sweet savor unto our God!
I refuse to let what has happened to me, and what I have gone through silence my praise, shut my mouth that was created to worship my CREATOR! My eyes were made to read God’s Word, my hands were made to help my neighbor, my body is the temple of the living God, and I was born to serve and honor, and love the Lord and worship HIM with all my heart, mind, and strength.
I refuse to wear those stinking garments that wreak of the foul, and stagnant odor of an age old furnace like experience change my praise into a get even spirit of mischief, and take my seat in the place of the scorner! NO! I’m wiser that that!