-Transcript-
00:29 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:36 Welcome to the cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here from Heartland Community Baptist Church. We also have Heartland Ministries, and so we do both of those things.
00:40 You’ve got the church and the ministry. Sometimes I want to say Heartland Ministries, and I should say North Carolina because there’s another one. But anyways, we love the Lord here today.
00:49 Thank you for joining me. Hopefully you’re doing well. Hopefully you had some coffee or you have a cup of coffee or tea, you’re ready to dive into God’s Word, study it up.
00:58 Amen. I had some delicious coffee from Haiti this morning. It was absolutely wonderful.
01:09 Yeah, from Sermon Audio, actually partnered with a guy in Haiti, and so maybe I’ll have to talk about that in a future episode. But he’s a missionary there, and he’s helping support Christian families by getting coffee out. It’s really good stuff.
01:17 And so I’m all perked up. I’m ready to go. I hope you are too.
01:21 Today, we are talking about a wonderful subject, and that is the rich privilege to serve the Lord. And I’ve been talking about this for a few episodes. This is the third episode here.
01:32 And I won’t repeat too much of what I’ve put on the past episodes, in case you’ve already heard it, other than to say that many people, outsiders, Christians, even ourselves, look at serving God as a task and a chore oftentimes, as a sacrifice.
01:45 And yes, it can be, it is. I can think of times serving the Lord that was sacrificial, absolutely.
01:58 Jesus Christ, he sacrificed in his earthly ministry greatly, even being obedient unto death. That clearly is a sacrifice. But because we sacrifice doesn’t mean that we’re not privileged to serve him.
02:05 And you know, we should rejoice today. We should thank God today that he’s allowing us to serve him in some capacity.
02:14 And if you’re not serving God, then you should thank God that you have the opportunity to get right with him and serve him.
02:21 And I believe those two things go hand in hand. How can you serve God if you’re not close to him? How can he use you if you have a bunch of sin in your heart?
02:34 How can he use you if you haven’t forgiven your neighbor? The Bible speaks of, you know what, if you want to bring an offering to the altar, go get right with your neighbor, if you have a problem with your neighbor, and then bring that offering. So we know that we need to have a right heart before God, amen.
02:44 There’s a bunch of verses on that subject. Here’s one, Matthew 5:23- 24, just mentioned it.
02:49 Therefore, this is Jesus speaking, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift.
03:04 And so whether we need to forgive somebody or forgive a lot of people, whether we need to repent of our sin, the sin in our life, everyone needs to do that.
03:13 You know, I think repenting has got kind of a bad name, like, oh, you must have done something wrong. Look, I repent to God, even if I don’t know that I’ve done something wrong.
03:23 I try to pray every day, sometimes multiple times a day, saying, Lord, forgive me for my sin, and then Lord, help identify what that sin is in my life. Sometimes I literally don’t know, and then other times I may have a suspicion, well, yeah, I did get, you know, really loud with my kids, or yeah, you know what, I could do better at loving my wife, or I could do better at whatever it is, amen, loving my wife. Speaking of my wife, okay, I’m gonna tell you guys a story.
03:50 The rich privilege of serving the Lord. We’re gonna talk about this, and we’re gonna get to our text verse.
03:57 My wife volunteers at a homeless shelter in a nearby town here, where we are, in the foothills of North Carolina, Western North Carolina, and she volunteers at this shelter.
04:10 She got involved for work, actually. Her job sponsors a little bit of volunteering, and then after that, she said, what the heck, I’ll keep doing it, and one reason why she did that was because she really finds joy in it. And the reason why I bring that up is because she isn’t healthy.
04:25 She’s dealing with some audio immune disease and so forth, and she’s struggling with work. She works all the time, amen, she works so hard. She’s a mother to three kids, plus me, amen, a preacher’s wife.
04:39 She also does so much for her own parents. And you look at this picture, and you say, this is an unlikely person to, number one, be involved in Christian service often, I guess, but in some ways,
04:50 because of all that they have going on in their lap, anyone would understand, hey, you don’t have time or whatever it is.
04:58 And secondly, this would be the thing that would maybe push her over the edge, maybe be something that would stress her out or make her sad.
05:03 And I mentioned this, I mentioned this on our 30-minute broadcast, I believe. The happiest I see her is when she comes back from serving the Lord, and I’m not making that up, and I’m not saying one time.
05:15 I’m saying every time, because sometimes I get to go with her, sometimes I’ll meet her afterwards, and there is a joy in her heart that’s hard to explain, because again, applying the context of her current situation,
05:26 and I’ve asked permission, I can talk about this, so I’m not in the doghouse, but the context of it is, she shouldn’t be, but she’s thrilled.
05:36 And so let me just say this, we don’t understand what it’s like to serve God, but it is a privilege. It’s an honor. She’s made new friends there, amen, she’s made a difference.
05:46 She has people, names and faces that she can pray for, and she can see, we were praying for a family at that shelter last month, and this month they got a home.
05:56 I mean, that’s awesome, you’re seeing God answer prayer, you’re seeing God do great work, amen, you’re a part of something, and on and on, I could go on and on.
06:05 The point that I’m making is, and I should say, this is a biblical Christian service, the Bible talks about care for the fatherless and the widows, and often these individuals in the shelter, especially in the women’s shelter, they don’t have a dad around.
06:19 If you go in the women’s shelter and you see the kids, you don’t even have to ask, the virtue that they’re there, right, the kids are there and they’re living there, dad may not be in the picture.
06:29 And so this is biblical, this is pure religion, amen, as the Bible tells us. And so we see that it’s a privilege to serve God, because we get so much out of it, amen,
06:42 a preacher, Barry Goodman, very well-known preacher, he’s on the radio on occasion I believe as well, pastor of Faith Baptist Church out there in Shelby, he’s just a great man of God and a great preacher, talked about going,
06:53 I think he was on a mission trip or something, but he was in a really nice place like Aruba or something, and he talked about just, he was in a hotel for like a week,
07:02 I don’t know why, but he was in a hotel and he was just pacing, he was asking his wife, he’s like, I need to go to a hospital and visit somebody or something, and it’s that,
07:10 I never forgot that, because once you get in the ministry, it’s almost addictive, amen, it’s how we find our peace, it’s where we get our joy in serving God, and it’s not because we’re trying to have others look at us and pat us on the back,
07:20 it’s because truly it is a privilege, an honor, and we get so much from it, amen, anyone that serves God I believe can testify to that.
07:28 Yes, there are hard days, yes, there are times you scratch your head, yes, there are times you’d be brought to tears, but there are many times that those tears are tears of joy,
07:40 and that we are so thankful that God allows us to serve him and to have a relationship with him, and I could go on and on, but for time’s sake I won’t,
07:46 our text verse, Proverbs 16:8-9, better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right. A man’s heartdeviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps,
07:57 and so Proverbs 16:8-9 is telling us, even if we don’t have a lot of status, even if we don’t have a lot of money, even if we don’t, you know, even if whatever, okay,
08:06 but if we’re righteous, as in if we have applied the blood of Christ to our lives, if we are living for Jesus the best we can, not perfect, but repentant, you know, the ideas like sanctification,
08:14 where you go into God every day and working towards living the best you can, not for salvation, you’re saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, but because you love the Lord,
08:24 you’re staying close to him, that kind of righteousness will produce great fruit, and God here tells us in verse nine of Proverbs 16, a man’s heart deviseth his way, so in your heart, that deepest part of you,you have a way you want to go, but the Lord directeth his steps,
08:38 it don’t matter where you want to go, amen, God is going to guide you, I, you know, I could tell you many other places that I thought I would be besides Kings Mountain,
08:47 but God put me in Kings Mountain, and for a little while there, I was swimming upstream, saying, well, you know, hey, this other place looks nice, this place looks nice, and after a while,
08:54 I said, Lord, you put me in Kings Mountain, let’s see, who’s the king of kings, you are, okay, you put me in your mountain, all right, I’m not leaving, I get it, okay,
09:01 I’m here in Kings Mountain, maybe I’m a lifer, we don’t know, amen, I chuckle, because it’s just kind of a rural town, but you know what, God is the one directing the steps
09:10 , and so we understand that if we have a soft heart, we have righteousness, that’s all we need, we don’t need any, you know, some people say, oh, I’ll serve God one day when I get my retirement,
09:19 when I get my pension, I’ll serve God one day when my tax refund comes, I’ll serve God if I win, if, if, if, if, but, but, but, no, no, no, no, you can serve God right now,
09:30 you know, maybe God desires one to pray for people, you know, you have a prayer closet, you probably could make one, amen, if you don’t, maybe God desires for someone to help with the parking at the church,
09:41 with the bookkeeping, maybe God wants someone in the choir, maybe God wants someone to work with the young people,
09:51 maybe God wants someone to put a gospel track down when they go out to eat, maybe God wants someone to do all the above, you know, service to God doesn’t have to be a big thing,
09:54 it can be little things, and it’s service to God, I believe, blossoms out of a relationship with God, those two are completely intertwined, and, you know, what I want to talk to you about today,
10:05 in past episodes, we spoke about the privilege of serving the Lord here, the privilege of serving the Lord in heaven, because we’re going to serve Him in heaven,
10:12 so we’re privileged to serve Him here, we’re certainly privileged to serve Him in heaven, but do we understand that privilege, that God has allowed you to partake in His service,
10:21 and I use the word allow, because He is sovereign, and He doesn’t need us, you know, we need to get out of our mind that God needs something from us, He doesn’t, He’s sovereign, He willingly sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins,
10:38 Jesus Christ obediently went to the cross and bled out at Calvary, and died the most brutal death of all mankind, was buried three days, and risen from the grave,
10:46 so that we could be saved, right, so that we could be saved, the Bible says, while we were yet sinners, God commendeth His love toward us, so God is not doing this because He needs us,
10:58 He’s doing this because He loves us, and doing this means allowing us to serve Him, it’s a privilege, we earn heavenly rewards, but guess what, we get earthly rewards too,
11:08 we get a peace that surpasses all understanding, we have gratitude that is beyond belief, we’re blessed, I mean, we’ve been in Christian service, my family, for a long time, I don’t know, 10 or 15 years, a long time, amen,
11:21 collectively, and, you know, I’m only 42, so that’s over a quarter of my life being in Christian service, so I know some people say, oh, 10, 15 years, I’ve been serving the Lord 70 years, okay,
11:34 but, you know, for 42, you know, starting at like 30 something, not the greatest accomplishment, but the point is, it’s a large chunk of my life, of our family’s life,
11:45 and I don’t think we ever could go back, because we know how sweet it is to serve the Lord, and there’s nothing like serving God, amen, there’s nothing like Him,
11:54 it’s a privilege, and here’s something I want you to think about today, we have a limited time to fulfill our earthly service, what He has planned for us to do, okay,
12:04 so God has something planned for us to do, and we only have so much time to do it. Now, why would I say that? Because, number one, everybody is going to die, 100 out of 100 face death, amen,
12:17 secondly, I’m hoping for this, that the rapture is coming soon, I believe it is, I believe we will be raptured out very soon, that these are the end of the end of the end days,
12:27 and if we’re raptured out, then we are going to meet the Lord in the air, we get our resurrected body, on and on, either way, this time period will be over, the church age will be over, the age of grace will be over,
12:39 I think the Bible word, I hope this is right, is dispensation, okay, this time, okay, that we’re dealing with now will be over, and when that’s over, and what we believe here in KJV Cafe is a pre-tribulation rapture,
12:53 the idea that we’re raptured out first, and then the tribulation occurs, as I understand it, there’s nowhere in the Bible that explains otherwise, that Christians go through a tribulation,
13:02 we go through trying times, but God’s wrath, the tribulation, the Antichrist, the seven-year period, that’s all after the church is taken home, from what I can understand,
13:11 so when that happens, when we’re gone, that’s it, it’s not like we can say, oh God, you know what, now that we know all the reward that we have in serving you, we’re going to go back to earth and do it, no,
13:21 because that would be acting on evidence and not faith, and God is going to reward us for having faith, we are justified by faith, Hebrews 11:6 tells us it’s impossible to please God without faith, so the inverse of that is God is pleased when we have faith,
13:36 faith is all we can do, when we try to win someone to the Lord, what are we doing, we’re simply asking them to have faith, and we know God does the saving,
13:44 we’re just planting the seeds, but faith is critical, and so what I’m compelling you today is have faith that time is running out, and that you have a short period of time to do what God wants you to do before he calls you home,
13:56 and you’re rewarded for that service, whatever else there is that you have in mind, don’t worry about that, serve God, I believe it wholeheartedly, serve him, and as you serve him,
14:05 do you think he won’t meet your needs, that he won’t point out to you what other things you need to do, he will, put God first and everything else will fall into place,
14:13 I believe it with all my heart, but that’s very challenging in a culture that does not understand, that does not have faith, does not value these things, so you, friend, value God, turn to God, love the Lord, serve him while you can,
14:28 thank you for listening, take care, God bless, and amen.