To The Uttermost

Take your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 13. Our overall title that we're using as we go through the book of Acts together is called to be witnesses, for indeed that is the blessing, the privilege, the ministry to which we have been called as believers. When you responded to the call of salvation through Christ and you embrace Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you were immediately enlisted and empowered to be his witness. And so as we started in chapter one in Acts, that's how we've been looking at this overall teaching in the book of Acts is called to be witnesses. This word empowered,

empowerment is big in the business world today. If you want your employees to be really productive, you empower them for the job. Not only do you give them a task to do, but you empower them, you give them the authority to be able to accomplish the task and that makes for a happier workplace when employees not only know they have something that they have to do, but that they have the authority to do it. They can call in other resources and accomplish the task.

As believers, we've been empowered, we've been called to be God's witnesses. We've not only been given that responsibility and we've not only been given that authority by God to do that, we have been filled with his spirit and his love to be able to do that. He's not only given us the authority in that empowering, he has literally given us the power to do that, the ability to do that. Now, we make a mistake if we see it simply as a generated power. If we see it simply as, well,

he's given us this power source and there's a lot of error in Christianity today. There's a lot of errant theology, aberrant theology based on that thought, based on the thought that God's spirit is simply a power source and we stick into that power source somewhere. We're going to plug you in so that you can drain down that power from God. God does not operate that way. God's spirit

is a person of the Godhead, and as such, as with any two people operating, him and us, he operates in relationship. And so, God has empowered us. He's given us not only the power of his Holy Spirit, but it's the power of his spirit through his relationship with us in a loving relationship that empowers us to be his witnesses, to go and be his witnesses by sharing his gospel. In Romans chapter five, verse three, Paul writes, for the spirit of God is shed abroad in our hearts. Actually, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by his spirit, by the Holy Spirit

that he has given to us. Paul mentions in that wonderful chapter that deals with the fact that God saved us when we were enemies with him because he loved us so much, that that love is shed abroad in our hearts, that it moves throughout us by his spirit. So again, God empowers us, not with this electrical current, but with his love. And if you're not experiencing a deep love relationship with the Lord, then you're missing the importance of your Christian walk.

He, through his love, gives us the desire to take his gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. We mentioned last week that in Acts 1.8, when he tells his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the power of the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth, that that's not a command. That's simply a declaration of fact. This will happen when my spirit comes upon you. So all of a sudden, it takes now the idea of our taking the gospel out there. It's not a

command. It's not a duty that has to be done. It's simply the result. It's going to happen. If you're in relationship with the Lord, if you're in a love relationship with the Lord, you'll just simply be as with it. You can't help it. It's just going to happen, whether it's here or out there, to the uttermost parts of the earth, and you'll do it freely and lovingly, no matter what the cost.

There's a brother named Ted Engstrom who has written a book called, What in the World is God Doing?, and he writes about three Korean workmen who were working in China in the early 1880s. Now, China was experiencing revival, was experiencing the power of the missionaries coming through, but Korea was, in the first part of the 1880s, was still a closed country to the gospel. It was forbidden by the government, and anyone who at that time would seek to bring in Bibles or seek to come in as a missionary would be executed, because there was just a real resistance to the gospel at that time. But there were three Korean workmen who were laboring in China, and they were drawn to the Lord through the work of the missionaries in China. And their

love for the Lord and experiencing that love relationship from Him so motivated them that they wanted to bring the gospel, the message of Christ, into their own country, even under the penalty of death. And they knew that. And so, since the Korean and the Chinese alphabets were similar, they decided to try and get at least one Chinese Bible into the country. And so, they drew straws, but it wasn't, you know, the guy that got the short straw was elated. He was excited because

he was getting the opportunity to take the gospel to the uttermost, which was literally going to be to his own hometown. And so, he decided to first just stick the Bible down in amidst his belongings, deep in his belongings, and then walk to the border, which where they were was a pretty good walk by foot. When he got to the border coming into China, the guards stopped him and searched him, and they found the Bible, and he was killed. And word came back to his two friends that their friend had been killed. And so, the second one decided he would try by taking and ripping chapters

out of this Chinese Bible that they had and sticking the chapters in various parts of his belongings and figuring if maybe they just found a piece of it, they just confiscate the piece and let him go. And then he made the long trek by foot to the Chinese border. And upon searching his belongings, the pages, the chapters were found, and he was beheaded. That leaves the third guy. Now, you

know, normally you'd get reports back, well, the first guy's killed. We're not sure how the second guy's beheaded. Okay, you know, we'll just stay here in China. We'll just take the lesser, you know, the path of least resistance. Not so. Their love for the Lord and realizing his love for them had motivated them. So the third and remaining guy took each page of his Chinese Bible and tore it out

and folded it up and then wove the pages together into a rope. And he took that rope and he wrapped it around his bag and carried his bag to the border. And the guards asked him to open his belongings. He untied the rope and opened his bag. They searched through, and they didn't find anything. So they let him go. When he reached his hometown, he took and opened up each one of those

folded pages and ironed them and put them back together as a Bible and began going throughout his town and the surrounding countryside, bringing the gospel to the people of his area because of the love of God. The love of God had constrained him to do that. In the later 1880s, missionaries were finally allowed to come in to Korea. And as they fanned out through the countryside, they were finding believers all over the area, first fruits from the efforts made to bring the gospel in because it was the love of God that constrained them. The three, the three, the five guys that

are mentioned here in verse one of chapter 13, teachers and prophets, Barnabas and Simeon called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene, both Simeon and Niger were, were black men. So the first church had strong teachers that were black, a strong black influence in the church. Manion, who was the foster brother of Herod Antipas and Saul. These men were all brought together from literally the uttermost parts of the earth because God's love constrained them. It was their love for God and

their realization of God's love that moved them and brought them to this point in Antioch where the church was going to springboard now to the uttermost parts of the earth. We just went through verse one last week. We're just going to do two and three today because I want us to see the impact of this truth. Verse two, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. And so after

they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and they sent them off. Let me ask you a question this morning. When does God move? When does God's spirit move upon and among his people? What, what happens? God's sovereign and so he moves when he wants to move. He does what he wants to do, but can we see anything from his word that shows us what what's necessarily happening when he moves?

Look at verse two. It says, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, that's what it says if you're reading NIV. If you're reading King James, it says, as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, and notice the emphasis, as they ministered unto the Lord. You see, many times we can find ourselves doing things for the Lord instead of, or rather than, first of all ministering to the Lord. We live in a task-oriented society. Give me a task and I'll get it done. Whatever, I'll draw

together resources and do that. And so we can relate that particular concept to every area of our lives, our marriages, and our relationship with the Lord. We can reduce our relationship with the Lord, our Christian walk, to simply accomplishing certain tasks, to doing certain things. You know, I'm ministering for God because I'm teaching children's ministry. I'm working in

the nursery. I'm mowing lawns for people. I'm doing these things for the Lord. And we can get caught up in doing those things for the Lord and never really understand what it is or spend any time ministering to the Lord. We can often see our Christian walk as things to do rather than someone to love, rather than an experience that we have in loving our Heavenly Father. And see, that's reflected in

the marriages today. The marriages today are seen as no more than something to do. These are tasks that we have to do together. We have to get a house together, and we go to work, and we got to bring money in together. And then we can have kids together, and then we can work together to raise the kids together. And it's just accomplishing a set of tasks. It can be reduced to that. And the

relationship in a marriage that Paul says in Ephesians 5 is, behold, I show you a mystery. But I'm speaking not of the marriage relationship between a man and a woman, but the relationship between Christ and his church can be moved from a love relationship to a task-oriented relationship. And so you get down a road a ways, and you're tired of doing all the tasks, and you get bored, or you get just overwhelmed by tasks, and there's not the development of the relationship anymore, and so you want to split. And it's reflecting the attitude of a generation that's lost sight of a relationship with the Lord. They don't know what that is. They come to a church to accomplish

a task. I'm here. I'm singing. I'm in Sunday school. I'm doing tasks. And so somehow I must be accomplishing what I'm supposed to do as a Christian and never understand what a relationship is and how God wants us to minister to Him. How do you do that? As they ministered unto the Lord, He again is someone to love. The great Shema in the Hebrew, the Jews in Deuteronomy chapter 6,

verse 4, whenever they get together in synagogue to worship, they declare the great Shema, the great declaration unto the Lord. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And they say that over and over. And the next part of that section, the next part of that verse when they declare it is, And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul. That's the greatest declaration in Judaism. That's what they declare every time

they come together. Jesus was asked by a lawyer, Master, what's the greatest commandment? And Jesus repeated the great Shema. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your mind and with all of your soul. And Jesus added, And with all of your strength. There's an effort involved. There's a giving of ourselves and loving the Lord. Then he tied in, of course,

in the second is like unto it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself, showing that if we're really loving the Lord, it'll be evidenced in the fact that we're loving those around us. It'll be demonstrated by that. John emphasized that in his epistle. How can you say that you love the Lord whom you haven't seen when you don't love your neighbor, when you don't love your brother,

whom you have? How can you say that the love of God is in you? Well, I go to church and I tithe and I work in the nursery and I work in whatever ministry X-Men. I do all these things for the Lord. Well, do you really love him? They ministered to the Lord. Ezekiel chapter 44. Ezekiel. God is speaking through Ezekiel to the exiles that are coming back into Israel after

they've been taken captive and moved to other lands. And he talks specifically in Ezekiel chapter 44, verse 11 and down through verses 15 to the Levites and about their ministry. Now, Levi was one of the brothers, one of the sons of Jacob. And by all rights of the firstborn in the Eastern culture, Reuben should have been the tribe that was to minister to the Lord. If there was a tribe,

according to the right of the firstborn, that would have the privilege of ministering to God, it should have been Reuben. But he sacrificed that. In fact, all the tribes sacrificed that in succession while Moses was on the mountain at Sinai receiving God's commandments. God tells Moses, hey, you better get down the hill. The people are partying and you need to get down

there and stop them. So Moses goes down and all the people are around the golden calf and they're involved in all kinds of perversion. And Moses breaks the tablets and he cries out, whoever's on the Lord's side, let him come to me. And the Levites came to Moses. They had not indulged themselves in that worship. And Moses said, strap on your swords and go through your brethren and

bring cleansing to this particular time. And so the Levites strapped on their swords and went through and ministered for the Lord in obedience. And 3,000 of their brethren were killed that day as a result of idol worship. So God separated unto himself the Levites who were obedient, who kept themselves pure and separated them unto himself to be ministers unto him, to minister to him. Now, you know the story about Israel. Israel goes ahead and moves into the nation and they're

okay for a while, but they get into idol worship. After Solomon dies, the nation splits and God has to bring the Assyrians first and then the Babylonians through to bring judgment. Well, as they are coming back into the land after one of these times of judgment is when God speaks through Ezekiel here in Ezekiel 44. And the Lord said, the Levites that are gone away far from me when Israel went astray, which they went astray from me after their idols, they shall even bear their iniquity. Yet they shall be ministers in my sanctuary, having charged the gates of the house

and ministering to the house. And they shall slay the burnt offerings and the sacrifice for the people. And they shall stand before them to minister unto them. So Ezekiel says, now these groups of your brother Levites who went out, they got involved in the idol worship. They went along with the golden, well, not the golden calf, but the calves at Dan and all that. And they're coming

back and they're going to have to bear their iniquity. They're going to have to bear the results, the consequences for their sin. They polluted themselves. I'll still get to minister for me. They'll still get to do the sacrifices for me and minister under the house, take care of the stuff, you know, surrounding the temple, surrounding the, the needs, the physical needs

for the temple, but they will minister to the house and to the people because they didn't keep themselves pure. Then he goes on to say, but the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok that kept the charge of my sanctuary. When the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me. In other words, there were some that even in the midst of all the perversion, they didn't stray. They, they stayed faithful to the Lord and continued to minister.

They didn't give themselves to idols. They kept themselves pure. And God said that group of the Levites gets to minister unto me. The other group still gets to function. They still get to do stuff. They get to minister to the house and they get to minister to the people, but they don't get the privilege of ministering unto me. Only the group that, that set themselves apart, that kept

themselves pure. So one of the first prerequisites I see here for being able, given the privilege of ministering unto the Lord is to be able to walk in purity. Brothers and sisters, we live in the most perverse time and it's only going to get worse. Paul told Timothy that in the last days, perilous times are going to come. Things are going to wax worse and worse. It's going to become easier and

easier for us to not only contemplate sin, but engage in it. Sinful practices. And I'm not talking about the perversions of the world. I'm talking about just excusing the basic sin that we do every day. We're going to talk about this more as we get into the next steps. But God calls us to purity. God calls us to walk before him wholly. H-O-L-Y. In Psalm 24.3, the psalmist asks the

question, and it's even been put to a praise song today. Who may ascend to the hill of the Lord? Who may come into his presence? Then he answers it. He who has clean hands and a pure heart may ascend to the hill of the Lord. If we consider sin, if we consider iniquity, the Bible says God doesn't hear us. I think we've all come to, as Christians, one of the first verses you'll learn is 1 John 1.9.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But how often do we do that? How often do we really do that? You see, sin hinders our fellowship with the Lord. And we live in it in the, I believe we're living in the age, the church age of Laodicea. It's an apathetic church age. It seeks to get by flowing through the path of least

resistance. So if a little bit of sin hinders, it still continues to try and function and says it's okay. Just like the Laodicea that in Revelation chapter three, the Laodicean church said, well, we've got, you know, things are going okay. They couldn't see the fact that their sin had blinded them. We walk in areas of condemnation, condemning one another, critical, critical spirits, backbiting,

devouring one another. We live in an age of depression. So many people are depressed that medication for depression outsells practically everything else. We are a society that has really turned its back on God and sought to just walk in the things of the Lord according to the ways of least resistance. And we don't even see that our sin has separated us from true fellowship

with the Lord. We're just doing things. We're just doing stuff, doing Christian things. And we've lost sight of that relationship with God because we are not seeking to walk in a personal purity. It's interesting, 1 John, the very last verse in 1 John, 1 John chapter five, verse 21 says, little children keep yourselves from idols. The first part of 1 John talked about the fellowship

that they have with God that we can have with in a personal purity. It's interesting, 1 John, the very last verse in 1 John, 1 John chapter five, verse 21 says, little children keep yourselves from idols. The first part of 1 John talked about the fellowship that they have with God that we can have with them because they've seen him and touched him, their hands have handled him, and they share that with us so that we can have fellowship too with him. And the very last verse is keep yourselves from idols because the idols, the idolatry of anything other than the Lord will separate us from the wonder of that love relationship with the Lord. So keeping ourselves

pure before the Lord, confessing our sin before the Lord, how often do we do that? How often do we take the time to confess? See, if we don't take the time at least once a day to just say, Lord, and preferably at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, Lord, you know, I know I've sinned today because we all do. You and I sin every day. If we don't

take time to just confess it and say, Lord, I repent. There's things I can remember right now. You bring them to my remembrance, but there's other things I can't. I know I've done some things and I'm sorry, Lord, if I need to, if I need to make restitution in those areas, show me. But I confess, if we're not doing that regularly, then our fellowship, our relationship with the

Lord is being hindered. That love relationship is going to dwindle. We need to keep ourselves pure before him. Secondly, we minister to him through prayer, prayer of adoration and thanksgiving. We minister to him through prayer that's filled with adoration and thanksgiving, adoring him for who he is. When was the last time you did that with the Lord? You just sat down with the Lord

and just adored him for who he is, the creator of the universe, the almighty God, and just adored him. Maybe you've never done that. Maybe that sounds kind of foolish. Well, let me ask you a question then. When was the last time you either walked through a brand new car lot or seen a really sharp car, whatever's your particular preference? Maybe they're the sports utility

vehicles, latest ones that's out. You see the commercials on TV, the Lincolns, you know, who's going to drive a Lincoln off road? When was the last time you saw something like that and you went up and went, oh wow, look at that leather interior, look at that, whatever they are now, quadraphonic CD, whatever, stratospheric player, you know, wow. See that's adoration. When's the last

time you did that with the Lord? When's the last time you ever considered the Lord as something other than the big guy upstairs, you know, and sometimes you see his effects and most of the time you don't and you say hi occasionally and you call on him when you're in desperate need. When was the last time you just really sat before him and adored him just declaring who he was or when was the last time you gave him thanks, literally just thanked him for who he is and what he's done. We were quick to pray, God help me with finances, help me with this relationship, help me with my job, help me pay the bills, you know, help me with this and God takes care of these and how quick are we

then to go back and say thank you Lord for helping me with my job, thank you for helping my attitude towards my job, thank you Lord for helping with the finances, thank you Lord for helping in this particular relationship. The Bible indicates we're weak in doing that. Jesus, we saw the example where 10 lepers came to Jesus and he healed them all and he sent them off to go present themselves to the priests and one of the lepers turned around and came back and fell at his feet and thanked him, worshiped him by thanking him. Remember what Jesus said? Yeah, where are the other

nine? Weren't there 10 that I cleansed? What happened to the other nine? We read through that story and go on not realizing that what he's communicating to us is we're quick to ask, we're slow to thank him and yet adoring him and thanking him ministers to him. It acknowledges the fact of his sovereignty, of his working in our lives, of his love for us. Thank you Lord for your faithfulness and for your

kindness and for your gentleness and for your long-suffering. I know I'm a dork and it takes me a long time to learn things. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your protection. Thanking him, we minister to him. We minister to him through worship and praise and you go, well yeah, that's yeah, we do that. Do we? We sing and we play instruments and we sing along but are we really

worshiping him? Are we really praising him? Are we just singing words to a song? We have new worship styles and that's great. It's great that the church progresses through different stages of musical style but very often it gets to the point just like everything else in the world where it gets competitive. We see who's got the best praise band, the neatest sounds, the news, you know, the best

equipment, the best mix, the newest cd. When the orchestra and the singers were brought together during the time of Solomon, it wasn't for the people's benefit. They were called together to worship unto the Lord and you know how often they did that? 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They perpetually praised the Lord. Jerusalem, remember Jerusalem kind of sits on a little bit of a mound,

a hill on the areas of what's called the Mount Moriah chain and the Temple Mount sits above the city itself. So you can imagine the sound that would come out and in the bowl of the mountain area around the Mount of Olives and all the praises and the music that continued to come out 24 hours a day would fill the area, would fill the city. You could hear it but the purpose of it wasn't so that people go, boy I like that style, that's really a toe-tapper, that's really great. It just really gets me going. It was offered to the Lord. It was to bless the Lord, to praise Him and when you

and I have been given the privilege to come openly and worship the Lord, come and lift our voices together in praise to Him and take the words of a song and the music and offer it to Him as a sacrifice. Lord we lift your name on high. Lord we love to sing your praises and tell Him that, not just Lord I lift your name on high, Lord I love to sing your praises, just singing a song, but your heart is worshiping Him. Your heart is lifting that to Him and if we're not doing that in the times of worship that He gives us to do, then we're not ministering to Him and we're just, our words are just bouncing around the room and they're having no effect. It's empty and if we're not ministering

to the Lord, then we will not hear from the Lord. If we're not ministering unto the Lord, then as the Lord speaks, we'll miss it. Chances are we're not going to hear Him. We're not going to see Him moving. Oh, but I'm doing my things. I'm doing my work. I'm doing it for the Lord. I'm not saying cease the labor, but the ministry is born out of that ministering to the Lord. That love

relationship with the Lord will cause me to want to go to the uttermost with the gospel. So they were ministering to the Lord and then it says that they fasted, ministering unto the Lord, worshiping the Lord and fasting. I'm not going to belabor that point. We've talked about it before. Fasting is simply giving up food to enhance your prayer time. Giving up food to enhance a time of

prayer with the Lord. Now, when was the last time you did that? Really, honestly, that you, the purpose was I'm going to not eat lunch today or I'm not going to eat at all today or I'm going to, I'm not going to eat until dinner tonight and just spend some time with the Lord in prayer. When was the last time you did that? Let me ask you another question. When was the last time that

you thought, well, I've been carrying this weight around too long. I'm going to get started on a new diet and the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to start with a fast and I fast for three days. No sweat because I want to start on my new diet. I knew whatever it is, you name it. If we're doing that more often than we are setting time apart with the Lord, just to pray, just to be

with him, just to develop that relationship with him, then something's wrong and chances are you're not hearing from the Lord and we have a tendency though to blame everything else. It's the community's fault that we're not hearing from the Lord. There's the reason there's not a revival here is because we're not hearing, you know, the community's fault. The community's not doing what they ought to do or the community itself is falling apart. So let's blame the city fathers,

the city government. We need to do all of these things to bring in business and I'm not saying all that's wrong, but we're putting blame. The reason we've got problems with our kids is because of the parents or because of the schools or because of lack of parental supervision. The reason the church doesn't seem to be moving is because, you know, there just doesn't seem to be any vision.

Why is that? There's a direct correlation, as I mentioned, between ministering to the Lord and hearing from the Lord. The disciples sat and were ministering unto the Lord in the upper room, seeking his tahara. Remember the outpouring of his holiness at the time of Pentecost, waiting upon the Lord, ministering to him in praise and the Spirit of God fell, came upon the people. It happened here while they were ministering unto the Lord and fasting, the Holy

Spirit spoke and said, separate unto me Barnabas and Saul for the work that I have intended for them to do. It's true of every recorded revival in church history that not only did people separate themselves and pray. I mean, there you go again. We can do that. We can do the thing for the Lord. Let's pray. Everybody bows their head and we're doing the thing or they can minister to the Lord

and they ministered to the Lord. They fasted him and not only did they beg him for revival to fall, but they praised him. You read about the prayers of the different times of revival and what they prayed. There was a confession of sin. Every revival began with the believers coming and confessing their sin before the Lord, back to that area of purity and praising him for who he was,

ministering unto him and God poured his Spirit out and he does it on us today individually and collectively. And if we're not hearing from the Lord in our own personal walks, then we need to take some time and see if we're simply doing things for the Lord or actually ministering to the Lord. The Holy Spirit said in verse 2, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Now in Acts chapter 9 verse 15, that's when Saul was blinded on his way to Damascus and they led him into Damascus and God calls Ananias to go and lay hands on Saul and restore his sight. Ananias has the argument with the Lord. You know that he's the one that has been

hauling all the Christians back to Jerusalem and torturing them, you know, and God said that's okay. You've got to go and lay your hands on him because I have a work for him. I've got this job that I'm going to sit. I've got to tell him about all the things he's going to suffer for my sake. So Ananias goes and does that and the idea is that as he did that, God revealed to Saul that he was going to be

the apostle to the Gentiles. Matter of fact, that's what Ananias said to Saul, that God's calling you to be the apostle to the Gentiles. That's cool. That's exciting. Here's a man filled with zeal, ready to go be the apostle to the Gentiles, right? And yet from that time in Acts chapter 9 until this time in Acts chapter 13, about 10 years have gone by. Saul's ready to go be the apostle

for the Gentiles, but God leads him out into the wilderness for about three years to instruct him. Then he comes back. He's ready to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Goes down to Jerusalem. The people go nuts and the disciples say, let's get him off and send him off to Tarsus for a while till things cool off. And he goes to Tarsus and he's there for about seven years. After that, until back here in

chapter 11, Barnabas goes and gets him because stuff's happening here in Antioch. He goes to Tarsus and gets Saul and brings Saul down and they begin to teach the new believers there in Antioch. Ten years has gone by from the time that God told Saul he wanted him to be his apostle to the Gentiles. Why? Well, we see the same thing elsewhere in scripture. On Wednesday nights, we're going

and six months in Hebron and for 33 years in Jerusalem. Now, if you sit back and you think about David, David was about 16 or 17 when Samuel came and anointed him as king. Saul was still the king, but Samuel comes to David and anoints him as king at 16, let's say. Well, according to Samuel, David was 30 when he actually began to reign. So, from the time he was 16 until the time he was 30,

he was anointed king. God had called him to be king, but he didn't get to start reigning as king for 14 years. But, when he finally got to come in and be recognized as king, it was only by one tribe, Judah, and he reigned in Hebron and the other 11 tribes were going, we don't want him, we want a descendant of Saul. And there was infighting among the tribes for seven years and six months until they finally got together and came down and brought David up to Jerusalem together as king. So, from 16 until about 38, David had not yet realized the fullness of God's

promise. Why? You see, I believe that's a pattern in scripture that happens with us as believers. You and I are called now the children of God as we've come to Christ. We are going to reign with him as a kingdom of priests, or depending on your translation, as kings and priests. We're already seen as that in God's eyes, but it hadn't happened yet. We're in process. Even though he sees us as

his children, even though he sees us as reigning with him, we're not there yet. See, God took Paul, the apostle, through a process of ceasing to depend upon his own zeal, ceasing to depend upon his own skills, ceasing to depend upon his own education, to trusting fully and completely in the love of God and the leading of God's spirit. God took David and did the same thing. You're going to be king, 16, man. God's already chosen you as king, but you need to grow a little. You need to

grow so you don't get to thinking it's because of your good looks or your ability with a slingshot or you're just a great shepherd or whatever, that it's by the power of God. It's the love of God. It's the spirit of God. And David trusted in God to do that all the way through. That was remarkable to watch. We didn't get to see all of Saul's experiences from the time that God called

Saul and made him Paul, but we get to see a lot of David from the time he's 16 until he's 30. God raises him up to different positions and David refuses to do anything until God opens those doors for him because David's learning to trust God's spirit. He's learning to listen to the Lord. And I believe it's as a result of their ministering to the Lord. They just spent that time ministering

to the Lord. That was a desire of their heart. God even said, David is a man after my own heart. Why? Because he was filled with the love of God. He was consumed with loving God. He wrote all the Psalms that declared that love for the Lord and God raised him up and God's doing the same thing with us. And unless we learn though how to minister to the Lord and deepen that love relationship with

him, we're going to be like a lot of Christians that you see today who they get saved and they're on fire and it's exciting and they've got to zeal and they want to run out and do things for the Lord and they sign up for this ministry and they sign up for that ministry and they're working in a nursery and they work on a worship team and they work in children's church and they finally come to a point two or three years down the road because that's it with most relationships no matter what they are marriage relationship or your relationship with the Lord two or three years down the road you kind of everything just kind of fizzles really and then a lot of marriages will go

on from there just doing the stuff and doing the work of the marriage and a lot of people in relationship with the Lord they'll continue on for a little bit but then they just kind of drop out of fellowship and then they find themselves back in the world that's because they've just been ministering for the Lord and never learned how to minister to him they've never learned that the spirit is a person who wants relationship not just a power that empowers us the spirit of God spoke and said separate out unto me Saul and Barnabas for the work that I have for them to do and they were ready to go now to the uttermost with the Lord because they had come to the point of being able to trust him and listen to his spirit and we'll see later in Acts where Paul

goes through and he knows he's coming to Jerusalem to die and he's just like that Korean workman I don't care I really don't care I'm not going to take the path of least resistance the love of Christ constrains me and I've got to tell my neighbor and I've got to tell my co-worker and I've got to love my brother that I'm around even the one that is despiteful and uses people I've got to love him I just can't help it I just have to love him and I have to love my husband and I have to love my wife I just I have to the love of God just flowing out of me to them and I just I want to it just I've got to so I'm just going to fulfill the tasks I'm just going to bring

in the bacon it's a love of Christ that constrains me and it flows out into every part of life your marriage your workplace where are you what causes God to move we minister unto him father help us understand that we live in a wicked age Lord a terrible me centered society where until our needs are met we don't do anything for anybody else and that just shows that the wickedness of the society has invaded our own attitudes our own persons Lord and so we want to begin by confessing our sin confessing that that separated us from you confess those areas of doubt and self-centeredness and idle worship where we've adored things here more than we've adored you we confess our negligence

of wanting to spend time with you and develop that relationship but will alter our schedules for anybody else we confess to you Lord our weakness and not thanking you for the ways that you've blessed us and answering prayer just so mightily we confess our sin of gossip and backbiting and downing each other to other people Lord we confess our sin of neglect as we not only have neglected you but neglected the areas of ministering to our spouses and ministering to our children Lord there's so many other things we're sure that we've failed to remember but we just ask that you'd forgive us now and cleanse us from that unrighteousness and fill us with your spirit Lord we

want to minister to you we want to sit in your presence and adore you and just be in awe of you Lord that your love might fill us we might just be willing to go wherever you want us to go no matter what the cost and bring your love to the people that need it it's in Jesus name that we pray amen let's stand together