What Would You Have Me to Do?

Open—Walt Porter
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When Brother Jonathan spoke to the children this morning.
You read that verse in First Corinthians six, I think it is.
1St Corinthians 6.
Verse 19 at the end of the verse.
Says you're not your own.
The first phrase of the next verse, verse 20, says for your bought with a price.
And we heard in the last meeting a little bit about.
The price?
And I went up to Jonathan after the meeting and I said, have you noticed there's two different things there?
You're bought with a price, but before that we're not even our own.
Said you know.
Who here decided that they wanted to be born?
Anybody.
Who decided they wanted to be born?
No. Who put you here?
We know was the Lord Jesus, wasn't it? He created us.
So we're not our own.
We didn't put ourselves here. Somebody put us here for a reason.
That's creation.
The next thing is redemption.
You're bought with a price, you're not your own to begin with.
You're bought with a price.
So he created us and He redeemed us. How many times do we belong to God?
Can you count my fingers?
How many times do we belong to God? You know, we start out in this world and we think we belong to ourselves.
And we think things around us. That's my doll, that's my bicycle.
But you know, the Lord's working with us, like Matt was saying.
To bring us to the point to realize that it's all about the Lord. It isn't about us.
And you know, when we get home to heaven, it's going to be all about the Lord isn't going to be about us at all.
When we start in this world, it's all about us. So in some place here between it's all about us and it's all about him. There's a transition that's occurring here.
And it's nice if we can have some of that exercise Matt was talking about.
To begin to realize how worthy is the Lord, how much he's done for us. He's created us. We're not here for ourselves, just to please ourselves. And like he said, to have that exercise maybe every morning to say, Lord, what do you want me to do?
Sometimes I talk to the children in Sunday school and I say you know you, you think you don't have anything you can do for the Lord, and then I smile at them.
And you know what? They smile back. And I said, why don't you take that smile and give it to that older sister?
What do you think it'll do for them? Does that make you happy, Aunt Bev?
Yeah, it's little something that you can do for the Lord. It doesn't have to be a great thing. You don't have to wait until you're 70 years old.
You don't. You can do little things for the Lord. I always try to encourage the young people that pick up the song books after a meeting. That's a good thing. It's a good place to start. You have something you can do for the Lord. So do we just want to live for ourselves or do we want to live for the Lord Jesus?
You know we sung that hymn before the meeting here.
Oh, that strong and faith abiding we made to the Savior cleave not with Him, our hearts dividing all for Him.
Content to leave So are we content to leave our own things behind?
Matt quoted that verse a couple times. I want to look at in Isaiah chapter 5.
And he said.
What could the Lord have done more for us?
And that's in Isaiah 5 about the Lord, about God planning a vineyard.
In a very fruitful hill, And he fenced it. Isaiah 5. Now verse two, He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with a choicest vine to build a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein. And he looked at it to bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.
00:05:09
Now when the Lord looks at you, boys and girls.
And that's older ones too.
What does he say? He created us, and He's looking for a little bit of fruit from us, a little bit of pleasure for his heart.
Is he finding anything?
I hope so.
Be nice if there's an exercise that way. What can I do to be here for the Lord? What does the Lord want of me? He created me. And if we've asked Him to wash our sins away, we can say He redeemed us too.
Is nice if there's some little thought there towards him, but how sad if the Lord looks at us and all there is is wild grapes, not the right kind of fruit. Is that all the Lord sees in from us? That's too bad if that's the way it is. Each of us needs to search our hearts about those things. So then we come down to verse 5.
No, wait.
The end of.
No, verse four, sorry. Verse 4 is what Matt was telling us. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?
What could the Lord have done more?
He created us with certain abilities and talents. Some of you boys can run fast, some of the girls are pretty, some of us are really smart. The Lord put all those things in you and it's nice if you say how do you want me to use what I have for you, Lord?
It's nice if that's your exercise and any measure that it's your exercise.
And so.
What could have been done? More so the Lord gave us all those things. He washed our sins away. Have we have certain abilities and talents that we can use for Him?
And he has a right to look and see if there's any fruit there that pleases and honors him, makes him happy.
What could he have done more?
He created us. He redeemed us.
And He's given us this wonderful country, this wonderful time to be alive. The powers that be are happy for us to meet in liberty and peace like this. We can thank the Lord for that. We have a lot of opportunity to live for the Lord, and it's kind of sad if we only want to please ourselves and bring forth just wild grapes.
That I thought I'd read that verse that Matt quoted to us. What could have been done more?
To my vineyard.
Now.
I want to look just for a few minutes at Genesis chapter 47 because we have there a little progression of things that reminds me of our wanting to live for the Lord.
Because you'll remember that there was a famine in those days.
When Joseph was made the ruler of the land, and you remember that he gathered up a lot of the corn that was in the land and they put it in storehouses, and then the famine came. So what happened when the famine came and everybody in the whole world was going through this famine?
What did Pharaoh say to Joseph? It's time to.
Somebody remember?
Open up the store houses and we're going to sell to everybody so that everybody doesn't have to die. OK, So that's the time that we're reading about here in Genesis 47 and so.
We're going to read about the people of the land of Egypt there, and we're going to look at Pharaoh as a picture of God.
A picture of the Lord Jesus. And we need, as Christians, like Matt was saying, we know that we need to come to the Lord for help, for the things that we're going through in our pathway. We know that the Lord is the only resource we have to know how to go on rightly in this world. He mentioned Satan and the world and the flesh, the three enemies of the Christian, and they're always trying to tell you the wrong thing.
They want you to go the wrong way.
And take up with things that are not profitable or maybe really bad for us and for others around us. So we have to go to the Lord to ask for the right things. What do you want me to do? We need to search the scriptures to find things, find out what the Lord has for us to do in our pathway here in order to honor Him. And as Matt said, children, obey your parents in the Lord. That's a good place to start. But there's a lot more things that are written in the scriptures.
00:10:21
So I want to look at this as a picture of us going to the Lord to ask what can we do to honor you? What would so have me to do? And you know, it isn't easy to give up our own things that we were talking about our doll or our bicycle or fun things that we like to do. And maybe we need to go and.
Spend some time reading our Bible.
And maybe instead of doing that, we get distracted and do some other things and we lose out.
But you know, when we we have that, the Lord gives us that purpose in our heart to go on for him. Then one of the first things you might see is, I mean, we enjoy when somebody takes their place at the Lord's table. And that was mentioned this morning. If there's some of you younger ones here that have that kind of on your heart, we'd like to encourage that.
Because the Lord Jesus is worthy of that. That's the one request He's made for us, that we would come and remember him in his death. So may the Lord encourage that in your hearts. And maybe the first thing that we notice as we see a young person with a purpose to honor the Lord like that is that they'll ask for their place at the Lord's table. And then the first thing that we're going to see in Genesis 47 is here when Joseph opens the storehouses.
It says in verse 14 that Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt.
In the land of Canaan for the corn which they bought and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. So maybe that's something that we have that we can give to the Lord. And so the basket comes around on Lord's Day morning. And maybe that's the one of the things that the young people do when they first are gathered is they realize that they can give a little money to the Lord. And that's nice. That's nice. It's a good start. It's like a good start. Like children obey your parents.
So there's a little money, then the next year comes around and the people.
Say you know we're hungry again and we don't have any money. We gave it all the first year. And so Joseph says in verse 15, when money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan and all Egyptians came into Joseph and said, give us bread for why should we die in thy presence for the money? Fail it. And Joseph said, give your cattle and I will give you for your cattle if money fail. Now when you get older and you go have a job.
Is a job just a way to make money?
And a way to accumulate things for myself so I can buy what I want and do what I want to do in this world.
Some of you are in training for a different jobs in this world, going to college and whatnot.
It's nice if there can be a purpose that those things we can use for the Lord to.
And so the second year they came, if we can use it in our picture, they came, as it were, to the realization that their jobs, too, needed to be something that was given to the Lord. It was a way that you could honor the Lord with your occupation.
Then the third year.
Verse 18 When that year was ended, they came to him the second year and said, We'll not hide it from my Lord. Our money is spent. The Lord also hath our herds of cattle, and there's not left inside of my Lord, but our bodies and our lands. Wherefore should we die before?
Both we wherefore should we die before thine eyes, Both we and our land by us and our land for bread, and we in our land will be servants into Pharaohs.
And give us seed, that we may live and not die, that the land be not desolate. So Joseph bought all the land of Pharaoh of Egypt for Pharaoh. And the Egyptians sold every man his field because of famine prevailed over them. So the land became Pharaohs. So first we had our job, and then as we have this progression, we realize more and more what Mark was talking about, how much the Lord has done for us.
How much we owe the Lord and we have no business being here for ourselves.
Then these these things progress and we say, you know what, really everything that I have belongs to the Lord Jesus. It's not mine to dispense with however I want. And so all of our possessions, they become the Lords too. It's nice to give our money, but that's kind of something I can do one time and I'm all done, and then I'm free to do what I want the rest of the time.
And it's nice to have our work and we go to work and we want to try to be a testimony to the Lord there. And that's good. But I come home and it's my stuff, you know, And I like my boat and my four Wheeler and, and my this and my that and these are all mine. Well, it's nice if we come to the point in our lives that we realize everything belongs to the Lord Jesus, everything we have.
00:15:23
Well, is there anything more than that?
Somebody has said it's one thing to give up everything we have for the Lord. You know, think about that from the standpoint of somebody selling everything they have and going to Africa to be a missionary. That's the kind of thing that we're talking about. But you don't have to do that to surrender everything to the Lord and say it's all yours. Tell me what you want me to do with it. And I'm happy to do that. It's one thing to do that. How about giving up ourselves?
To the Lord.
And that's what's the last thing is here in verse 21, it says as far As for the people, he removed them from this two cities, from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other end only the land of the priests he bought not. And verse 23 Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day in your land for Pharaoh.
And so now the people themselves belong to Pharaoh. It's not just their money. It's not just their money and their job. It's not the money and their job and all their possessions, but it's the people themselves. Do we want to live here for the Lord Jesus? Do we want to be here at his disposal all the time?
How nice, if that could be our exercise, how pleasing to the Lord, how much of A blessing to those around us. But you know, you're going to come across people in town. I know the time is up. You're going to come across friends in the neighborhood or people at school or at work or whatever, and they're going to say you're losing out. You don't go to movies, you don't do this, you don't do that. Come with us, let's have a good time. But it's interesting that these people in the land of Egypt here that sold everything out to Pharaoh in verse 25.
An expression that really stood out to me when I read this portion and they said thou hast saved our lives. They didn't have anything left.
They gave up their money, they gave up their cattle, they gave up their fields, they gave up themselves to Pharaoh. And now they say, well, you've saved our lives now wait, I gave up everything. I don't have anything left.
But you do, because if we're going to go through our lives trying to save our lives for ourselves and enjoy life and take everything for me, you're a loser.
You've lost out, the Lord Jesus said he that saveth his life shall lose it, but he that loses his life for my sake, you're going to gain it. What do we want?
What do we want? Thou has saved our lives. May the Lord encourage us because there isn't anything more He could have done for us. It's all been done and may there be a response from our hearts for that love that Mark was talking about.
Let me thank you that these outcomes have done more to win our hearts from the we just thank you that as one of us said, that what's from the heart goes to the heart. That even if the pictures of types were brought out very poorly that we would realize that.
We are not our own, we are bought with a price and may each one of our hearts in a real and living way. But the first over anything that this world has to offer so that we have a response in our heart and then on any day of our life just to mention of that worthy name.
Overwhelm our hearts. May it be so, Lord we we know.
Far from the we wander that we thank thee that we have a new life that can obey and mess out. It's obey and the greater issue that is in us than he lives in the world. So if we pray that we would leave here change forever and if there's someone that has never known what is to have their heart burned within him and spending time with the Lord Jesus alone in prayer and reality.
Seeking him that they would.
This very day come to know the Lord in a real living way and crown him Lord of their life. And may we each put the 1St.
From this time forth, primity thou the guide of my youth. Wilt thou not from this time crying to me. Thou is the guide of my youth. So we just pray God bless my word and just thank you that our faithful and and now we're unable and use thy word wherever it went forth this day for blessing and after continued blessing the rest of the day and blessing on those that have worked so hard for a time like this and encourage their hearts to fill them with my love.
00:20:21
We asked all this in Jesus name, Amen.
I'm.