[One reason why] we should live for God

Let's read together in 1 Kings chapter 8. I might just mention that I see a lot of folk here that I know and I haven't even shaken your hands over the weekend because preachers are like a spinning top. Someone starts a conversation with them and someone else turns them around and then someone else turns them around and they get dizzy trying to visit with everybody. So if I haven't said hello to you, it's not because I'm mad at you.

I'm not mad at anybody here that I know of and so I just want to apologize that I haven't been able to chat with all of you. I'd love to do that. I've got such happy memories of Iowa and I spent time with Brother Slabaugh, as many of you know, and he and I really worked together a lot and I really still miss him.

I like to joke him and I've got nobody around to joke anymore so it was kind of fun spending time with him. I had a great time with Brother Slabaugh and I'm sure you miss him too. He was a laborer here in Iowa.

1 Kings chapter 8 and I'm going to be as brief as I can. The subject that I have in mind is quite wide but I will do my best to be as quick as I can in the subject. Here we have Solomon and the assembling of the Lord's people in the dedication of the temple.

Let's start at verse 22, 1 Kings 8 verse 22, and Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel and spread forth his hands toward heaven and he said, Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven above or on earth beneath who keep his covenant and mercy with thy servants that walk before thee with all their heart. Now he goes down to speak about the dwelling place of God in verse 27 and he says, but will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. How much less this house that I have built.

I want to stop there. I'm going to take the verses, the passages as I come to them that will be better and better for me and better for you as well. Solomon had it right when he said that the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee.

Only God is infinite. Everything else is finite and this universe in all its vastness has a limit and what I picture in my mind is if you were to take a ball and hold it in your hand, you would completely encompass that ball and you would be outside the ball and God himself is outside this whole universe. He is greater than the universe and my own thought is that we have, speaking of myself particularly, have such small thoughts of God.

We have no idea of the greatness of the God of heaven. Let me point out something that may help you. The distance between the moon and the earth, average because the orbits are different, the distance is over 200,000 miles.

When you look at night and take time tonight if you're still here and the Lord hasn't come, take time to look at the moon and think of all the light that comes from the moon, so much so from all the different parts, if it's a crescent moon of course it's just that part, but all of that comes to you so that you have an image. Do you know how long it takes for the light to go from the moon to your eye is 1.28 seconds. Think about it.

The compass of the earth, the circumference is over 25,000 miles around and light can go around the earth seven times in a single second. A light year. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second.

You multiply that by 60 to get a light minute. Multiply it by 60 again to get a light hour. Multiply it by 24 to get a day and multiply it by 365 to get a year.

Light travels at six trillion miles in a single year and furthermore recently if you read about it this young scientist was able to give us an image of a black hole with an orange glow around it and that's within the universe. That black hole is 50 million light years away. 300 trillion light years out in space and the God we know is greater than that.

That universe is like a ball in his hand and he is beyond that. Now with that in mind turn with me to Psalm 29. Psalm 29.

Let me tell you what I have in mind. Yesterday our brethren in an excellent way exhorted us to live for God. I want to start this afternoon but by telling you why we should live for God.

That is my goal in one sentence. Why should we live for God? Look with me at Psalm 29 and what I want to point out before we even start to read it is this. As you go down this psalm everything is about the earth, about thunder and lightning and different things connected with the earth until you come to one point in the psalm and then it seemed to completely change direction and then it goes back to the same direction and you have those in different places in scripture.

For example 1st Timothy chapter 3. Paul is exhorting Timothy about the church of God and all of a sudden out of nowhere he says great is the mystery of godliness and then when you come to chapter 4 he starts right in to the last days when perilous times will come and you wonder well where did that come from? I'm not going to talk about that today but that's another example of where it just seems to completely switch over to something else and then goes back to another subject. So Psalm 29 and we'll take time to read it all. Psalm of David.

Give unto the Lord oh ye mighty. Give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Now notice the different things on the earth. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters.

The God of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful.

The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars. Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.

He maketh them all to skip like a calf. Lebanon and Sarion like a young unicorn. The voice of the Lord divides the flames.

The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness. The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kedesh. The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve and discovereth the forest.

And here's where you have this change. In his temple doth everyone speak of his glory. And then it goes back.

Verse 10. The Lord sitteth upon the flood. Yea, the Lord sitteth king forever.

The Lord will give strength unto his people. The Lord will bless his people with peace. And there's a perplexity about verse 9. How is it that he's talking about the earth and the different events and then goes back to them and one little sentence he says in his temple doth everyone speak of his glory.

Now some commentators will tell you that he's talking about a temple on earth. I don't believe so. I believe the temple is the universe because God is beyond anything created.

And when I worked in the hospital people would say to me after I left they'd say what did you do for secular employment? Well I answered the question but I never had secular employment. Nobody does because we're always in God's temple because there is nowhere you and I can go that God is not. So every duty that you and I perform is a sacred duty.

I was going to say even the sisters washing the dishes in the kitchen but I may not get away with that. So when the brethren are washing the dishes in the kitchen or doing the housework because it's equal share to both. Whatever you do, whatever I do, Colossians says do it heartily as unto the Lord because we're always in his presence.

And the whole universe and beyond it is God everywhere. Turn with me to Psalm 139 because this is why the psalmist says what he says in Psalm 139. Psalm 139 and he says in verse 7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I send up into ascend up into heaven thou art there.

If I make my bed in hell behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. We could read more but you get the principle here that there is nowhere ever where God is not.

He is everywhere and there is no escape from being in his presence. You and I are not always aware that we are in the presence of God but there's never a moment when we are outside of his presence. Now turn with me to Colossians chapter 1. You may not see at the moment where I'm going with this but I'm going to tie it all together just before I sit down.

I'm building this up to that point and then we will come to the final point that I want to make as why should we serve God. Now let's start in at verse 12. Colossians 1 verse 12 giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet suitable to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light who have delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.

Notice with me verse 16. Speaking of the Lord Jesus for by him were all things created that are in heaven that are on earth visible and indivisible whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and notice the last three words for him.

Everything in this whole universe and beyond visible and invisible angelic hosts with all their different echelons. Every one of them were created by him but not only that they were created for him. Now go down with me a little bit further.

Verse 18. And he is the head of the body the church who is the beginning the firstborn from the dead that in all things he might have the preeminence. Verse 19 is the one on my mind for it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.

Now you will notice if you use a King James Bible and even many of the other versions that they put in words that are not in the original. Now that's a fair thing to do when you translate from an original language to a receptor language you can't do it word for word and so the translators fairly put in words when there's a difficulty trying to get the meaning out of the language to which it's being given to the receptor language. And so in our King James the words the father are not in the original but many other translations in fact most of them I have checked 30 plus translations and most of them put some word in there because they are perplexed.

In fact some commentaries say that concerning it pleased that part of it that there is no subject of the sentence. Now in the Greek language and I'm not going to get technical but in the Greek language the words fullness in fact all fullness those two words can either be the object of a sentence or the subject of a sentence. And since there's no other word in that verse in the Greek that can be the subject of the sentence I would suggest that fullness is the subject of the sentence.

And the reason I say that is because it can be equally a subject or an object. The grammar of the Greek there will allow it to be subject or object. So why would you go looking for a subject that you put in when there's two words there are two words that actually can be the subject.

So I would translate it this way. All fullness, all fullness was pleased to dwell in him. And that's what causes the problem because the translators are struggling with what does that really mean.

All fullness dwells in him. What could that mean? Let me suggest to you what it means and I'll take you right over to the book of Romans to point that out. When Adam sinned the whole creation became disordered.

Started first of all with a relationship between God and man that was affected. And then God said cursed be the ground for thy sake so there was a barrier between God between man and the creation. And then you have Cain and Abel.

Now there's a family problem and then Cain goes off by himself at a distance and builds them a city. And on and on through the whole Old Testament there is this disintegration that takes place. In fact when you come to the Noah and to the flood I believe that it seems clear to me in the scripture that the animals were tame before the flood because it says there God said to Noah that the fear of every beast shall come upon you.

So I believe in contrary to the children's storybooks that when Noah wanted to get a lion into the ark he didn't whip him and put him in a cage and haul him in. He just said here puss puss and it just walked on in and all the other animals they just walked in no problem. And then afterwards curse that it speaks about the fear of every beast shall come upon you.

And then when you come to the languages a little later on why the let the nations are divided. So all this disintegration is taking place and the universe does no longer feel at home. But the day is coming when everything will feel at home not in a place but in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Turn with me to Romans chapter 8 and that's why I'm saying all fullness the whole of the universe will find comfort, rest, relaxation, meaning, purpose in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice verse 16 of Romans 8. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together.

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Now notice the next verse. You can translate creature or creation but it has the idea of the broadest aspect of everything created.

Verse 19. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature or creation was made subject to emptiness, vanity, not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.

The reason animals became wild so that we wouldn't destroy them all because we've destroyed so many species already so God put them into a different state of mind that they would fear man so that they would run from man so that there was still be creatures left on the earth. Can you imagine that if you wanted to have something for supper you just called it and it would come and then you just kill it and have it so the idea is God says all right I don't want that to happen. Also when it comes to the ground notice what it says curse it be the ground for thy sake.

Why for thy sake? Because an idle person gets into trouble and so God made plants some of them become weeds so it would keep us busy and keep us out of trouble. We had a dear brother at home and he didn't like weeding and he used to say he told me when he was weeding in his garden Adam why did you ever do that because he didn't like the weeds but the weeds were for our benefit because it says the creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who has objected the same and hope. Verse 21 because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

So when our deliverance comes when we have our place in the kingdom the whole creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption. Verse 22 for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now and not only they but ourselves also which have the first roots of the spirit even we ourselves grown within ourselves waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body so we're waiting and all creation is waiting upon us and waiting for that time when God will be glorified and we will be glorified with him. Now with that in mind I want to take you to go over the Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1 and going down to the end of the chapter Paul's desire in verse 18 is that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you might know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints.

Two separate things the hope of his calling is that day when the Lord Jesus Christ will be King of kings and Lord of lords but linked with that is our place in that coming kingdom and so it speaks about the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us were to believe according to the working of his mighty power. Let's go down to verse 22 and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church which is his body the fullness of him that filleth all in all. I believe the coming day when the Lord Jesus reigns this whole universe will be enlightened with his glory not a single dark spot in all of this universe in the trillions of miles wherever wherever the universe goes and how far out it goes I believe that you and I will see the glory of God throughout the whole universe because we read in Colossians 1 that all things were made by him but not only that they were made for him so if they are for him he will use them for his purpose and I believe the whole universe will shine with the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and that's why in Revelation 21 there was no need of a temple because the Lord God is the temple just like in Gen and Psalm 29 and in Psalm 139 the Lord Jesus will fill this universe and he will shine everywhere but he is the head you and I are the body and just like you have a person there is the we all have a head but that head does not do the work it gives signals to the body and the body does the work and so in verse 22 it says which is his body the fullness of him that filleth all in all as he fills up the universe we will be the body that fills him up that does what he wants us to do and throughout the whole universe you and I will be busy serving him for the purpose of bringing him glory that's why it matters that we live for him because we're being trained Mr. Mervyn Paul said lifetime is training time for raining time you and I are going to rain in the future day let me take you to another passage 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 and let's read down at verse 10 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 10 it speaks of the when he shall be when he shall come to be glorified in his saints how is the Lord Jesus Christ going to be glorified he's going to be glorified in you and me that's what we're getting ready for and it says and to be admired directly no admired in all them that believe the world will look on you and me and if I can use a modern term they'll say wow and they will give him glory because of what they see in us that's what matters how we behave that's what matters that we give up let the world go by because we have a big job ahead of us we are going to serve under Lord Jesus Christ in fact Ephesians 4 that I'm not going to take time to look at it says that we might grow up into him and all things maybe we should let's go over there for a moment Ephesians chapter 4 rather than have me quoted Ephesians 4 and notice what it says in verse 13 till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ how many times have we been saddened to see somebody who seems normal in every way in their mind and yet their body has been crippled and they're not able to do the job that they would like to do and God wants us to grow up so that we are in the full measure of Christ and that's why the teaching is taking place in week by week and month by month in assembly life notice verse 14 that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ likely if you're a parent here today there came a time in the life of your children when you said why don't you just grow up I'm not saying you should say that but I think we've all done it and I wonder does God sometimes look down from heaven at the way you and I behave and say why don't you just grow up well that's what he wants he wants us to grow up so that we will be a suitable body for our head now you see well what place am I going to have let me turn you to Hebrews chapter 2 for a moment then we'll go to the last passage Hebrews chapter 2 verse 5 let me stop here for a moment when you go to the book of Revelation you find it angelic ministry is all over the place God is using angelic ministry to carry out his purposes the different terrors that come upon the earth but notice what it says in verse 5 concerning the future day that we will be in for the unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak verse 8 thou has put all things in subjection under his feet for in that he put all in subjection under him he left nothing that is not put under him but now we see not yet all things put under him but we see the Lord Jesus Christ and in the future day everything will be put under him but you say alright but what part do I play in this go with me to 1st Corinthians chapter 6 keep in mind as we read in 1st Corinthians chapter 6 that the assembly was in a really bad state in fact I think for most of us and we walked into Corinth on a Lord's Day morning we would maybe have walked back out the confusion that was going on speaking in tongues the women participating the lack of head covering all kinds of bad things happening but here's what Paul says in 1st Corinthians 6 dare any of you having a matter against another go to law before the unjust and not before the Saints notice verse 2 do you not know that the Saints shall judge the world now if you read just that part you would say well of course some of the believers likely will get that job I don't think likely the Lord will give me that job notice what the rest of the verse says speaking to them to the Corinthians he says and if the world shall be judged by you Corinthians are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters know ye not that we shall judge angels how much more things that pertain to this life as I look at this audience today do you know what I see I see a whole company of judges all judges you and I are going to be judging angels in the future day you might say well I don't feel up to the job that's why I'm talking to you let's get up to it let's rise to it that's God's purpose and that's why as yesterday the brethren exhorted us encouraged us to live for God because we have a big job ahead this is training time and it's never over no matter how old we get I told the story somewhere else about an old grandpa and I'm not sure how old grandpas are anymore because I'm one and I'm a great grandpa too so I may be an old grandpa but this old grandpa couldn't get around anywhere he was stuck in the house his legs wouldn't hold him he couldn't get out the meeting and the little grandchild was running around and he's watching grandpa as he's sitting there reading and studying his Bible and he says to grandma grandma why is grandpa always reading his Bible he can't get out to meetings anymore she said he's studying for his finals that's what we're doing we are here getting ready because the Lord Jesus is going to be honored all through the universe and you and I are growing up so that we'd be ready for the job and we will be able to serve him and people look on you and me and they'll say wonderful look at the body of the Lord Jesus look at all these people and there is so equipped and so we are here for a purpose it is not meaningless to live for God it's just not so that we'll do the right thing it's doing God's will so that we might mature and become the people God wants us to be to serve him in the future day the Lord Jesus said thy kingdom come and the disciples in Acts chapter 1 said Lord at this time will you restore the kingdom their mind was on the kingdom and brothers and sisters as we leave this conference let's have our mind on the kingdom and on the king so that would be ready to serve him in the future day