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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for a Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage.

We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family. How are you doing with the Lord leading you? Do you believe that you’re doing what God wants you to do with your life? Very, very important. Look at the next statement. Pray that the missionary will send someone to encourage the missionary. That’s why even among you, you may not think it’s that important, but just sometimes by the sweet, casual word that you say to somebody can so encourage them.

You know one of the encouraging things I think of our church here is that we do have a time and sometimes you have to watch it doesn’t just become, you know, this is what I’m supposed to do when we have greet one another. Hear those famous words, greet one another and what do you usually do? Huh? Stand right there. Don’t move. Or you can get out of your seat and go meet somebody who says, well I’ve already met everybody, do it again.

It breaks the monotony of your own self-centeredness. You’ve got to think about somebody else. And you shake somebody, you realize that I’ve had some people tell me, says, I can’t believe it. I walked into that church and 15 people shook my hand because of what we do. They like a warm, friendly church where you smile. Now, do you think, I’m glad to have you. We’re just thrilled. You’re so excited. Or can you, you know, put a little spring in your step and walk up to somebody and say, Hello, my name is, and what is your name?

I’m glad to have you here. Have you been here many times? Oh, about five years. On Sunday night, I had a guy and I talked to him and they come in on Sunday morning. He always come on Sunday night. He came on Sunday morning and nobody knew him. I said, How long have you been coming? He said eight years. But he just come on Sunday night and somebody else, they come on Sunday morning. they never and never the two show me.

But anyway, look in the next statement, pray that the missionary will guide their children in the way they ought to go. Did you know that a lot of times people judge you by how your children are doing? And sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not. But today it’s not just the family that’s raising their children. Everybody’s having a part raising their kids. Don’t you remember what Hillary Clinton said that you’ve got to have, it takes a village to raise a child.

But today, TV is raising our children and sometimes humanist educators are raising our children and teaching them things that we don’t want them to learn. And so mom and dad, they see them just a little bit in the morning when they ship them off the school. They come home at night and then everybody’s tired, weary and worn and they’re doing this and that. And so by the time, you know, what was your name again? Dad, I’m your son. Oh, and you don’t know each other.

You never spend time with each other. But anyway, you need to pray for the children’s mission, their kids, because it is such a difficult to see. If I was the devil, if I was the devil, no, I’m not. Some people think I am, but I’m not the devil. But if I was the devil, and if I couldn’t get the man of God, I’d try to do what I could to get to his wife, because you see, he’s not going to do too much if I I can discourage her because see, she will do everything in her power to discourage him.

And whenever I get her, I can get him. But if I can’t get her. I’m going to go after the kids. Because, see, it’s a system that always works. And so the devil is going to work on children. Goes after those young kids and then try to get those teenagers. Because he, that is something that the parents really love. And sometimes for the sake of their children, they begin to change or to alter things. And they’re steadfastness with the Lord.

And so they don’t want to offend their kids now. But wouldn’t it be great if the daddy loves the Lord, the mama loves the Lord, the children love the Lord, and everybody just served the Lord together? Wouldn’t it be me? Well the devil can’t get at that family. That would be the ideal. But in most cases it’s not. And a lot of missionaries struggle on the foreign fields. Their kids don’t have others strong kids that know the Lord loved the Lord a lot of the time they don’t have a youth ranch ministry, or they don’t have a Christian school, so they struggled.

Always pray concerning that and always keep in mind. Pray for your own kids too. Look at the next statement. Pray that the missionary will live each day to glorify the Lord each day every day to glorify the Lord. The next one, humility. Develop a sense of humility and reject pride. If there’s anything that God hates, it’s pride. It’s when you begin to develop the ability to see how great and wonderful you really are. And you begin to exalt your talent or your boldness, your ability, over your dependence upon the Lord.

In spite of everything, you and I should keep it in mind. If it wasn’t for the grace of God, we couldn’t do anything. If God didn’t protect us, we wouldn’t even be here. God has been good to us. Make sure that in your life you’re giving God the credit for whatever God does through your life. Because see God in heaven, he knows how you think and he knows how you feel. And just because a person may talk proudful and so forth doesn’t mean he is.

Humility is a position of the mind, not a position of the body. You can bow at the the altar, as some would say, or at home, but God’s more interested in do you bow your will to his will. Pride is when you seek your own way. Humility is when you humble yourself and do the will of God. So do what God wants you to do. And so if you’re humble, so you always want to pray that missionaries and everybody else humbles themselves before God and not to try to give God directions and leadership.

You see, the truth serving the Lord is always yielding to the leadership of the Lord, to do whatever God wants you to do with your life. That’s what God wants. Look at the next word, the insight. We’ll see people and things from God’s perspective. See, there’s always these two perspectives, the divine perspective and the human perspective. Where you see things from God’s viewpoint, and you see things from man’s viewpoint. Now, because you and I, we trust that Christ is our Savior, so we have a spiritual part of us that’s divine.

And we have a human spirit, and so we have a human perspective. So we see sometimes things from different perspectives. So what you have to do is a child of God, try to see everything from a divine perspective. So regardless of what goes on, and I’m going to cover a little bit about this tonight concerning the will of God because when something really goes wrong, bad, I mean you consider it really bad, at that point, at that moment you still have to ask what is the will of God for me at this point in my life.

When everything seems to be falling apart, am I then still supposed to yield my will, am I still supposed to seek the will of God? Regardless of what’s happening at every moment in my life. I believe it is true, but that’s another sermon or another time. Oh, look at the next statement. Joy, pray that the missionary will be full of the joy of the Lord in all situations, because even though a lot of things go wrong and you You may not walk around all the time with a big smiley face, you can have the joy of the Lord in your heart.

Because you know that regardless of your inability, you know about God’s ability. And that the one who has all the power and the authority gave me the right to do what I’m doing. He told me to do what I’m doing. Therefore I will do it and trust the Lord for the outcome. So I can’t see how everything’s going to develop down the road. So you learn to walk with the Lord and God is going to bless you. And doing that is what brings you to personal joy.

See God says, my joy I give, no man can take it away. And so if he can’t take it away, then the only one that can get rid of the joy of the Lord is yourself. So you can be as happy in the Lord as you choose to be. Happiness usually comes from happenings. And if it happens according to your likes, then you’re happy. And if that doesn’t happen according to your desires, then you’re not happy. So there’s a lot of people who are happy and unhappy, happy, unhappy, unhappy, unhappy.

But a Christian, regardless of what’s happening, can have joy because he knows I am doing the will of God for my life. And that satisfaction that you have between you and the Lord, no man can give it and no man can take it away. That’s what causes the Christian to be stable. So when you pray for missionaries, you want to pray that not only do they do that job that you’re supposed to do, the work of the Lord, but they can also have the joy of the Lord.

Look at the next statement. We’ll continue to be filled with the knowledge of God. You see, if your outflow supersedes your intake, then your outflow will be your downfall. If you’re always giving and never taking in, you’re going to come up dry. You see, you have to have water in the well, in the draw water out of the well. So that’s why you as a child of God must always be reading and studying the Word of God. always be talking to the Lord.

The joy of the Lord is my strength. So if you don’t have the strength in the Christian life to maintain a good Christian walk with the Lord, it’s because there’s something missing. You’re not going to the right well to get the right water, the strength that you need. And if you do, then you will have what you need to sustain you. So as the Bible talks about the knowledge and he talks about in 1 Peter talking about, growing in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

So God wants us to continually keep learning, keep learning, stay in the book. And you’ll be surprised as you get on down the road a few more years, that a lot of the things that you might not even thought about, scripture will come into your mind. It seemed like just the right time. And it says, the Holy Spirit shall quicken your mind so that you can know the things that are of God. And the Holy Spirit’s main responsibility is to teach you about Christ.

He said, he doesn’t talk about himself. He talks about the Lord. So you study the word so that you can continue to grow in the grace of our Lord. Look at the next word, love. The missionary will be a vessel through which God love flows. How do you know God loves you? Because, and you always say, well because of what Christ did on the cross for us. Alright, if you didn’t know what Christ did on the cross for you, you would not know that God loved you.

That’s how God proved His love. He sent His Son to die to pay for our sins so that we don’t have to pay for them. So how is the world out there going to know that God loves them? Well, that love has to flow from somebody to somebody. You are the channel, the vessel that God wants to use to flow that love through you to another person, to the lost man. And the lost people will never know about the love of God if you don’t tell them about the love of God.

So it’s the love that you and I have for Him that supposed to motivate us to tell Him about His love. And that’s why I made this statement, for the love of Christ constraineth or motivates us because we thus judge that if one died for all, then they were all dead, that they which live should not live unto themselves but unto Him who died for them and rose again. So the purpose of my life is the life of the one who died for me.

So it’s clear in the Word of God. Look there at the word motivation. Sometimes I feel like I’m motivated beyond my ability to perform. I want to do more and more than I’ve ever done in my life. I feel like with all 50 years experience I should know more. I should be wise. Shouldn’t I be wiser? I would think I’m supposed to be. When the body doesn’t want to go with a mind… Should make up for it. See, before I had a little wisdom, but boy, the old body was rare to go.

I had what you call an a reckless abandonment to faith. What it boils down to is I did a lot of stupid things. I would just do it and say the Lord is gonna blap. I didn’t worry about nothing. So I knew a little bit and I did a lot in a lot of mistakes and a few things right. But as you get older, the body can’t do so you try to make up for the lack of the ability in the body and the wisdom that you have.

So now I should make wiser decisions. I should be smarter than I’ve been. And then you make some decisions and you think, no, what did I do? I was talking to somebody just recently. I said, you know, I thought, you know, wouldn’t it be neat just to have a motor home and travel around the country and go where you want to go and do whatever you want to do? Just retired, just do that. Stop and think about, wouldn’t it be a nice way to live?

And lo and behold, here I am. I told my son, sell my motor home. I guess I’m going to stay here for a while. And we’re gonna try to start a Bible-lying institute. So we’re gonna try that. So I guess I’ll be here another year anyway. Well, however long it takes to do all this stuff. Because I see such great potential here. I saw that when I first came down here and I still see it. I mean, the way y’all respond and y’all are so teachable and you just love the Lord and you’re just willing to do whatever has to be done.

And you can’t get that anywhere. So I guess when you find a good fish and hold you might just keep fishing for a while. Anyway, motivation, motivation, trying to challenge and motivate people to do the thing that God wants them to do. Now, no, everybody in this room is motivated. Everybody’s motivated. You’re motivated to do what you want to do. Our problem is trying to get you motivated to do what we want you to do. you ever tried to have somebody do what you want them to do and you get frustrated when they want to do their own thing.

So what you try to do is since you, you know, you always heard you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink, but if you put a little salt in his oats, it’ll make him thirsty. So you tried to create an environment where people want to serve a Lord. And so you’re trying I’m trying to make him a little thirsty. Do you have a thirst to do something great for God? Can’t you see that we’re running out of time?

Look at the world today. Aren’t you glad you’re not going to have to stay here forever and never in this whole world? But why we’re here? Let’s see how much we can accomplish in a short period of time. And God bless us. But we need to be motive. Why do we want to do that? Because of who he is and what he has done and what he commanded. So we have his authority and we have the right to do it.

And so we have some results. It’s going to come one day when God’s going to reward us for all that and what we’ve done for him. Look at the word needs. Pray that the missionary will realize that in Christ all needs will be met. Not all of our wants, all of our needs. What do you really need? You said I need a million dollars. Oh come on, really? You really need a million dollars. Well I need this, I need that.

All you really need is to be faithful. Well I got cancer, all you need is to be faithful. Cancer is not the issue. I need a job that’s really not the issue. all you need to do is be faithful. You bolt it all down. Moreover, it is required in the steward that a man be found faithful. You see, when the apostle Paul was thrown in a prison, he might say, hey, I need my freedom. No, all he had to do is be faithful.

Him getting out was beyond him. Whenever he was going to have his head chopped off, now he could say, You know, I need my head. No, you just need to be faithful. Government’s high whether or not he needs his head or not. You see, whenever people join the military, it’s the government’s job to supply everything they need, everything. All they got to do is just report for duty. They don’t give orders. You and I, now, when we have certain needs that we call needs, we need to understand that our greatest need might be that we need a need.

It’s the needs that we can’t supply sometimes, that we go to the Lord and say, Lord help. I’m in trouble. Help me speedily. I was like the way David said that in Psalms. Help me speedily, like right away, like now. And you’ll find out that God will meet your need. And he says, come to the throne of grace that you may find help in time of need. So there are times that we need this we need that. But what you need in the midst of all of those things, make sure you stay faithful to the Lord that you do not dishonor God.

That regardless of what you’re going through, that your testimony is above reproach, that you do right. And God said He will bless you because of that. Let’s cover one more of these here. Pray that the missionary will seek opportunities to share the gospel called an open door. You see, there’s times when God will open doors And there’s time when God will shut doors. And if God opens a door, no man can shut it. And if God closes the door, no man can open it.

As a child of God, you and I are to seek the open doors that God opens. But when the door is closed, you and I are not supposed to get sledgehammers and try to break it down. But if God opens up the door, and sometimes you don’t see an open door, what do I do? Well, if I had somebody who’s going to learn how to clean the house, they might need to start off in a small room. I’ll get cleaned up the closet.

Well, what do I do after cleaning? Don’t worry about that. You just be faithfully clean the closet and close the door on them. Now when you get that clean, then I’ll see how you did. I’ll make you let you clean another room. And when you clean that room, I’ll make you let you clean another room. And you can’t see that in a bigger room, in a bigger room, in a bigger room. Start by faithfulness in little things. Because God says, if you’re not faithful in that which is little, you will not be faithful in that which is much.

If you can’t be faithful with a hundred dollars, you won’t be faithful if you had $5,000. If you can’t be faithful with $5,000, you won’t be faithful if you had a million dollars. You’re faithful if you’re faithful. It’s part of your character. It’s really who you are. So these are some things and we’ll cover the rest of this here another time. But keep your notes, okay? You will keep those and you’ll bring them back, right? I know you will.

And be praying for our missionaries and that God will richly bless them. And because we pray for them as we should. Take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Just want to mention a couple of things to you. Remember, once you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, that means you believe that He died on the cross paid for your sins and you are going to trust Him as your only hope of going to heaven, you are saved.

You have eternal life, your God’s child. As a child of God, God wants us to keep our lives clean. And so different people are on different levels in their understanding. There’s different stages of maturity. Not everybody is at the same place at the same time. It would be wonderful if they were, but they’re not. And so we need to be patient with those that don’t know as much and then expect more from those that do. And so whenever we have to sometime rebuke somebody, it’s because of what we think they are spiritually.

Some people don’t know, and so you have to be a little bit softer, but then there’s other people that are a little further along in the Lord, and so you might have to be a little bit more stern. And the Apostle Paul talks about that. He said, I wish I could change my attitude in the way it is right now. He says, less when I come, I have to be sharp with you. He doesn’t want to be that way.

So you need to be patient with people who are now where you once were, but to love each challenge and motivate each other to do the right thing by you doing the right thing. You see people often follow our examples of what we do more than by what we say. So therefore we are always being scrutinized. You’re watching me and I’m watching you. And what do you expect from me? Well what do I expect from you? I expect that I’m going to find fault in you and you’re probably going to find fault in me.

And so, therefore, we love each other in spite of those things, right? And we forgive one another, right? And because of that, God says, forgive one another even as God has for Christ’s sake forgiven us. So, we look back to what He did as our example. He is our example. And because of what He did for us, we should be willing to do for other. Now, Christ was willing to die for us, but for us, He asked us to live for Him.

So I know there’s people in the problem, oh, we willing to die for the Lord. Well, God didn’t maybe ask you to die, ask you to live for Him to sacrifice yourself and what you want, what you want to be, where you want to go, everything, but you’ll do it for Him, because He means more and more to you than anything else in the whole world. But here in 1 Corinthians in chapter 11, it makes a statement in verse 28, let a man examine himself.

He said, well, what is he looking for? Anything that might cause irritability between you and your heavenly Father. Anything that causes your Father maybe to look the other way. Some reason that God may not bless you because of something that you’re doing or saying or thinking. You know what it is. You know what it is. So you talk to the Lord and confess it. Lord, I’m a sinner. I’ve trusted you with my saving. I’m your child, but my thoughts have not been right.

My words have not been right or my actions have not been right and tell God about it. And you talk, he says, confess your sins to the Lord. And he is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all and righteousness. So that’s the will of God for his children. Let’s pray, shall we? Our Father, we thank you so much for all that you’ve done for us, for giving us the free gift of eternal life. And Father, we ask your blessings upon each person here.

As we think about, yes, the missionaries, but also each other in our own selves about how to apply these things because we are missionaries and help us to do right and to honor you, to examine our lives and father to talk to you about those things that maybe a hindrance in our walk with you. With your head still bowed and your eyes closed, no one looking around. If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, then friend right now with heads bowed and eyes closed, you can do that.

All you have to do is just be honest and say, Lord, I’m a sinner. And I believe Christ died and paid for my sins. And I’m going to trust him as my only hope of going to heaven. For in God’s it, if you would trust him, he would save you and give eternal life. And you’re that no Christ is your Savior. Don’t you take just a moment and talk to the Lord? And those things that we talked about this morning, is there anything that you need to talk to the Lord about?

You know, maybe he wants you to be a full-time missionary. Maybe he wants you to get some schooling. Maybe he wants you to go to some foreign fields. I don’t know. I’m not God. But I know that God will speak to his word and I want you to do and to be whatever God wants you to do. Our Father, we thank you now for this time together. Blessed is we remember what you get on the cross for us. In Christ and we pray, Amen.

You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach by the line and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing tool free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible and programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link.

If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friends, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed.

Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.