Not Ashamed at His Coming, Part 4

Calvary Temple

Not Ashamed at His Coming, Part 4

February 17, 2013 • Pastor Star R. Scott

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). "I love you," He said, "if you keep My commandments" (John 15:14). So there's this also that continues to manifest itself in this epistle that the Lord just continually says, "If you love Me, you'll walk in obedience. You'll be a doer of My word and not a hearer only" as James makes very clear to us.

So as we continue through the gospel, there are very practical parts of it. He said if we love one another, then we don't close up our bowels of compassion. If we see a brother or sister in need, and we have the wherewithal to meet that need, then we do so without any question. It's how they were able to live practically in the book of Acts in one accord: "No man said that anything he possessed was his own." Of course, that is the heart of every one of us here. None of us are controlling of anything we have. We are all ready to liquidate anything on behalf of our brothers, amen? That's the love of God. To think we love God and love one another and not have that heart attitude, we're not being truthful with ourselves. We have a little bit to work on, don't we?

When we love our natural family better than we love the body of Christ and make choices to neglect, despise, to minimalize the spiritual family in pursuit of appeasing the natural family, we really don't know Him. Because He makes it very clear, "You're not worthy of Me if you don't love Me, My body, more than mothers and fathers and houses and lands." That's just practical 101 Christianity. Yet it seems to stumble so many people, and 1 John speaks towards that. He said it's because you really don't know God. You've fallen into religion. You've embraced a form of Christianity, a form of godliness. But you really don't understand the power to transform. There is the formalism of religion and then there is the transformation of new birth: "Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). John is speaking towards all of those aspects of genuine Christianity...

Not Ashamed at His Coming, Part 1

February 6, 2013 • Pastor Star R. Scott

Let's spend a bit of time in this epistle, again, to identify the hour that we're in and stir our hearts up in excitement for the soon coming of the Lord, amen? Hopefully, you are excited about it. Hopefully, every day it's a priority in your life because He is going to appear to those who are looking for Him, amen? I hope it was on your heart today, sometime during the day, of just, "Come quickly, Lord!" In the time that we get quiet before the Lord and we start to turn to His Word, it's, "Just come quickly, Lord Jesus." He is going to appear to those who are looking for Him and to those who love His appearing, amen? It should be one of the first things that occupies our thoughts in the morning. When you love somebody, when you love something-some people really have a strong affinity for their jobs. I don't understand that, in the natural, but they do. It's something that they get their worth out of, that they enjoy, and so they're looking forward to that thing in the morning. Some of us get up looking forward to just seeing our wife. Okay. I was just waiting, giving you a chance, guys. A bunch of you blew it! But anyways that expectation, that thing that we love, that affection that we have and just loving His appearing. When we wake up, just to be obsessed with, "This could be the day that the Lord comes! I can see Him face to face today." If we really believed it, we would have that kind of an obsession, wouldn't we? Just ask Father to stir your hearts in this hour, this expectation of the coming of the Lord. He is going to appear to those who love His appearing. That day is coming when we will see Him as He is and finally we'll be like Him, amen? Hallelujah! Everything that we do is for that pursuit of Christlikeness. We make great strides and then we kind of go backwards sometimes. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Two steps forward, one step back. Some of us are: one step forward, two steps back. That's not good. We can't keep that up too long. But we're going to see Him and we're going to be like Him and we'll be with Him and so shall we ever be with the Lord, amen? Praise God! This isn't home, amen? This isn't home...

Not Ashamed at His Coming, Part 2

February 10, 2013 • Pastor Star R. Scott

Hallelujah! Amen. Let's turn to First John and continue our study. I trust that many of you have taken some time to read this epistle over the last number of days. It's an epistle that you can read in minutes, and you can't exhaust in a lifetime the revelation that will come out of it. And we encourage you just to take these next weeks and just read it over and over again and let the Holy Spirit speak to your heart, and you'll hear what the Spirit's saying to the church today. Let those that have hears hear what the Spirit is saying to the church. This is an epistle that prepares us for the coming of the Lord. "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God:… [Amen?] …and it [doesn't] yet appear what we shall be: but we know [this], when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that [has] this hope in him [say it with me-] …even as he is pure" (1 John 3:1-3). So the process that we're looking for as we go into this epistle is self-purification. Anybody feel like you could use it to be cleaned up a little bit? Some might say, "Well, no, I think I'm doing pretty good." Well, just set yourself up against the light, for "…God is light, and in him is-?" (1 John 1:5) Now, how many of you feel you might need to be cleaned up a little bit? See, that's how we look at it. We don't look at how we're progressing, that we're better than we were last week, that we're better than most people in here-for sure. Amen? It's in our thinking. But all we have to do is just slip over a little closer to the light. We've talked about it before, haven't we? I know Greer has one of those at home-the big mirror with the light on it and magnifies you twenty times or whatever it is. It scares me just to look from twenty feet away. And it gets worse every month, it seems, that goes by. But when you move up there closely and you put a little bit of light, the truth comes out, doesn't it? And many of us are not what we think we are. We've been talking about that for a long time now, haven't we? The realization that we're not what we think we are. How many of you've really struggled with that as God has illuminated your heart in that way? Let me see your hands. Amen. Now, it can do two things. It can cause us to lie and to believe a lie, or it can cause us to humble ourselves, can't it? And to realize that, even with what we are, God can use us if we'll humble ourselves, because His strength is made perfect in our weakness...

Not Ashamed at His Coming, Part 3

February 13, 2013 • Pastor Star R. Scott

Hallelujah! Amen. Let's turn to 1 John, and also the Gospel of John. We'll look at a couple of passages and just continue our study. One of the great admonitions out of this first epistle of John is that if we have that hope of His soon coming, we'll purify ourselves even as He is pure. Amen? "And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure" (1 John 3:3). And so, as we really see the day that's upon us, the admonition for us is to allow this cleansing in our life. We know that the cleansing comes only by the Word of God and the blood of Jesus. Amen? As we go to the Word of God, the cleansing doesn't come from the study of the Word of God, but the obedience to the Word of God. Don't you want to be able to obey it more every day? Every aspect of the lordship of Jesus, the truth, the revelation truth, of the Word of God--we have a heart for that--and as we pursue, the Scripture says that one of the great things that will happen in our lives is that, as we work in obedience, as we submit our lives, it will begin to work in us a habitual strength that begins to be experienced, and that experience, as it works in us, is something that is allowing us, then, to become habitual doers. We begin to mature. This is what many of us are striving for. Many are just looking for sanctification, and sanctification is that process. It's not just an individual work, where once we're sanctified we can begin to coast. Once we're sanctified, we begin to see how much we lack, how much more we need the grace of God, how much more we need to pursue, how much more we need to study and to pray. So we want to look at some of those factors as we go on in this study. In John's Gospel, the first chapter, we want to look at a few verses there, and, of course, over into the third chapter of John, and then we'll go right back to the epistle. We all know that John, that Apostle that was called the Beloved and the Scripture says Jesus loved this man. Isn't that quite a statement about him? There are not a lot of references to that, but this man was loved of Jesus. What do you think it was that caused that affection from the Master? Do you think it was his works, his outward works? It seems like Peter was more of a worker, doesn't it? Martha was a worker, but Mary chose the greater part, didn't she? I believe John was that man...