P. Schaller

We have a special service tonight. We have our guests here from a Christian school in South Africa. They’re going to sing for us tonight and we’ll have a message.

A couple short pieces of information. My mom is here. One year ago she was here visiting and many of you got to know her, so it’s great to have her back in Baltimore. Secondly, keep P. Carl in prayer. This is a month of prayer and if you feel led fasting for P. Carl and care about him and his family and ministry. He has done such an amazing job. He’s a man of amazing humility and faith. Amazing man of God. Keep him in your prayers for healing. The Lord knows what we think and believe about that. That’s important. That would be amazing, Lord. Lord, heal him.

How many of you have been praying for York, PA? Can we run the microphone to P. Jay? Your team. Who came with you tonight? I was so amazed last summer when you brought all those kids to southern France. The startup of the school. Your church growing. Tell us.

P. Jay

We’ve got my wife…. and Gwen and Brian, the cute couple. We have more but Baltimore keeps sending orders for more cookies and the girls are baking away. We’ve gone on mission trips to India, France and Israel. God bless the kids and the school growing. Marvelous time to see prayers answered. We had a woman who had a stroke and the doctors said she’d be out for months and months. A little boy prayed his mom get saved and she got saved and he prayed for Miss Irene to be healed and come to church and she walked into church. Thank you for praying for P. Carl. We just left a few weeks ago. Enormous difference with praying with hope and praying with believing. We believe God is going to do a healing in that man’s life. This is the season. God is so much greater. We have a woman who gets pregnant without a husband, the immaculate conception. Wouldn’t it be great to see P. Carl get healed miraculously?

P. Schaller

Do you think P. Jabulani would like that? We have a S. African pastor that comes every summer and leads us in Zulu worship. Is that right, Pastor Adam? Yes. Should we stir up ourselves a little bit? Would you stand up and think for a second and say we have been ministered to from South Africa by the H.S. through these dear people. We love you so much. Halleluiah, praise God. They came all the way, beautiful. Do a little dance like they did.

Do the high five with your neighbor. How many read the story about Samson and that portion about him shaking himself in Judges 16:20? I need your help as I preach here tonight. I know the Spirit will say something to us. You can participate with me. What do they say down south? Amen. Preach it pastor, amen.

When you get to that part when it’s so clear and God is saying something and we pause for a second. Ten years ago, I got a bull horn from Party City. A fog horn. In the last few days I got to get the fog horn. I’m going to blow this room to smithereens with that fog horn. We’ll hit the fog horn just in case anyone missed it.

Judges 16:20, Young guys, stay away from Delilah. Ulla, stay away from Delilah! Ever see a dog go in the water and come out of the water and it’s dry as a bone once it’s done shaking. The dog shook himself and all the water was gone. Samson somehow in his power, in his experience understood that there are times he would get ahold of God. When he was walking with God, he could shake himself and have power and do great things because he could shake himself.

Are there times in your life when bad things stick to you? Ask your neighbor. Are there things that stick to you? Are there times when that sticky stuff gets on you? I guess that wasn’t a good time to ask your neighbor. Duct tape. Some stuff sticks and it’s hard to get it off.

My mom remembers when I was a teenager our dad had a store and he had a flat roof store so there was tar and it leaked sometimes. One of my jobs was to go up and fix the leaks in the roof or patch it so the water wouldn’t come into the store. I was terrible at it because I’d get tar on me and have an itchy eyebrow and then get it over here and by the end of the day I’m a tar ball. Covered with head to toe with tar.

I think that happens to us. We get into stuff and can’t believe how difficult it is to get out of it. How hard it is to get unstuck, to get cleaned up.

Samson didn’t realize he had a haircut. Where was his power? He was a sanctified Nazirite and Jesus was a Nazarene. Different words. This is the town he was from and this is the vow taken in a family when they wanted to dedicate their child to God in a special way. They would not drink the fruit of the vine nor any fruit that was fermented. Not any fruit of the vine at all. Samson had power.

Maybe there are times we need to shake ourselves and realize we have fellowship with God and not our sticky stuff. We need to shake ourselves and get the dust off our feet. Purify your hearts you double minded. How can I do this? The finished work. I told you this would be short but it’s good.

How many Gods do we have? One. How many persons? God is three persons. Are each fully God? Yes. Each person is fully God. How many Gods do we have? One God. The natural man doesn’t understand how those three things go together but the spiritual man says amen. God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son…can’t write it the other way…The Father loved us and sent his Son and the Holy Spirit is our teacher and is present with us tonight. He is God and God dwells in each of us. We can shake ourselves. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit and then there is me. How many persons in this picture? Four. Someone said two. We have to talk to you after the meeting! The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and me.

The average person is consumed with himself. Life starts with him and ends with him. He spends most of his waking hours relating to himself and thinking of his ability and talent and success and his past and his present and his future.

Think about it. Nobody knows the Father but the Son. Nobody knows the Son but the Father and to him to whom he will reveal him. That means the greatest miracle that could happen in human being’s life is God would bring us into the Trinity. God would say you are brought in. You are made in my image. I have ordained you, crowned you, anointed you, called you. Make me your highest priority. Set your heart upon me. Believe I am the answer for your life. I am the whole thing, the whole enchilada, the whole reason for existence, the essence of reality. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the answer for every problem, the solution for every need. No weapon formed against you can prosper. I am God. I am your shield. I do not slumber or sleep. The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night.

Ps. 91, Ps 121, Ps 62. I will set you on a rock higher than yourself. Why don’t we care more about this? Break that relationship and here I am. I go to church if it is convenient. No, you go with high priority. You’re going to hear from God. I’ll be a believer if everything works my way. No, you go deeper…he will build you up and show you. It is so easy somehow. Our nature is inclined to Delilah and she caught me. Delilah caught me and gave me a haircut. She said the Philistines be on you, white on rice. You cannot fight off the enemy. Samson woke up out of his sleep. Oh no, this is not a problem. I shake myself like at other times. We don’t know what that means. It’s like an obscure verse in the Bible.

Romans 8 is about the Trinity. It’s about you and me in fellowship with the Trinity. This is about the Spirit interceding for us. The Father saying all things work together for good for you. Whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate. This is God saying amazing things about us.

God the Father is in Rom 8, God the Son and the Spirit are in Romans 8. The believers are in fellowship with God. This is the Body of Christ. They have a mega perception of reality just like Mary would say I gave birth to a baby but it is more than a birth of a baby. I know I have been called by God. I know an angel visited me. I know when my belly was extending itself and went to see Elizabeth, she said the mother of my Lord. When you walk with God like so many of you are doing.

Neil and Maggie years ago said we want to do bus ministry. Where can we find a church doing bus ministry in Maine? They came only because they had a desire for children. But as they were listening, the word of God in the ministry, this big box, this is what happens. It’s more than children and caring about them. It’s the finished work and the Father, Son, and Spirit building us up in a Body. We are seeing something and understanding something.

Paul is begging for an argument. He is getting feisty. What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us. He that separated not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? Here comes who shall lay any charge of God’s elect? Who shall lay any charge of God’s elect? Who? Like Paul is saying? Where are they? I’m in fellowship with the Trinity. The Father, Son and Spirit have given me this mega assurance.

Who is he that condemneth in vs. 34. I’d like to be Samson saying these words. The Philistines be upon you. He rises up and shakes himself and doesn’t have the power. I think we do have it. We shake ourselves from all the sticky stuff and put off the old man and put on the Lord J.C. and believe these words. These words are saying something unique and powerful.

Who will separate us from this love in vs. 35? A perfect love in the Trinity is extended to us as believers. What could happen that would separate us? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword. The Philistines gauging out my eyes. The Philistines upon me and putting me in a harness and setting me on a millstone. Is there anything greater or more powerful than God? Even when I am in a dull zone and haven’t been in fellowship at all with God in my life, can that separate me from his love? No. What can separate me from his love? Nothing. When I don’t care, he cares. When I don’t believe, he believes ….he denies me in terms of my experience like Samson and I don’t find him in my practice but it’s a matter of believing in the nature of God. Samson is saying put my hands on the pillars one more time and down comes the house. God did not forsake Samson. That’s what I want to say for us. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. I am persuaded neither death or life or principalities or powers or things present or things to come shall separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

vs. 39. That’s true and I want to say if it’s true, why don’t I draw near to it and embrace it with all my heart. Why don’t I respond to that kind of love and enjoy it. When that sticky stuff comes, sometimes it sticks so good. Learn to say forget it. I’m not stirring it up, focus on it, lean on it, stay on it, meditate about it or live in the hurt of it. I’m going to shake myself free from it.

The grace of God that saved me will carry me and build me up and the mind of Christ will give me fellowship in the Trinity. Jesus could have had the cross sticking to him but he went through it and went to heaven. When he sees us, he sees victory. He is so filled with joy over what that cross means and what it means in our life in a personal way.

Now we have something we can boast in all the day long. Our God is mighty and has done mighty things for us.