We have no idea what tomorrow holds for us. Our lives are short, just a span of time. Let the Word dwell in us richly. Get happy in Jesus and believe God for revival and brokenness. (James 4:13-15; James 1:19-21)

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller
Sermon 11893
9:00 AM on 5/31/2020

P. Schaller –

I’d like to read some names we have in the Bible for Jesus. Jesus to us is everything. For God spared not his
own Son and gave him up for us all, how shall will he not with him freely give us all things? Who
is he but the Advocate, the Almighty, the Alpha and Omega. He is the Amen. The one with the
final word. He is the Arm of the Lord, the Author and Perfecter of our faith. Who is he? The
Author of Salvation, the beginning of the Creation of God, the beloved Son, the Branch, the
Bread of life. Who is he? The Chief Shepherd, the Chosen One of God, the Christ of God, the
Creator, the Deliverer, the Door, the Eternal Father, the Faithful Witness. He is the one that will
tell us the truth always, the First and the Last, the First Born from the Dead, the Forerunner.

He is the Glory of the Lord. He is God, God Blessed, God the Lord. He is the Good Shepherd, the
Great High Priest on our behalf, the Head of the Church, the Heir of all things, The Holy Servant,
the Holy and Righteous One, the Holy One of God, the Holy One of Israel, the Horn of Salvation.
He is the I AM, the Image of God, Emmanuel, Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Judge of Israel, the King,
the King Eternal, the King of the Jews. He is the King of Kings, the King of the Nations, the
Lawgiver, the Lamb, the Lamb of God, the Leader, the Life, the Light of the world, the Lion of
the Tribe of Judah, the Lord of All, the Lord of Glory, the Lord of Lords. He is the Man of
Sorrows. Who is Jesus? He is our everything.

He is our Mediator. He is the Messenger of the Covenant. He is the Messiah, the Mighty God, the Mighty One, the Morning Star, the Nazarene, the Only Begotten of God. He’s our Passover, Prince of Life, Prince of Peace, Prophet, the Redeemer, the Resurrection and Life. Who is Jesus? He is our Rock. Praise God! The Root of
David, the Rose of Sharon, the Ruler, the Ruler of the Kings, The Savior, the Seed of the Woman,
the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls. He is Shiloh, Son of the Blessed, Son of David, Son of
God, Son of the Most High, Son of Man, Son of Righteousness, Source of eternal salvation. He is
the true life, the True Vine, the Truth. We gather together in his name. It’s in the Name of God,
Christ. Who is he? The Witness, the Wonderful Counselor, the Word. (Prayer).

We could start our sermon by turning to 2 Corinthians 5. We had a beautiful graduation yesterday morning at 10 in
the morning. The graduates’ photos are here. Yesterday, we were standing up here and they
were standing up here along on the roof top. It was a memorable day and I think in the future
graduating classes will say we would like to have a graduation like in 2020. We want to be on
the roof top. We also are thinking of our Convention that we have in August. We think of having
this as a venue in the future. Somebody said to me, have you lost any step in this process in the
last few months? I said, no. I don’t think we missed a step.

Maybe we have gained two not because of us but because of God’s love and grace and his Spirit that dwells in us and helps us look at life a certain way. Not everybody looks at life the right way. I just changed my message.
I’ll turn to 2 Kings 4 and use that text. It does relate to our 9:00. In the 9:00 service, we spoke
on the book of James on making plans but not including God in the plans in James 4:15. How
important it is that we would have a spiritual life where we would be able to hear God.
Sometimes we don’t hear him and build our life on what he has said. Matthew 7:24-26 a man who
hears my words and does them is like a man who builds his house on a rock, so when the storm
comes or the coronavirus or sudden death of a loved one or a broken relationship, a broken
heart, the house will stand.

They say that the suicide hotlines in the country are six hundred percent higher now than a year ago. Why is there that emptiness, that hurt, that fear, that loneliness? Because we can’t hear. We don’t hear. Yes, we hear a lot of news and reports and opinions and Facebook postings of chatter and words. A lot comes from anger and frustration.
But wouldn’t it be worthwhile to hear what the still, small voice of God would say to me. He
that hears my teaching and does what it says, he is like a man building his house on rock. But
the other house falls down. The storm comes and it’s washed away. I’ve been in different parts
of the world. I’ve seen houses without foundations swept away by a flooded river. You’ve seen
ice melting and destroying a home. We’ve seen hurricanes destroy homes.

These things destroy lives. Be swift to hear James says, and slow to post on Facebook. Let me say it the way James said it. Be swift to hear and slow to speak. Why are we slow to speak? Because I don’t know all
things. Because I don’t have fear and strife in my heart like the proverbs says. Strife in the heart
produces slander. People attack other people because of what is in the heart. I’m angry. I’m
afraid, so I speak a lot. I talk a lot. I express myself a lot. This is so filled, so empty with what I
want to say this morning. There is something you and I have that is so rock solid. The psalmist
said, set me on a rock higher than myself. A man had a girlfriend in high school, and he loves
her, and they broke up. True story.

They broke up and he went home, and he took his life for a girl. No, it was not the girl. It was his broken heart, his disappointment. It was his life collapsed. His life was shattered. Why? Because there wasn’t content. Content. How do I get it? Well, Jesus came. Imagine Jesus walking here. I read it early this morning about 4 in the morning as I
woke up early for some reason. I just started to read the gospel of Mark and God was speaking
to my heart of how Jesus came and how miraculous it was and how unusual and how humble
God is and how good God is. And how he came, and he cares. Everything he is doing and saying
I care. I care for people. I care for their brokenness. I care for their emptiness. I care for people.
I came to save them. I came to teach them. I came to heal them. I am Christ. I am God in the
flesh in Hebrews 1:3.

The brightness of his gory and the express image of his person. When we see
Him, we see the Father. When we see Jesus, we see the nature of God. When we hear him –
listen to that – when we hear him that’s why our church services are important. That’s why our
connections with each other. Norm Myers and his group that walks around the track and
prayers in the morning. The different groups, Gary Groenewald and others that meet and P.
Serradji walks this parking lot with different people praying and thinking about our vision, our
Bible college, our faith and reaching the country, reaching the world with the message. If we
hear, we will help others to hear.

That’s the key to life. It isn’t that my circumstances are good. It’s that God is with me when my circumstances are bad and also when they are good. We learn to walk with him. Psalm 73, none that I have on earth but only you and listen to this, none in heaven but only you. Why is so little written in the Scripture, Revelations 20-22, that describes heaven to us? In a way, there is a lot there but only three chapters. It’s telling us about heaven but it’s
not a lot of material. There’s a city and the size of it and the numbers inside and the way it is.
Why is there so little? We will not be occupied with heaven itself except in the context of God
himself. That’s who we know is God. Now we get quiet and we hear. I listen to the doctrine, to
messages at least one every day. We’ve been taught that for decades and we live that way and
receive something here and something there. Feed yourself. Be careful what you listen to.

Be careful what you are reading. Be careful what you are receiving. Be careful how you make your
plans because it might not happen. We know not what a day will bring forth. The passed
months people have found I can’t go to an NBA basketball game. I can’t go to a golf
tournament. I can’t go to my favorite restaurant. I can’t go on my vacation. I cannot travel here
or there and so on. I must be home. That’s okay. I learn how to think about things and bring
God into my life in everything. When God has a way, these are good times. These are times of
opportunities. These are times when God is speaking to hearts. These are good times of grace
and love, opportunity times. 2 Kings 4. Wed. night service is usually drive in.

This Wednesday keep your eye on our postings. I’m not sure because its going to be 91 degrees that day. I’m not sure if we will be outside or inside. 2 Kings 4:1, this woman was a believer. Her husband who had
passed was a Bible college student and he was connected with Elijah the prophet who had the
school of the prophets. She could say my husband went to Bible college and now we are living
in some kind of poverty and now they want to take my two children and pay the debt. My two
children will be slaves. There is a turn of events that’s a great disappointment to her. I think this
can happen to anyone of us. I think in the past week I’ve known five people that have passed
into eternity and people that I’ve known.

A turn of events, someone passing, changes, disappointments. I lost my husband and now I’m going to lose my two sons. But the good news in the story is that the woman went to the right person. She went to Elijah. Yesterday we had a barbeque up in Harford County with many people from the graduating class. We gathered up
there for a barbeque and had a beautiful time. I was taking note of the families and extended
families. We were rejoicing in what God has done by teaching us how to walk in the Spirit and
how it affects our families, our relationships and our friendship. It doesn’t mean there couldn’t
be a turn of events where there could be a great disappointment or something broken. Yes,
that happens. Yes, with churches and believers.

Yes, that happens. Paul went to prison. Timothy seemed like he had a tendency to fear and timidity. We see Jesus with the disciples forsaking him at the cross. We see Peter or James martyred. Steven stoned. God has not promised us a rose garden, but he’s promised us his Son, and can we hear him? Can we hear him before the
trouble ever comes? Can we hear him before the poverty comes? Can we hear him before we
lose our house or our child or our health? Can we hear him today? Elijah, this is my problem.
Elijah said to her, what shall I do for you? Tell me, what have you in your house? What do you
have? I have way back in the cupboard, deep down in the cellar, way back tucked away in my
heart I have some oil. I got that oil in a meeting.

I got that oil when my husband ministered to me. I got that oil long time ago. I have a little bit of oil left. Elijah said to her, go outside and borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. I was thinking of
different kinds of vessels we could come up with Styrofoam cups, plastic, potters’ plants,
barrels, empty barrels, oil barrels, wastepaper baskets, plastic pails. We could come up with all
kinds of vessels. Coke a cola tin cans. We could come up with all kinds of vessels we could go
out and borrow. Elijah said, don’t borrow a few. Get the empty vessels. In a way, I think that
means that the answer is coming but maybe not the way I expected. I wish he had pulled out
my credit card and paid my bill on the spot. I wish he pulled out a stack of bills and gave me the
cash and that solved my problem.

But instead, God is asking me to live by faith. Because when you borrow empty vessels you don’t now what you will get inside them. You don’t know what is coming. That’s like life. When you come to a service like this one, it’s like gathering an empty vessel because you don’t know what is coming. There needs to be a vessel for the oil because
the oil is coming. It’ going to be poured out. It’s coming. Does it come in one time? No, it might
be another vessel another time. Another empty vessel. Another decision. I was reading the
biography of D. L. Moody and they said if he had not become an evangelist, he was so hard
working and so administratively capable. He was already making thousands of dollars and that’s
when you were making $4 a day.

He was making thousands of dollars a month just in his business capability. They said he would have become one of the wealthiest men in the United Sates, but he had a time when he was working at the YMCA. This is in 1860, ’61 and ’62. He was ministering to Civil War soldiers who were dying from the battlefield wounds and bringing them
to Jesus. He was gathering ragamuffin young kids out of the ghetto areas of Chicago and
preaching to them. He lied down on a bench and thought about it. It was a long struggle. It took
him months to decide. I want to go into business. I know I can do this. I want to bring the gospel
of Jesus Christ. He made that decision. He borrowed some empty vessels, but God was coming
to answer him and fill him with not only the oil of the Holy Spirit but revival.

They say he led maybe a million souls in his lifetime, and he traveled a million miles. Sometimes he did in two
weeks’ time 19 different meetings. He crossed the Atlantic a number of times to bring the
message there too. He wanted to meet Charles Spurgeon and George Mueller. These men were
very important to him. Vs. 4-5. God is like a God of secrets. He doesn’t tell his secrets to
everybody. He doesn’t show it, but he’ll show it to you, Deuteronomy. 29:29. He shares his secrets with us
and our children and our children’s children. That there is something we learn about walking
with God. You realize how good he is, how great he is, how much he answers, what he does for
you. How he closes a door and opens a door. You find that God is leading you in your life.

I was talking with some of the brothers and we were walking about our wives, how unusual it was
and how God gave me a wife, and how that happens. The whole thing and I could never do
that. I could not figure it out and so on. We just had fellowship about it. It’s more than that. It’s
not about the wife but the fact that God is God and God can do anything. God can speak. God
can answer. God can raise the dead. God can cast out demons. God can save a soul and change
a heart. God can take an addiction away. God can satisfy a person. It’s not like you can go on
the internet and Google and buy some God and have Federal Express or Amazon Prime deliver
God to your door. It’s different.

It’s something in your heart. This woman had to make some decision. We’ll get the empty vessels. I trust you Elijah. I don’t understand it, but I’ll do it. Do you really think that will answer my problem? Do you really think that is what I need to do? Yes. That’s what you do. This is about God. This is different. Trust him. Believe in him. Walk with
him. She did it, started pouring the oil. Shut the door. Nobody really saw where the oil came
from. But they knew. Same in John 2 when the waters turned into wine. They didn’t really know
but the people that put the water in the jars and pulled out the wine they knew. Others didn’t
know. Where did the wine come from? How did this happen? They knew. Just like you know.
You know how it works. You know how good it is. You know how precious it is.

Let me warn all of us. We have something in us that goes up and down. We don’t learn how to really hear and be consistently walking in a faith walk. We are people that are – let me finish the story. Vs. 4-6.
The oil stopped flowing. It stopped. Bring me another vessel. There isn’t any. Yes, there must
be. Bring another one. It’s still coming. No, there are no more vessels. Maybe we have not
because we ask not. Maybe we don’t have because we don’t have a measure of faith. If I give
God a teacup, maybe that’s what I get back. If I give God a swimming pool, that’s what I’ll get
back. If I give God my life, that’s what he’ll do for me. If I give God my situation, it’s God that
will help me and answer. Vs. 7. Living on the rest. Let’s finish with that thought today. I felt that
too. I’m living on the rest. I got some oil leftover.

I got extra oil I can live on. I’m living on sweet memories. I’m living on a heritage. I got oil left over that it can live on. That’s what I want for all of us today to think about. Don’t underestimate the day of small beginnings. Don’t
underestimate the value of your trials. Don’t give up. I think the people that are giving up are
the emotional people that are so hurt and afraid and troubled and worried and they cannot
digest life. They don’t have a capacity. They are so hurt and emotional and talking and
depressed and judging and all kind of things that happen from the human heart. Let’s think of it
this way. Get quiet before God and say, Lord, what? He says I want you to have a faith vision for
Baltimore city. I want you to see every child in Baltimore city as an opportunity. I want you to
see your neighborhood as an opportunity.

I want you to see your country as a needy place that needs to hear Christ and evangelism in the ministry of love. I want you to talk about forgiveness at work. At work, I want you to talk about truth and grace and talk about faith. I want you to talk about humility and have a testimony and say God exalts the humble . God will answer
prayer. God cares about you. God loves you. You have a future. Don’t let the external things for
you define your life by losing a girlfriend. I say to God, you are my God. That woman is not my
God. You are my God. My life is not defined by a woman. My life is defined by God and what
God says. It says gather the empty vessels. Empty vessels mean nothing. Jesus said, do it and
trust me. I will fill them. I will satisfy you. I will help you. I will lead you. I will show you. That
young man God could give him a wife in his perfect will, and it would be the best thing.

God can give a business. God can help me. God can teach me. God can provide for us and lead us and
help us. Lastly, there is a lot of energy over here on Facebook. A lot of chatter and talking and
conspiracy this and that and all this emotional and everything and hatred. Minneapolis is on
fire. Why? Because of emotion. Because injustice. Because of a storm. Because of something
went wrong and people have a reaction. That is not God. That is not God. Where is God? God is
in the still small voice. He’s in the hiding place and the pavilion from the strife of tongues. He is
in Christ. He is on a cross. He is resurrected. He is in the empty tomb.

No, he’s out of the tomb. Th empty tomb is empty, and he’s ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit into his world that we would love like God loves and we would forgive like God forgives. We would pray like
God prays. We would serve like God serves. And we would have the oil and the anointing and
the blessing and the strength and the energy and the mission and the vision and more churches
would be planted, more disciples made, more pastors raised up, more prayer meetings
attended, more souls won, more things changes, more blessing coming. That’s his will.

Amen.

Please enjoy these sermon notes from the messages preached at Greater Grace Church in Baltimore. These notes are provided to aid in your study and understanding of the Word. Note that these notes do not represent complete, word-for-word transcriptions. Also, they may contain omissions as well as some errors in spelling and structure, etc., as we attempt to provide them as soon as possible. Our hope is that these notes serve as a way to help you search and connect with messages on related subjects and passages. Thank you for your interest in the ministry of Greater Grace.