7 Things A Seeing Christian Must Do - Dr. David Gibbs Jr.

Thank You church for allowing me to come and thank you for being in Sunday school turning your Bibles please to the book of 2nd Peter the book of 2nd Peter I want you to look at a list that's found in the Word of God and when you search the Scriptures the Bible is full of great lists that God put together and if you ask people name what we think would be the most important lists in the Bible people probably say well the Ten Commandments that's a list and other lists but this list has a special emphasis on it and I love to preach from this passage of Scripture because many great preachers Charles Haddon Spurgeon and I love the stories of how moody and others thought that this list was so critical that they required their preacher boys to memorize it a Lester roll-off how many of you remember the name Lester roll-off anybody he required all of his staff members to memorize this list and recite it once a day in unison it's a list of seven things that God says I'm gonna command you to add to your faith now no one will add these seven things by accident when we read the list you won't say well what I was doing that didn't even realize it no no these are all distinctive things and God says I want you to add them and then he gives this warning he says if you don't add them you'll be blind now that's written to Christians you'll be a blind Christian as you navigate life but he says if you do add them they'll make you what God wants you to be let's get ready to read the list of seven things and then we'll go through it verse one Simon Peter 2nd Peter chapter one verse one Simon Peter a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God in a Savior Jesus Christ and we are absolutely saved by the grace of God grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord according as his divine power have given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that have called us to glory and virtue remember you cannot live the Christian life in your ability or your power it has to be done by divine power jesus said without me you can do nothing whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust and beside this now here comes the list giving all diligence what a statement when is the last time you gave God all diligence on anything note he doesn't say much diligence he doesn't say great diligence he said this list is so critical to the Lord that I'm commanding all diligence now we demand diligence in life just among ourselves how many of you here have ever gone to the hospital for an operation hold your hand up would you the day the doctor operated on you just how diligent did you want him to be always say the day they operated on me I wanted all diligence can you imagine if the doctor walked in the surgery suite looked at you and said don't really much feel like I'm up to this today not even really sure I want to do it but let's just take a half a stab at it and see what happens you'd be instantly healed and out of there because you demand Allah just every time you get on an airplane you want those pilots to exercise all diligence now we come to God and God says you're my child but there's seven things I want you to put a special emphasis on in adding them to your life and I want you to do it with all diligence now please listen here this list is what I call a cumulative list you say brother Gibbs what do you mean by that God's gonna command seven things but he says I want you to add the first one and then to the first one I want you to add the second one and to the first two I want you to add the third one so you got to start with the first one don't start down in the list because God says I'm not just listing these I'm putting a priority on their order now look at what it says and beside this add to your faith here's number one virtue virtue you say brother Gibbs what is virtue it's an inner integrity an inner rightness an inner strength no one has that by accident we were just discussing a few moments ago the precious mother of your pastor's wife and what a virtuous lady you can't hide virtue you say well I'm virtuous it just doesn't show no no virtue especially in this culture absolutely stands out it's an inner integrity it's an inner strength it's an inner rightness and if someone were to walk around with me for a week would they say David Gibbs is virtuous if I were to walk around with you you'll never have it by accident would they say now there's a man of inner integrity there's a lady who is virtuous the 31st Psalm talks about the virtuous woman God says I'm commanding you to have that it's the first thing with all diligence I had a lady change my life I was in Texas and the pastor picked me up at an airport and the preacher said brother gives him way across town from the church I said I know that and he said I've got a lady in the hospital over here would you mind if I stopped and made a call and visited her real quick I said oh no sure and he said maybe you'd like to come in with me and visit with her I said preacher I'll be glad to go in the hospital with you I'll be glad to sit in the waiting room and pray but I I'm just not real comfortable seeing women in the hospital that I'm not familiar with he said I understand but he said let me tell you her story he said brother gives she and her husband are just two of the best members in our church that we've never ever had they have three beautiful kids she sings in the choir and teaches Sunday School her husband is one of our deacons and an usher and he said I mean you talk about great people when the church doors are open they're there boy when we need volunteers their hands go up before they know what we're volunteering for they're just great great people he said well a year ago they were in church with their three small kids and I still remember Sunday night saying goodbye to him as they left got their kids all buckled up and left the church parking lot at quarter to 6:00 in the morning her husband is at work he drives a semi he delivers building materials to construction sites and he said brother Gibbs he pulled his semi up at his first delivery stop and his semi was in line with other semis and he's sitting in the cab of his truck drinking a cup of coffee and he has his Bible on the steering wheel he said they're transferring steel i-beams overhead and he said a cable snapped he said a beam that weighed 40 tons 80,000 pounds started a deadly journey back to earth brother Gibbs it hit right over the top of the cab of his truck but brother Gibbs it didn't hit sideways it hit standing on end right over his head in a second it took his body and drove it through the bottom of the truck through the concrete underneath the truck and put his remains five feet in the dirt underneath they were in Sunday school in church like every Sunday but Monday morning he was an eternity can I remind you one Sunday will be your last one and very likely you will not know when it's gonna be that's why I tell everybody boy when you come to church sing like it's your last time pray like it's your last time listen with the intensity that this is the last time he said brother Gibbs we had his funeral she stood there with those three little kids he said 30 days to the day from when we buried her husband her mom and dad who are her only family we're coming across the state of Georgia at night and brother Gibbs a drunkard got on the road on the wrong side an unthinkably hit her mom and dad head-on and killed them my brother if she has no other family so we buried her husband and 30 days later we buried her mother and father she stayed absolutely faithful she'd sing in the choir and tears would come down her cheeks because heaven got real dear to her he said six months later she came to me and said preacher I don't know how to tell you this but I'm having really bad headaches sometimes when you're up there preaching and I'm in the choir I I just can't hardly see in my head hurts so bad and he said I told her Mary it's all the incredible stress you're under I'm sure it's okay but let's go to the big clinic and he said we we went to Mayo and he said brother give us what they found out as she has cancer of the lining of the brain now they've operated twice but barring a miracle she's only got a few days and brother gives she has no one to take those three kids nobody would you like to come in and just pray with her I said oh boy I can't imagine what this lady's gone through brother will let I know you've been there I walked it I had my Bible in my hand and I'm thinking God you got to give me something I don't know what to say to this precious lady we found her room and when we went in mercy was she sick she was in intensive care tubes were in her body everywhere her hair was all gone and you could see two huge incision marks where they top-rated part of her scalp was still lifted back I'll never forget her eyes you couldn't take black paint and paint her eyes any darker as we walked in I noticed there's nothing in the room just one picture on the tray table by her bed as I walked up and looked at it it's a picture of her three kids who she's gonna leave now her pastor walked up and touched her hand and when she opened her eyes her face lit up she said all past paster I'm so glad you got here and we could hardly here for all the tubes they had down our throat and so we're leaning over her listening she said I'm so glad you got here I got something I gotta tell ya he said Mary what is it you gotta tell me she said pastor while I don't know who's gonna raise my three children God has promised me that he loves them more than I do and he's promised me that he's doing all things well then she turned to me and she said brother Gibbs isn't God good oh yeah let me have my wish list let me have my druthers let me have everything going the way I want it to go for the next five minutes I never said a word I'm just leaning over her listening to her tell me how good god is and how God's met her every day finally her voice is now failing and she said brother Gibbs I don't have much more voice could I pray for you I've still not said a word I said you want to pray for me she said yeah I said ma'am I come up here to pray for you she said thank you but my needs are not let me pray for you and for the next few minutes she prayed for me finally she said I'm so sorry I got arrested I walked out in the hall with the preacher and I said pastor I feel like a fake I feel like a phony I'm telling you that woman has something I don't have he said David it's called virtue it's an inner strength and inner integrity and inner rightness and it's commanded by God and remember whatever God commands you to add to your faith he will enable you to add to your faith you can't do it in your strength why would you want to navigate life without the virtue the strength the integrity the honor oh wow can I warn you how many of you have children hold your hand up how many of you know kids are God's little spies I'm if you're aware of that they're watching and what my kids say dad's a man of virtue mom's a mama virtue Grandma and Grandpa are people of virtue would they say that of you oh listen it's the first thing God commands now look at how he kill me lovely then builds he says and add to your faith virtue and then he says and then divert you add knowledge a circle the word knowledge there we use this word we just don't use it too often this way we normally use knowledge to mean an assemblance of information we say what a knowledgeable mechanic or a knowledgeable professor they just know a lot and by the way you can know a lot and still be profoundly stupid how many of y'all have ever met an educated idiot right I mean they're everywhere we have a lawyer we deal with if you can imagine he has a law degree of medical degree and four earned PhDs now if you're gonna play trivia he's the guy you want on your side the only problem of it is he doesn't know how to do anything he'll call and say I need you to tell me what to do David you could have knowledge that's not the soap that's not the word used here the word knowledge here was the word for a closeness for knowing someone my wife and I I'm married now 53 years I knew her the day I married her but nothing like I know her today I know that's this word God says I want you to know me I want you to get close last week how close did you get he says start with virtue and then add this intimacy my son Matthew who's now a pastor in Southern California at the new life Baptist Church when he was about I think six or seven brother would let I came home off the road one day and and I came in sat down I'd been gone a couple of weeks and Matt spotted me I'm sitting in this big easy chair and he came and ran and jumped on me and hugged me and he said dad dad dad I want to talk to you I want to talk to you I said what do you want Matt what do you want never forget what he said what do you want Matt what do you want I don't want anything dad I just want to be with you I just want to talk to you how would you feel if your kids only came around when they wanted something and after they got what they wanted they didn't want you they just wanted what they could get I'm afraid sometimes that's how we go to God when's the last time you went to him just to be with him and spend time with him a joy of my life is when one of those grandkids climbs up in my my lap brother whirl at and says hey I just want to be with you Papa hug me hug me oh listen you have a heavenly father now it starts with virtue and then it goes to knowledge look at the third thing he says into knowledge temperance can I encourage you this is a tough one for me temperance means self-control how many of you here have ever made a fool of yourself hold your hand up would you yeah oh listen it takes quite a little bit to get me ticked off it does but once I'm ticked off I'm eloquent I want to say things and they're not complimentary and you know what the problem of it is you break the heart of God when you do that when I'm out of control when you're out of control it breaks God's heart in our ministry we deal with a lot of really cantankerous lawyers and politicians who cuss us out regularly I mean I there may be people in their ministry that get cussed at more than us but I'm not aware of them and we'll have to keep reminding myself stay under control don't let them pull your mouth into this now it starts with virtue and by the way I don't think you can get under control without virtue and then it says add an intimacy that knowledge and then to knowledge temperance look at the fourth thing and then he says to temperance at patience my simple definition is patience is letting God do what he wants when he wants he knows the timetable that's right now my problem is I want life on my timetable god here's what I want and here's when I want it and God says I want you to leave the timetable in my hands I know what you need and I know when you need it and that's patience come be here I've ever taken a road trip with small kids hold your hand a twitching in that a great experience we there yet now they just asked that question 10 minutes ago and it's an all-day trip that they they have no patience and you know what God says I want you to be comfortable waiting on me waiting on the Lord is a command and it's in the active it's not a passive command it's an active command the word students here can tell you with far more detail what that means but I'm telling you I have to remind myself dad I want your timetable we get our lawyers down on their knees every day and we say God give us patience add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness whoa would anybody watching you get a good view of Jesus Christ godliness it means literally Christlikeness godliness you say well yeah but brother Gibbs that's not realistic no you're exactly wrong whatever God commands God enables you can do these seven things the Lord's not sitting in heaven this morning saying yeah boy that is some list we laid on them they'll never be able to do that the way he put that list together and it's in a command form and by the way it's written in the imperative command form is because he fully expects David Gibbs to do it he fully expects you to do it but he says I want you to be christ-like christ-like I was witnessing to a judge once and he says David have a very unique situation I said what's that judge an unsaved man he said I've lived in the same house for 30 years and he said I've had the same neighbors on all four sides cross the street in back right-left had the same neighbors for 40 years and he said all four of my neighbors are what you would call saved born-again people and he said I've watched him for 40 years and he says it seems to me that what upsets me upsets them seems to me when I go to pieces they go to pieces and he said I've been watching and and he said here's my question surely your God wants better representatives than that and that's the word he used better representatives than that I said Judge I don't know who your neighbors are have no idea but I said I'm not worried about that I'm worried about me when you watch me what do you see when somebody watches you what do they see when you pillow your head tonight are you gonna be able to say for God's glory to the best of my ability I left a christ-like trail today that's the command and to godliness he said add brotherly kindness and I want to lump the last one with it and to brotherly kindness charity the Word of God may the love of God I was in a church beautiful church like this one and during the altar call a very old early lady with a young boy came down to the front and the people in the church really a nice church were way out dressed for this dear lady she was in rags and when she came forward she looked up at me and she went like this and so I went down to talk to her I said can I help you she said I hope so she said brother gives this is my grandson his mom just died from a drug overdose his father is in prison serving three life sentences for murders he's committed and the court just gave this boy to me she said now I have no money but she said I want to raise this boy for God she said my husband's last illness took all of our funds and she said you can tell this is a really fine church these are really high-class people here and she said these were her words we're poor we're not fine and she said I just wondered if you do a church where we'd fit I said I sure do I said I'm so glad you asked I know what she says where is it I said you're standing in it because if you don't fit I don't fit if you don't fit Jesus doesn't fit listen but for the grace of God that could be you that could be me I said you gotta let these people love you and show you kindness boy did they ever that boy now if I'm right as in his third year of Bible College on his way to the mission field that church adopted that grandmother that boy those are things were commanded to do command now look at what he says then in verse eight for these things these seven things be in you and abound that word abound really changes that sentence you said I got a little of that a little of that a little of that cuts us no no no no no I want this to abound in David gifts I want this to abound in you if these things be in you and abound I love these next words they make you Jim Berg at Bob Jones University wrote a book on this passage he called these God's building blocks that's a great statement they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge there's that word for intimacy again of the Lord Jesus Christ have you ever felt like boy have plateaued a little bit I don't know that I'm growing as much as I used to well here's the building blocks but verse nine is frightening but he that lacketh these things it's say out loud the next word blind say it again blind now wait about this is to Christians God says if you don't have these seven things you're blind have you ever seen a Christian you say can't he see what he's doing to his family can't he see what he's doing to the testimony of Christ can't he see what he's doing to himself what he's doing to the church probably not because they're blind that's by decree of God but he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sense I was in Thailand anybody here ever been to Thailand hold your hand up anyone number of you you want to go if you ever get the chance because like nowhere I'm aware of on planet Earth they drive the craziest in Thailand of anything I've ever seen I mean if you like incredibly unbelievable uncontrolled driving Thailand's the place to go that's bad in other places but Thailand's just a world unto it so lines on the road mean nothing the colour of lights mean nothing a light goes red that don't do anything if the traffic on your site is stopped we're on an eight-lane Highway it's not move on our site they go drive into the oncoming traffic I'll never forget I got in a cab at the airport first time I was there we're pulling out and we whacked the car in front of us just welcome I said yeah you know move boss you know booth and if the car in front it doesn't move they went them and you're there about a week and you get you see I can't hit him again hit him again see if you can I mean you just you get with it and they got these little motorbikes that just buzz everywhere it's an amazing thing to be in I'm there helping a missionary our ministry helps normally about a hundred to a hundred and fifty missionaries a year with their legal problems and foreign lands and I'm there helping a ministry and we're on our way to court I'm in the back seat of a cab it's chaotic traffic in the morning a trip that if the traffic weren't there would probably take 10 to 15 minutes takes two hours but we have come to where there's an intersection of five roads now they don't do anything like yield to the right I mean it's just the guy with the nastiest attitude goes first and orange just honking you know the when I was first there they said you understand to us if your brakes are broker your horns broke you fix the horn because brakes don't matter horns do and that's how they drive well I'm in the backseat of the car and we're at this five Road intersection and it's just chaos and they hit each other they scraped their cars up they hit each other and over there pedestrians do not have the right away cars do if you hit a pedestrian you've done nothing wrong the first time I was in a cab and we knocked a pedestrian now I said hey the cab driver said he should get out of the way I mean it's just so alien to us well we're on our way to court I'm talking to the missionary there and I don't know where the cab driver screamed she died you see she died and he yelled so loud I choked I spilt papers and finally I looked and what he was pointing at was a beautiful Thai teenage girl I'm gonna guess she's 15 16 years old but she's blind she has no eyes and she's trying to cross that chaos and she's got her arm out like this and her heads up like this she's trying to hear her way through all that pandemonium I looked up and she got hit it knocked her down threw her a distance probably from here to that chair oh no she hit and that little girl stood back up and pulled her arm in and the bone was through the skin and blood was just coming out and she reached out with the other arm I went to open my drawer to go help her and I hit the car next to me the missionary did the same the cab drivers yell unless you get out you'll die too I thought dear God she can't see she's caught in this chaos and she's blind the Bible says that's me that's you without these seven things but he that lacketh these things is I don't know what happened to that young girl I don't know I just know the vision of her is etched on my mind doing everything she could to make it but blind with all diligence add to your faith last week's gone nobody gets another shot at it but if God tarries his coming and he gives you the gift of life next week can be unlike any you've ever lived in your life you can add to your faith just remember it starts with that inner integrity that inner rightness that inner strength that correctness it starts with virtue by the grace of God he says I'll help you add to your faith you have the privilege to be in a church where the Word of God is carefully taught you have the privilege to bye-bye you realize there's many Christians around the world that there'll be hundreds of them and they share one Bible how privileged we are but I remind you were called to be doers not hearers we're called to be what God wants us to be with all diligence add to your faith bow your heads father thank you thank you for loving us oh this morning may your word speak to our hearts heads are bowed how many of you say brother gives God's word spoke to my heart this morning my heart's been touched if that's true hold your hand up right now hold them up father you see my hand you see these precious hearts God may we purpose now not just to know this passage but to do this passage I pray in Jesus name and all God's children together said amen

Channel: First Baptist Church of Bridgeport

Views: 11,408

Rating: 4.8444443 out of 5

Keywords: David Gibbs Jr., Christian Law Association, First Baptist Church of Bridgeport, First Baptist, First Baptist Church, Preaching on faith, sermons by great preachers, rb ouellette, jd howell, preaching on love, preaching on jesus christ, preaching on jesus, what does jesus say about love, church preaching video, baptist church preaching, independent fundamental baptist, ifb, independent fundamental baptist preaching, kjv, king james version

Id: pDl2yZHyz-Y

Length: 38min 18sec (2298 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 19 2018