Sermon from April 12, 2026

Today we will study about making and keeping vows with God.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:26

And maybe I could tell the third thing is what they were doing. Four explain how you do it.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

They had a general car and concerns. Other times it would be sometimes they would say that when you knew because the teacher intuition that they wanted something from me. Okay. I knew some students would truly, truly not ever home because there had been a difficult situation the night before. Others, it was a repeated habit. Let me tell you something. I'm not God, but I can kind of read students, just like teachers read their students, just like V can read your children, and they do the same thing. But let me tell you something. Just like we read our students most of the time, the Almighty God can read us all of the time. He knows us, he created us. So the question is, how do we approach God? Think about it this morning. When you first put up on campus, what was going through your mind? Don't tell me just think about it. And you came in this room with remaining ready for worship. What was going through your mind? It could have been happy just to see others. It could have been telling because you want to talk to God about something, and anything in between. But what I want us to think about today is a cynical title I've put up here called Reference in the Presence. How do we approach the Almighty God? Think about that. Or will we come to His house? I'm not talking about the old school, what I call the old school way of coming into God's house.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

When you come in here and you don't wear a hat and you're real quiet, you don't run up in that lounge, you don't crawl up over there, you don't need candy.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

I said closer for the candy today, but even now. I'm I'll forgive you for that. I'm talking about how do we approach God with our heart? Do we come for him for help? Of course we do it fine. Do we come for him for comfort? Do we come for his people we can get something out of him? I put a couple ideas up here. Some of these are scripture. The person up there talks about scripture tells us in the Psalms uh who can approach the hills of the Lord, we can come into his presence. It says those with clean hands and a pure heart. Do we attempt to come before God with a clean hands and a pure heart? Other scripture tells us coming to Thanksgiving. Little song we used to sing. I'm going to space out the songs. I was in our courts and praise. I'll read against courts with Thanksgiving in my heart. Do we come to him with persistence? What in the Bible? That constantly went before the Lord asking for a job. Just persistent. Do we come to prayer to be in front of him with city? That's scriptural. But what about the next one? Do we come to his presence with confidence? Well, scripture tells us in Hebrew. California's own praise of cotos, right? But then I threw a couple extras in there that are not scriptural. Go back to the days of your kids when they're growing up. You remember this little thing that became popular while called a magic date ball? You would ask a question and you'd shaped it, and however it turned out an answer to come, and you thought that was an answer. Do we approach God like that? God, I need an answer to this. Give me an answer. No, we can't grab you and shake to. But do we expect to control him like that? And he'll give us an answer. Do we treat God if we come for him like he is our employee? If you run a business, you know, we're gonna want to control him, you tell the voice what to do. Do we go before God and say, God, we got to do this? Or do we approach God as a friend? One-on-one in the sitting down talking with him, listening to him. How do we approach the Almighty God? That's important because Solomon who's written this is gonna talk about that today. In all his wisdom, he's gonna remind us that there's some ways that we can approach God that are in vain. Another way to say it that are sinful. And the last thing we want to do is come before a holy God and commit sin in front of Him. Okay, so we're gonna find what are some ways that we do this. We don't come before God in sin. I'm not talking about sin that's taking place until we come to worship, I'm talking about we come to worship, coming to be in his presence, and the actions, things that we do in that very moment are sinful. That's what we're looking at. Okay, so let's take the left of these. But as we do remember another verse, talking about being in the presence of God. Uh in Psalm 46, 10, this whole chapter talks about God being our refuge. The idea here that people were going, but David people were going through a difficult time. And God goes as far as to say in his presence is this what? Make promises, screams, jump them down, shout, beg. No, he says, be still, be still, don't look. Listen, be still, and know that I am God. It's almost like God saying, Be still. Watch what I'm going to do. You think he can handle that? If he says he can, you know he can, but he didn't have to tell us he can because he's already done that because of his creation and all the ways he showed his power, we know that he is God, and we are not. He goes on to say that I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted in the earth. So another way to come before God is to be still and just know that he is God. Now tell me that's not easy. In today's world, I could uh answer quick. I got a problem, I'm gonna fix ASAP. I don't like to wait. I want to figure out what I can do to solve it or how quickly can God solve it. Sometimes I just need you to be still, and of course, we need to go with confidence and request you to expand to do that. So to catch us going to be as we're gonna see that when we go before his presence, let's make sure we're doing it with reverence. Like it said, reverence in his presence. So let's take a look at these Ecclesiastes chapter 5, verse 1. Look what it says. It says, Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than offering a sacrifice of fools where they do not know they are doing evil. So this first part, how are we to come before his presence? It says there, guard your steps. Now, when I think about guarding my steps, everything I'm gonna walk up and I'm gonna look down and make sure I pick my leg up and guard my step. Not necessarily physically thinking about guarding your step, so much it is about the concept of coming to him with caution. The idea I'm gonna come into his presence, let's listen not quickly, right? But come in there and say, Here, here's my letter stuff, da da da. I'll be this. If you'll do this, I'll do this and make promises. Let's come in with precaution. Another way to say it isn't come in with a reverence type of fear, knowing that he is God and we are not. It says, guard your steps and go to the house of God. Then it goes on to say to draw near to you. To listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools because they do not know that they are doing evil. Is it easy to listen? No, not at all. It's funny when you heard the old saying you got one mouth and two ears, and there's a reason for that. You need to listen or you need to talk. But that's not easy to do. Some of us, maybe all of us, speed now just a gift. Not a spiritual gift, but a gift. And that gift is to get. We like to talk. Could it be that sometimes that talking can get us in trouble? We make promises that we said we're gonna do this, and we really can't fulfill it because we don't know what's gonna happen later in the day or the next day. Look what he says here. Come near, draw near to listen. It's better that we come to God, pray to listen, than try to make these sacrifices of fools. Now, many times in scripture we see that God says he prefers our worship, our heart more than our sacrifices. There, today it might be, well, I'm gonna commit to doing this, or I'm gonna give you this, or I'm giving you this much of my name, or whatever, whatever. Well, what does it say about those sacrifices? Those sacrifices come from people that they call fools, people that don't have it all together. The sense that they don't know that they're doing evil. So, how is it that you can do evil by sacrificing for God? Well, for the fool is saying they're gonna sacrifice and not do it, or doing it with the wrong motive, or better yet, not completing what they're saying they're going to do. Little side to the right foot tonight. Acts chapter 5, Ananias is the final. They were on that bandwagon because everybody was giving money to the church. They were on the bandwagon to do it the way that many people were doing it where they had possessions that they would sell and give that money over to the church. A great way to help everybody out from church that was in need. The problem was they were acting like tools. What do you mean by that? Well, they said they were gonna give a certain amount of money, and then they lied. They kept a part of the back. What happened? Well, come tonight and we'll talk more about it. But the evil they were doing was simply lying to God. They have what we call liarrhea. You ever heard an ounce? Where you just say one line and make another line and make another line, you just keep on lying. God don't like lies, he don't like sin, he wants the truth. Verse 2, These Askies chapter 5. Look at what it says. Be not rash with your mouth. In other words, change that tones. James talks about that, right? He says, Don't let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few.

unknown 12:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

I don't know about you, but I've had the chance at different times in my life to be in front of what I would call important people. And it would make me nervous every time I had an intel. Uh I can't remember the earliest time, or some of the bigger times that I was in front of important people, was when I had the opportunity to meet former president George Bush out in Texas. Well, that making me real nervous at this uh event that we were at is he was sitting at the table right next to us, uh the next table over, and then earlier that night we had a chance to actually meet him and talk. Well, what do you say? So ex-president. You know, rather than your deal president, that's right. We're about the function, the middle function. Well, I'd get nervous, so I go to the same. I think George Service now is about it. Didn't they have a chance to meet with somebody? Maybe you see the T and D, maybe you didn't. Okay, this person has a very important job. You serve their attorney general, that supports themselves. He's a leadership, we're gonna pray for our leadership. Well, what do you say to the attorney general who's right to be governor? So right besides, all good and easy to be. I still got a little bit nervous. How do you took the president's ghost to rig about him a bit? Same thing, what do you say? We'll be quiet, or you can just start asking questions and just okay about that and that is the wall. Word says don't be rash with your mouth. Don't let your heart be case together or before God, because God's in heaven and you're on earth. Let your words be cute. That's not easy to do sometimes, especially when we're nervous. But it's one thing to sit in front of a politician, a president, versus go into the presence of the Almighty God. What is the God who wants? He wants our immediate, he wants our love, he wants our relationship. Think about these kids that would bring me in school. Does he want the boys that just come by on this one? Or the one to say, I ain't doing that in the first. Or does he want the one to say, Oh, I messed up, you give this, forgive me, I'm sorry. Stop with all the words. Be still God's text. Come with new words. Something to think about? You want to talk about your records for a second? We're assuming that one can control God. Do we ever come to God think that we can control them? Well, God, if you're gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. God doesn't work that way. He wants a block relationship. He's not somebody we can just tell us what we do all the time. We're not God, we're not his boss. Another thing to think about is we can't impress God, nor do we have anything to offer him. He's the creator of the universe, he's self-sustained. He doesn't need, he desires a relationship with us. We can give him of ourselves, but let's be comfortable for his presence what we said. Because he is a holy God, and we are sinful people. But in article 3, it says, for a dream comes with much business, and a fool's mouth will give any worth. This is just a problem. We have to be careful here because we're not talking about a dream that you'd have a dream like um you have my anxiety and you've got you've dropped something weird, or it's not like a special dream where like you go and you play down in place, like people characters would do and God's fit in the dream. This is more a metaphorical dream, like somebody has like a big dream. You ever heard somebody say, Oh, he's got big dreams? They're real ambitious and goodness, something's gonna happen, but you kinda know it's probably not gonna happen. I'm trying to be negative about it, but you just kinda know. Well, with this proverb, the idea is that the fool seeks to advance himself before God with great promises and great baths. Why fool? Because they know you cannot keep. Don't be a fool before God made promises that you cannot keep. We saw the positive, we saw the negative, and now we see the proper. We go to the next part. Same process. We're gonna see a positive, make the bows to God, we'll see a negative. What happens when you break it, and then we'll see a proper, then we'll break out his dead. Look at this four. It says when you bow about the God, do not delay and hang. For he has no pleasure in fools. And what you've saying, let your yes be yes, and let your no be no. Should we make vows to God? Lord Jesus and do it yes. But don't do it quickly without thinking through it and being ready to commit to it. Back in the old days, they'd have a massive like a battle. Wouldn't have drink juice of one we call other vows to be made. Let's be cautious. We make vows to God, not the fellow. What happened in an assessment Sapphire? Well, read Acts 5 and come and I down married. No, if not, check it out. Let's be cautious of the vows that we made. We made a vow we need to fulfill it. Next part, verse 5, it says, It's better that you should not vow, then you should bow, not pay. Simple love. You're gonna make a vow for fill. It's best to not make a vow and keep your mouth shut and don't sin, and you're gonna do it and not include less of sin. But you have to be careful with that. Verse 6 Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was in the state. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hand? Imagine making a vow before God, the heaven command of God, or an angel, or if you make it to church, the pastor, or whoever's in charge of the seating that vow, I said, Oh, I can't do it. Well, if you're breaking a vow, you're good, you're not good enough for sin for God to be in God's eyes. That is a sin. This is why she's got to be angry, because he did sin, of course, and destroying the works in your hands. So you make this vow, you can't promise and give me this God on you, since you can't be manipulated, but you're trying to make the vow and you don't fulfill it. That's sin. What do we need to do? Look at the problem. For when the dreams increase and words grow, meaning there's vanity. But God is the one you must hear. Teacher, Solomon in his kid, who learned a lot, was very wise. He knew that it would be in vain to go before God and make his thousand and make his promises to do all this walking and not be treated or water. He knew that. What's he want you to do? Fear God. That fear God is not be afraid, come and shake it over. God's gonna get to know that's coming before his presence with all. That's getting reverence in the presence. Why should we be quiet before God and fulfill our vows? Well, number one, we're not all knowing, so we don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. I can come and say, God, if you tell my law, then I'll do this. But you don't know that you can do whatever that this is because you don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. Something could change in your situation, you'd not be able to fill the vow, and you lie with God. That's a sin. God doesn't like sin. But let me mention it to you this in a minute, waiting. I'll be honest with you. This this concept of sermon is quite difficult when we think about the application of it. But let me give you a word. And you don't have to agree with me on this at all. That's fine. But how do we approach God? I've been in churches where there would be time and time and time as if every Sunday would never be an altar call. And you'd be asked to come down to give a commitment to do something for God upon God's hand. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with being given that challenge. But if you'd be to be an extra essential, she would have to come down to the altar, and it was everybody would come saying they're gonna do that. Did everybody do that? I've got no idea. But be careful about making promises before God. Again, we don't do a lot of alternative calls here. We do a lot of um application in the end, but I don't think you come down and don't say, okay, we're gonna commit to doing this. Yeah, but you get voice talk when it comes to praying for somebody sick with a pain or the different times where D can be done in different situations. But I don't want to put us in a situation, it's okay, that's all we're gonna do in this and bragging about it, making a big deal, then not falling through it. Does that make sense? Not saying we don't need to speak to the Lord, ask for his hell, commit to doing so compete to place our faith in the follow up in here. We can do that. So we need to make sure we're thinking raspberry and not allow us in again. Make promises we cannot keep. You know people that make promises they can't keep, don't you? What do you think about going into this? Okay, but you probably don't like it. Maybe it's got to point like the kid that says they were gonna bring their homework, but they forgot how to bring it next week. No, you don't. They just don't do their homework, they don't care. They go outside if he knows. He knows their heart. This week. There's a Bible service coming up. Starts tomorrow and goes to the 17th, that is in Friday or Saturday. It's gonna be a great time. There's gonna be some good preaching. They got some good preachers on that, they got some good signals on that. You get a chance to go, check it out. But do me a favor. Be careful of getting caught up in the emotion and making a commitment that you can't follow through you. There's nothing wrong with all the service, nothing wrong with what you're gonna do. It's gonna get very called, wanna have a good crown. A lot of money's been put, a lot of prayer's been put. So people don't come to know Jesus, that's a good part. But you get a travel to go to, and you get all caught up in the emotion, you say, God, I'm gonna commit to doing this or I'm gonna do this. If you do that, I gotta you better do it. Because if not, that's sin. Now that same thing can be said true of today's service or any other service. So I'm not picking up a revival service in particular. I was trying to think of ways you can find what I'm talking about. Does that make sense? Scripture says, love the Lord your God without your heart, but all your soul, and all your mind. Emotions could play quick. We can do things to get your emotions going, I promise you. I don't know what's bad, which I shouldn't have been in church at all, but I could get on the piano and play a song or two and get you crying. I can play another song or two, and somebody might be able to run up and down the aisle. That is different ways to praise the Lord. But I can also say some words that might manipulate you to get you committed to the God that you get fulfilled. The moment you make that commitment and then don't follow through with it, that is sin, and God hates sin. That's what we're looking at here. The old eyes are going on something like that. Be careful coming to his house. Yes, we're coming to his house, we're singing with prayer, and you come to him in confidence and difficult times, but be careful with what we say. Come on, so listen. Be still, let him fight your battle, let him give you the listen that you need. Don't come before him and give him control. Don't come for him making promises that you can't keep. Because if you're gonna have to come back and ask forgiveness for no sickness, because you were caught up in the difficulty or caught up in some emotional high of whatever was going on. So today's replicas, how will you approach Godless? We're not less approaching with reverence, let's approach him with holiness, meaning that we ask forgiveness of our sins as pardon, giving you the conversation we have with you. How will you approach him this week? And secondly, things about when you keep your vows that you think you don't. Maybe you haven't made a vow to God, that's okay. But if you still choose to do that, will you commit to keep it? Because that's what God expects. He says if you're gonna make a vow, keep it fulfilled immediately. Don't care anything. Oh, let us come before the Lord's presence. Every Sunday and Wednesdays we have a chance here, but even more so in our home and our quad, unless we're with reverence, sharing our needs, pouring out our heart, being careful not to get caught up in the emotion of what's going on, but saying, If you'll do this, then I'll do this. God is about the covenant-making God, but he's the one that makes the covenants, not us. Let's walk with him each and every day. Approach him with reverence and watch how the nations will be exalted. And he'll take care of what's doing all in my life. And let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you, Father. Allow us to come in your house to worship you. Thank you, Father, that we have a living and true God that we will come to you.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Uh, not only in the good days, but in bad days as well. Help us, Father, to welcome the world of you. Remember that you're holy and you're not.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Help us to come and to listen and be still to go. Thank you, Father, for being a God who speaks to the word. Each one of us we can draw you.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

We love you for things by working here. Amen.