Classic Sermon Outlines (continued)
How to'Spend the Day with God
2. In behalf of ourselves. Wait upon God in behalf of your business, in reading, at meal time, when visiting, in your charity, and when journeying; when alone as a guard against temptation.
B. The Motives for Waiting upon God.
1. The eye of God upon us. He sees all the motions of our hearts and sees with pleasure the motions of our hearts toward Him. This should lead us to set Him always before us.
2. The knowledge of God. "All things," even the thoughts and intents of the heart, "are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do" (Hebrews 4:13). And we must give an account of ourselves to Him.
3. The graciousness of God. He continually waits to be gracious to us; He is always doing us good. He daily loads us with His benefits. His good providence waits on us all the day to preserve our going out and our coming in.
4. The ministry of holy angels. They are all appointed to be ministering spirits to minister for the good of them who shall be heirs of salvation (Hebrews 1:14) and more good offices they do us every day than we are aware.
5. It is heaven upon earth. This life of communion with God is a heaven upon earth. It is an advance installment of the blessedness of heaven and a preparative for it.
C. The Directions for Waiting upon God.
1. See God in creation. Look about you and see what a variety of wonders, what an abundance of comforts, with which you are surrounded and let them lead you to Him Who is the Giver of all good.
2. See the nothingness of a creature without God. The more we discern of the vanity and emptiness of the world and all our enjoyments in it and their utter insufficiency to make us happy, the closer we shall cleave to God and the more intimately we shall converse with Him.
3. Live by faith in the Lord Jesus. We cannot with any confidence wait upon God but in and through a Mediator. It is by His Son that God speaks