Protector of the Oil

All right, if you have your Bibles this morning, we're going to be reading two scriptures this morning. Hope you can handle it.

First Samuel, chapter 16, verse 1. I'll be there first, and then I'm going to flip over to 1st Chronicles, chapter 27, verse 28. So 1st Samuel, 1st Samuel 16:1 says this. It says, the Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for Saul since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil.

Underline that, Highlight that. Fill your horn with oil and be on your way. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be the king. Now we're going to go to 1st Chronicles, chapter 27, verse 28.

It says this. It says, Baal Hanan the Gederite was over the olive trees and the sycamore trees that were in the lowlands. Here's the key. Here's what I want to hone in on today. And joash was over the store of oil.

So the title of my message today is this. It is titled the Protector of the Oil. The Protector of the Oil. This message has been in my spirit for a long time. And last week I got it down on paper and thought I was going to preach it last week, but God had other plans.

But I really believe that this message is destined for such a time and as this. Let's pray one more time. Father. God, I thank you. Father God, I praise you.

God, let the words come out of my mouth. Be from the throne room of heaven. Less of me, more of you. God, I pray that people walk out of here differently than the way they walked in. They walk out of here changed for the glory and the power of God.

God, we thank you. God, we praise you. In Jesus name, amen. In my 34 years of living, I'm 34. I'll be 35 and 30 December.

I have learned a lot about myself. I keep learning a lot about myself. And mostly the reason why I've learned a lot about myself is now I'm a parent. I'm a parent. I don't know if you know this.

I have a five year old son named Jackson Duke and I have a two year old daughter, Maggie Grace. Maggie is full of sass.

She is. She's all. She's all girl, she is attitude. But both of them together, they are wild. They are wild, they are rambunctious.

You never know what's gonna happen. But they are so much fun. They're so much fun. But a few Saturdays ago, we had our volunteer banquet here at church. And Andrew and Amanda, they were on stage and they were talking about some serve teams, but then they got to the kids church workers, the kids church serve teams.

And so Amanda mentioned that the kids church workers of our church, they are the saints of our church. They're gonna get many crowns in heaven. And this is what she said. She said because them kids are wild. And immediately people turn and start looking at me and Cassidy.

And I was thinking to myself, yeah, but y' all don't have to live with them, alright? But I love my kids. But I found out a lot about myself because my son Jack, he is a lot like me. He's a lot like me. He likes to have control of situations, as do I.

He likes routines, as do I. And he is extremely, extremely ocd, as am I. And I didn't notice how much of these things that I was until I became a father. And here's what I've noticed is me and Jack, we are extremely OCD about things. And it's probably because my wife, Cassidy.

Cassidy is absolutely not. I'm OCD about where things they need to go into a certain place. And Cassidy, no. Like my shoes, when I take them off, they go on a shoe rack in my closet. Not Cassidy, they might be in the kitchen, they might be in the bathroom.

I crawled in bed one night, there was a shoe. No, I'm just kidding. But you never know. Wherever she takes them off is where they stay. But what drives me crazy the most, and I don't know if this is just me, but when I'm driving a vehicle, all right, I have an unwritten rule in my life.

When I get to 50 miles to empty, I start looking for a gas station, okay? Like, I start panicking. I'm like, where's Bucky? You know? But Cassidy, she likes to run on faith, I guess.

Like the other night I get into her car and we're driving to Adairsville and we're Just driving. Next thing you know, the low fuel light comes on and it's dinging and she goes, oh, yeah, I need gas. Like, nah, duh. Cassidy will drive by multiple gas stations on her way home with low fuel. And I'm talking low fuel.

And then walk in the door of the house, throw the keys on the table and say, I need gas like you. You. You passed. Oh, we're clapping.

I'm like, you passed five gas stations on the way. She texted me the other day, and all she said was this. She said, does this make you nervous? Do we have this picture? I don't know if he got the picture.

Do we have the picture, Keith? Do we. No, no. No picture. It's going to be funny with a picture, I promise.

I don't think we have the picture. Anyway, she sent this picture and it was the gas gauge, I guess, and it said, six miles to empty. That's all it said, six miles to empty. And that's all she said. Does this make you nervous?

And I was like, does it make me nervous? Yes, it makes me nervous. Does anybody's wife do this or just mine? Okay, there's some hands up. So here's what I've learned.

If you don't have gas, if you don't have gasoline, you can't go anywhere in your vehicle. You can't go nowhere. Gas and oil are important to us. We need it every day. And how do we all get here this morning?

Well, we drove our cars, our vehicles. Other than you having an electric car, almost every single one of us had to have fuel in our cars to get here. And unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last few months, oil has been a major theme in our world today. Just turn on the news. And not to get too political, because I want to speak about the kingdom, not about politics.

But there is a major war going on right now in the Middle east, and one of its major points is oil. The price of oil is crucial to our world's economy. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican. If the price of oil is high, it seems like everything else is high. Groceries, interest rates, the stock market drops.

But if the price of oil. Oil is low, then it seems like our economy is better. Groceries become more affordable, people are buying and building houses. People are investing into the stock market. And whether you like it or not or whether you think it or not, the price of oil controls a lot of things in our world.

But just like oil has these cultural and worldly implications, we can Open up our Bibles and find that oil has spiritual implications. We can look throughout Scripture and see that oil, it has meaning. And sometimes in church we can hear this topic of oil being talked about and we're like, huh, what, what does that mean? And a lot of times I don't think we really understand the meaning. You see, oil in the Bible is usually used as a direct reference to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, if you didn't know, is the third part of the Trinity. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. But it's also probably the most misunderstood. But you and I, we need to learn that we need the Holy Spirit. He is a advocate, he is a counselor, he is a comforter, he is a friend, he is an ally.

Someone say, I need the Holy Spirit. Now, in the Bible, what you would see is when kings are selected to be kings, what would happen is the prophet would come and they would pour oil on the king. And what that would do is represent the oil flowing on them. And that was a symbol of the Holy Spirit anointing them to be the king. Oil behaved like an ointment setting the person apart for a purpose, for a calling, for a mission.

And I want to look at this verse this morning. I want to look at actually this chapter, chapter 16 of First Samuel. And it's focused on the life of David. And I don't know if you are new to church or not, but David is famous because he had a battle. He was in a battle with this giant named Goliath.

And he kills this giant with a sling and a stone. There's little David. He was a teenage boy and he's out there with three armpit hairs and a slingshot killing a giant. But David was the second king of Israel. And David, he was anointed with oil.

And when he was anointed with oil, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit came upon him in power from that day forward. You see, the Holy Spirit doesn't want to date us. The Holy Spirit doesn't want a one night stand, doesn't want to just meet you on Sundays, but he wants to empower you every day of your life. Every day, all the days of your life.

Now David, he wasn't a perfect guy. He made mistakes. But David, in all of those mistakes, he had a conviction. He had a heart for the Lord. And when he made mistakes, there was something in his heart that rose up and prayed to the Lord.

He never said, God, don't take my palace. He never said, God, don't take my crown. He never said, God, don't take my success or my wealth. He didn't say any of that. His prayer was one thing.

God, don't take your spirit from me. God, don't take my oil. Because if I don't have the oil, I don't have power. If I don't have the oil, I don't care about how much stuff that I lose on this side of eternity with the help of the Holy Spirit. Spirit, he's the one that brought it the first time.

He'll bring it again. You need the oil. You need the Holy Spirit. I have four points today. Four points.

Four points about oil. My first point is this. If you're taking notes, don't lose your oil. Don't lose your oil. I want to start here today because it's important.

It's serious. People don't usually lose their oil all at once. I had a friend, and he buys a new car, and it was new to him, but it was a used car. And he was so excited about it. And I was at work, and he drove it to my work, and he parked it in the parking lot, and he texted me.

He's like, hey, you gotta come check this car out. I'm like, okay, cool. I'll go look it out. Look it and check it out. It was a minivan.

I mean, how excited could I get? But judging by the exterior of the car, the body of the car, and then looking at the interior of the car, I was like, man, that person took care of this car. Like, this is awesome. Great job. High five.

But then he texted me the next day, and he said that when he pulled out of the parking lot the day before, he saw what looked like an oil stain on the pavement. He didn't think much of it, and he was like, you know what? It couldn't be mine. I just bought this. You know, it can't be mine.

I bought it, you know, no way. No way. It's mine. But then the next morning, the car wouldn't crank. See, the vehicle had a slow leak with the oil.

And the slow leak, it created a bigger problem with the car. And it's the same with our lives. It starts with a slow leak. Look at 1st Samuel, chapter 16, verse 14. It says this.

It says now the spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul. Wait, what? What happened with Saul? Saul, if you don't know, was the first King Israel. But Saul had a problem because Saul feared man more than he feared God.

And the scripture says that the spirit departed from Saul. Saul lost his oil. Saul lost his oil. How? Because Saul battled pride.

They would march into the cities and the people would sing, saul has killed his thousands, and David has killed his tens of thousands. Saul's pride and jealousy of David consumed him. And when that consumed him, he started losing sight of God's plan for his life. And it wasn't just pride. Saul was disobedient.

He wanted to do things his own way instead of listening to God's instructions. So Saul started to compromise in his life. Can I tell you something? Something delayed obedience, partial obedience. Guess what?

It's still disobedience. Saul never would fully submit to God. And thus he slowly started to leak. But David, on the other hand, he kept his oil. He knew he needed the spirit of the Lord.

Psalm 51:11 says this. It says, please don't take your Holy Spirit spirit away from me. Why was this his prayer? Because he knew how valuable it was. Here's the truth.

You don't lose your oil suddenly. You leak it slowly. You don't lose your oil suddenly. You leak it slowly. A little compromise here or there.

You know what? I'm going to create a little distance. Oh, it's just a small sin. It doesn't matter a little bit. Just a little bit.

You know what? I don't have time. I'm so busy. I don't have time today. You know what?

I think I can do this on my own. I don't need God. You know what? I really feel like I don't really need to read my Bible. You know what?

I don't want to pray today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I'll put it off to tomorrow. You know what? I'm going to skip church today.

That's okay. And your hunger of the things of God begins to become less and less. And then when you wake up one day and you say, God, where are you? Why don't I feel like I'm on fire anymore? Why don't I feel like I feel the way that I used to feel?

And God's like, hey, I didn't move. You started leaking.

Revelation 2, verses 4 and 5. It says this. It says, yet I hold this against you. You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen.

Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. He didn't leave. You left.

I love talking to people about theology and just the way they see things in the Bible. And I absolutely love talking to some of the youth who are now in College, and they're taking these Bible classes and I love to talk to them about the Bible. But here's something that may shock you and one of the theological topics that I like to talk about. So don't jump to conclusions. Let me finish.

Okay. You can't lose your salvation, but you can leave it. Listen, if I lose my keys, I'm like, where do my keys go? And I search everywhere for my keys. And I search and search.

But your salvation, you don't. You don't wake up and go, where'd my salvation go? No, it's a choice. It's a choice. When you leave your first love, it's a choice.

It's a slow leak. It's the compromise. It's the small things that grow into the big things. Where are the leaks in your life? Don't lose your oil.

You need. Point number two is this. Don't waste your oil. Don't waste your oil. Hear me?

Not only can you lose the oil, but you can waste it. Paul says in Ephesians 5, verse 18, be filled with the Spirit. What's that mean? Meaning you continually need the Holy Spirit. You need the Holy Spirit to lead you and to guide you.

You need him every minute of every day. But some of us, we get filled and then we waste it. We waste the oil by ignoring conviction, not listening to his voice. Why? Because we live such distracted lives.

We are the most distracted culture of all time. We just completed a series in youth, an eight week series over the works of the flesh in Galatians, chapter five. And the theme, almost every single week when we would sit down, we do this series and we sit and we talk and we discuss. And the theme, almost every single week for eight weeks. The thing that brings about a distraction in our lives are these things right here.

They're great tools, but my gosh, they're still in our peace. They are still in your contentment in Christ. They are creating temptations. They are distracting us from relationships with people and relationships with God. You know what else we do?

We waste our oil by treating church as casual. We go through the motions. The Holy Spirit is not a casual thing that you take on a date on Sunday mornings and drop it off at the altar before you leave. It's an experience. It should be reverence.

It should be encountered and life changing. But we come in and we want to sing our three songs and hear a good sermon and then go back out the door carrying the same problems, feeling the same way, never letting the Holy Spirit change us, because it's the norm. I don't want the Holy Spirit to ever become cliche in my life. I want him to convict me. I'm not perfect.

I mess up. And so I want the Holy Spirit to challenge me. I want him to lead me and to guide me. I want to encounter him and experience power. What else do we do?

Do we pour energy into things that don't matter? It's like having your phone on all day with all the apps running. You had power, but you drained the battery. You wasted the battery life. And some of us right now, we're like, I feel so empty.

I feel so tired. And it's not because God hasn't filled, you know, it's because we have wasted what he given us. In Matthew, chapter 25, Jesus tells the parable about 10 virgins. Five of them took care of the oil in their lamps, tending to their lamps, being prepared for when the bridegroom comes. But there were five others.

And the Bible says that they were tired and they fell asleep. Then the bridegroom came, and they weren't ready. They were out of oil. Some were ready, some were not. And it wasn't because they didn't have access to the oil.

It was because they didn't. Steward the oil. Don't waste what God is pouring into your life. You need the Holy Spirit. Steward what God is pouring into you.

Don't waste your oil. Number three is this. Don't hoard your oil. Some people don't lose their oil. Some people don't just waste their oil.

They just keep it. But the oil of the Holy Spirit was never meant to sit. It was meant to flow. In Acts, chapter one, verse eight, it says this. It says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.

And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. It says, you will receive power. Then what? Doesn't say that you sit there. Doesn't say that you stay quiet.

Doesn't say that you cross your arms and say, I'm ready for the Lord to come back. No, it says to be my witnesses. To who? To the ends of the earth. To everyone.

The Holy Spirit isn't just a feeling. It's active. It requires you to do something. John, chapter 7, verse 38, says, Jesus. Jesus says this.

It says that out of your belly will flow rivers of living water. Flowing waters. Not a pond. Because I think of a pond. The water is just sitting.

It gets stagnant. It gets dirty. Lily pads start to grow and algae Starting to form. It gets gross. But Jesus says, rivers, a river is flowing.

But the problem is, is some of us are spiritually full, but no one around us is being impacted. There's a story in Second Kings, chapter four. There's a woman whose husband has just died. And because he has died, it left her in a lot of debt. She couldn't pay her debts.

And because she couldn't pay her debts, the bank is knocking at her door saying, hey, you've got a debt you've got to pay. We need money from you. And so she starts freaking out because they're wanting to take her son into slavery to pay off the debts. So she's freaking out. She doesn't know what to do.

So she goes to the prophet Elisha for help. And he asked her, he said, what do you have in the house? And the Bible says that she had nothing in the house except for a small jar of oil. See, sometimes God can do something with the little that you have, but all he needs is your obedience. He tells her, take the jar of oil, pour it into another jar, and then another, and then another, and then keep gathering the jars.

And when she did, the oil kept flowing out of that small jar of oil. More and more jars kept filling up. And as long as she kept pouring, the oil kept flowing. God kept providing the oil didn't multiply while sitting in the jar. It multiplied when she took action and started pouring.

And some of us are asking God, I want more. God, give me more. God give me more. And God is saying, hey, just start pouring. Your oil grows when it flows.

Don't hoard the oil. Amanda, come on back. I'm almost done.

Don't lose your oil. Don't waste your oil. Don't hoard your oil. Last point. Point number four is this.

Don't take my oil might be the strongest one. Going back to Matthew, chapter 25. The foolish virgins who didn't keep their their oil ready. Who didn't keep their lamps ready. Verse 8 says the foolish asked the wise, give us some of your oil.

And the wise virgin says, no, I don't have enough oil for you and me. You can't take my oil. Listen, the oil can't be borrowed. You can't live off yesterday's faith.

You can't live off Pastor Andrew's anointing. You can't live off your friend's relationship with Jesus. At some point, you've got to get your own oil.

Philippians, chapter 2, verse 12 says to work out your oil own salvation. It's on you. You have to press into his presence. I can't do it for you. You got to make the decision.

You know what? I'm going to have joy today in the midst of my troubles. Because, listen, I can't sell you joy. You got to start declaring faith over your life when your world is falling apart. Praise him when hell is hitting your life, because I can't praise him for you.

I can't pursue God for you, Andrew. Can't pursue God for you. This worship team, as good as they are, they can lead you. But look, they can't do it for you. Because there's going to come a moment where it's just you and God.

And in that moment, borrowed oil won't work. Don't take my oil. You can't have my oil. I need the oil. Y' all stand all across this room.

Some of you, some of you, you're. You're losing the oil. It's a slow leak. Little compromise here or there. Some of you, you're wasting the oil.

Some of you, you're hoarding the oil. And some of you, you're trying to borrow oil. The oil of the Holy Spirit isn't something you experience. It's something that you steward. I read this at the beginning.

I want to read it again. This is First Chronicles, chapter 27, verse 28. I want to read that last portion of Scripture. It says, and Joash was over the storm. Oil.

Joash wasn't a preacher, prophet. He wasn't preaching the message to people. He wasn't this mighty warrior. He wasn't a general in the army. He wasn't leading these multitudes of men into battle.

But the Bible says that he was over the oil. Why? Because oil mattered. Oil was necessary. Oil was valuable.

Oil had to be protected. And when David was giving people jobs in his kingdoms and positions in his kingdom, he said, I need someone I can trust, someone I trust to watch over the oil. Here's the question today.

Are you a protector of the oil? Are you a keeper of the oil? Can God trust you with the oil? Can he trust you with his presence? Can he trust you with conviction?

Can he trust you with anointing? Or does it leak? Or does it get wasted? Or does it sit unused? Because some of us, we have that oil on Sunday mornings, and we love the Holy Spirit on Sunday.

But Monday comes and we set it in a jar, we put it back on the kitchen shelf, and we just keep living our life without his presence and without conviction. Joash wasn't known for what he produced. He was known for what he protected. And God is asking you today, can I trust you with the oil? David said, don't take your spirit from me.

Don't take my oil. God, I need your oil. God, I need your oil. God, I need your presence. God, I don't want to just experience your presence.

I want to steward your presence. I don't want to lose it. I don't want to leak it all over the place. I don't want to compromise anymore. I don't want to waste it anymore.

I don't want to just keep it for myself. I want to tell people about how good you are. I don't want anyone else's. I want your oil, God. I want to be trusted with the oil.

And if that's you, this is your moment. This is your day, Father. God, I thank you. God, I pray that we would be people that are keepers and protectors of the oil. God.

We need the Holy Spirit. We need conviction in the world that we live in. We need the Holy Spirit now. More than that, we need you to lead. We need you to guide us.

We need you to work in our lives. But, God, I pray that we would be a people who would steward that.

I don't want to compromise.

I don't want to compromise my soul. What is it for a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?

No more compromise, no more wasting. I want to tell people what you've done for me. I want to tell people how good you are. I want to tell people, hey, you need to experience this.

I don't want to hoard the oil. God, take my oil. Because I can't do this without you. Don't take my oil today. It's a simple altar.

Call number one. If you don't know the Lord as your savior, I'm going to ask you to come.

But if you want to be a protector of the oil, a keeper of the oil, you're tired of compromising. You're tired of wasting it. I'm going to ask you to come. They're going to begin to sing. And if that's you, would you come as they sing?