In Christ alone, my hope is found.
He is my light, my strength, my soul.
This cornerstone, This solid ground.
Here in the power of Christ, I'll stand.
Every secret, every shame, every fear, every pain.
Living inside the dark, that's just who we are.
We are children of the dead.
And the theme was twists and turns.
Following Jesus changes the game.
So it's kind of game themed.
I'm sure you've seen some of the decorations if you weren't here.
I'd love to help it out, but...
And basically followed Peter's path of following Jesus.
And then a couple things after Jesus' resurrection that Peter did.
And the focus was really on Peter's path and Peter's journey.
And so the key verse was Psalms 25-4, which is,
Teach me your ways, Lord, show me your paths.
I'm glad I can remember that.
And it's all focused on God has a journey in mind for us.
And there are going to be twists and turns and things that changes that we may not see coming.
Or we may not want, but they're going to be there and they're going to be what God wants for us.
And so day one, who are the kids going to remember what we talked about on day one?
That was a long time ago.
We've run into a lot since then.
Day one we talked about Peter being called to follow Jesus initially.
They go out to fish.
They don't catch anything.
Jesus sends them back out into deep water and they catch so much that their nets are breaking.
And then Peter says, go away from me, teacher.
I'm a sinner.
And Jesus says, actually, you come with me.
And then from that point, at that moment, Peter had no idea where he would be in three years.
I can guarantee you that.
I'm sure he had no idea he'd be thrown in jail later for teaching about Jesus after he died
and came back to life.
He was just, I'm going to follow this teacher and see what's up.
Day two, do the kids remember day two's lesson?
Arianna?
No, that's day three.
Day two, last chance, Jason?
Day two was when Jesus walked on water.
Jesus walks on water and Peter walks out to him.
And then he gets scared and insults the ground.
That's right.
Day two is Peter walks on water.
Day three, like Arianna said, is Peter dies, Jesus three times.
Day four, does anybody remember day four?
Is it, day four is when they gave the Cupid baby another water.
Was that day five?
That was part of day four.
Yeah, that was part of day four.
Kind of the overarching, yeah, I guess that was one of the big points of it.
In the book, it has it listed as Peter speaks boldly about Jesus and he's arrested.
But yeah, the miracle is a pretty big deal too.
And then day five is Peter and Cornelius.
Cornelius sees a vision where he's told to send men for Peter and Peter sees a vision
where he's told to go with the men and then Peter preaches to Cornelius and all his family
about accepting and teaching to everyone, not just the Jewish people.
So there are a lot of great, amazing lessons and stories throughout that VBS.
And I really enjoyed that it followed Peter.
Most of them are understandably a lot about Jesus's life.
But we kind of get to see that a little more focused on Peter throughout this VBS.
And I think that's a lot of fun, a lot of great things for the kids to learn there.
And I think it was really inspiring for a lot of us.
A lot of the kids were impressing us left and right with their knowledge
and things that they were taking in.
Alicia, is there?
I didn't assign them specifically, but we can do the song next.
Okay.
We have a tree for you.
Kids have a song prepared that we're going to perform.
They've got some motions as well to go with it.
Children to the front please.
Right out across the front.
Good, buddy.
Excuse me.
I'm Brian.
I don't care.
Come on.
Show it off.
Hands to yourself.
He's like resource.
Yeah.
You need to hand yourself to him.
You need to all of them.
Are you brothers?
I think that's brilliant.
Let's give yourself.
�장otine
Make you lose
Ready, set, here we go
Jesus will let us know what we need to do
Twist and turns
If all we need to do is twist and turn
Twist and turn
Alright, right down there
Thank you
He can fail, but still find a place
He can slip, but still run away
He can still run away
As we can fall and get back up
All we have, a God we can trust
Jesus walked on the water
He came home and went away
He tries, tries to save the world
And the promise he made
Do not fear, for I am with you
Please do not be afraid
Do not fear
If I could have the men in the house
rise to stand with me, we're going to pray to bless the offering
Father in heaven, as we give up our
tithes and offerings today, we recognize
that you have been at work since long
before we were born. You wrote a plan
for our lives and for those who went before us
and for those who will come after us
Lord, we know that we're headed for that time
when Jesus comes again
We ask you Lord to bless these tithes and offerings
and use them as you see fit. Bless us as we earn
Bless us as we save
Bless us as we go, bless us as we pray
as we study, as we work
We ask you Lord that you help us to provide
for our families, help us to provide
for the ministry, help us to provide
the gospel to a lost and dying world
We pray all these things in Jesus name
Amen
All right little wonders, gas kids, glasses, walk slowly
off you go, have fun
Letting go of every single dream
I lace one down with that of your feet
Every moment of my wandering
Never changing to what you see
I'm trying to win this war, I confess
My hands are weary, I need your grace
Mighty warrior, king of the fire
No matter what I think, you're by my side
When you don't move the mountains, I'm needing you to move
When you don't part the waters, I wish I could walk
When you don't give me answers as I cry out to you
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in you
Truth is you know what tomorrow will bring
There's not a day ahead you have no idea
So it all things be my life and breath
I want what you want Lord and nothing less
When you don't move the mountains, I'm needing you to move
When you don't part the waters, I wish I could walk
When you don't give me answers as I cry out to you
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in you
I will trust in you
You are my strength and confidence, you are my standing hand
You are my fire foundation, for I've always had a stand
Your leaves don't always have roots, your plans are always good
There's not a place where I go, you've not already started
When you don't move the mountains, I'm needing you to move
When you don't part the waters, I wish I could walk
When you don't give me answers as I cry out to you
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in you
I will trust in you
I'm gonna try to save you
Alright, the sermon title is the apothagmatic, apothagmatic, you'll put the word up on the
screen in a minute, the apothagmatic history of God.
Okay, and you're gonna go, I don't know what that word means.
And guess what?
I didn't know it either.
I had to look it up.
Okay, we were all in the same boat to start with and we'll all wind up in the same boat
by the time we're done.
So it's apothagmatic.
And word may even say it's spelled incorrectly.
And we're looking at Psalm 78.
So the very first thing we need to do if we're gonna look at Psalm 78 is read Psalm 78.
So maybe a little hoot, holler, give me an amen as we say Psalm 78.
Thank you.
From this moment on, what I am reading to you will be God's word.
If you have a slightly different translation, that's okay.
We're even gonna talk about that before we're through.
But this is what it says in the New American Standard Version, at least if I read it correctly.
Psalm 78.
And I'm gonna kind of just do a little breaking down because I read the whole thing, I'm not
gonna do a ton of breaking down.
So Psalm 78 starts like this.
It says, listen, O my people, to my instruction, incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable.
I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known and our fathers have
told us.
We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises
of the Lord and his strength and his wondrous works that he has done.
For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded
our fathers that they should teach them to their children, that the generation to come
might know even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their
children, that they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God, but
keep his commandments and not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation that did not prepare its heart and whose spirit was not faithful to God.
The sons of Ephraim were archers equipped with bows, yet they turned their back in the
day of battle.
So we'll stop there for one second just to make sure we're getting the up to 9a really.
Basically all of that, I hope you got the idea, is about telling the people that you
know and the next generation the teachings of God.
So of course the psalmist is talking about what had been written by that point in time
and the complete word of God, so we have access to the New Testament that he would not have
had, but he's basically saying God has commanded us to hear the words that he is saying to
us, to see the world for what it is, and to realize that he is showing us, telling us
something, and then to deliver that something that he is showing us, telling us to the people
around us and to the next generation.
And even in there you can see some hints already toward how people did not do that.
Now let's just be kind of simple about this for a moment.
I am a father of a bunch of kids, praise the Lord, and I have some grandkids, and I would
say to them to follow the Lord better than I have.
So I think you could say this to your children one day, follow the Lord better than you have.
And your children will one day say to their children, follow the Lord better than I have.
But it's definitely true that we can look at the histories, and he's kind of given some
very brief synopsis here of what that was like, and how God taught them and said do
not conceal these things, teach them to your children so that your children can teach their
children and even those who have yet to be born in a really long time.
Notice in verse 2 he said, I will open my mouth in a parable and I will utter dark sayings
of old.
So you might recognize that as used about Jesus in the New Testament.
Jesus opened his mouth in parables.
He told people stories that would help people to understand the deeper teachings of God
if they were open to it, but also they might go, ah, you know, that's no big deal really.
They could blow it off if they wanted to, right?
And people did that, and some people then got offended by the parables and some people
didn't, and they were like, well, tell me more, help me understand that, and they learned
even more.
And then this psalm was quoted in talking about Jesus, but notice the second half of
it says, I will utter dark sayings of old.
And it's a little difficult to translate into the English from the original Hebrew, so in
your Bible it might even be a little different, say if you have a King James or something
like that, it may have translated slightly differently, but basically what it's saying
is the things that people never knew back then.
So Jesus was going to use parables and sayings to teach the truth of something that you would
not otherwise get.
So in your day, there is something for you that you wouldn't get about how God created
the universe, about how God set things up, about how God responds to the way people act,
what God is likely to do in our day is contained in the scriptures, but you might have to listen
to God to understand them more deeply.
That's part of what we do when we say reaching new heights in Jesus.
We're working together to go beyond the outer shell to get to a deeper understanding of
what is there.
That's part of what the church is for, right?
So we all work together to do that.
It's not just me up here preaching.
If it wasn't for you, I couldn't do what I do.
It's not possible.
So the bottom line is we all work together to go deeper, and Jesus would utter the parables
with his mouth and the teachings of old, and you see that like he says, well, you know,
it says, I know you know it says this, but now pay attention to this.
And the new thing that he taught was not new at all.
It was already there.
Like when he talks about adultery, how lusting in your heart after a woman is the same as
committing adultery already, right?
So you're sinning against God if you lust after a woman in your heart, as if you were
committing adultery.
That was already contained in the command.
All he did was unpack it.
He didn't add to it something new.
Even the love your neighbor as yourself, which would actually be called a new command, it
was new because the Jewish leaders were not teaching it.
They weren't teaching them and they certainly weren't modeling it, right?
And so he says, this new command I give you.
But this really wasn't a new command.
It was new to them because they weren't getting it from any other Jewish teacher at the time.
But is it contained in God's word?
Because you realize the second half of all of the Ten Commandments is all about loving
your neighbor as yourself, right?
And so it was already there.
So the psalmist is saying here in 78, these teachings, we have to go deeper and understand
these teachings at the best we possibly can so we can deliver them to people in our generation
and to our children so they can deliver them to your great, great, great grandchildren.
After you're gone, you've got some work to do to digest and refine and deliver this information
so that they can deliver them.
It's great to think, oh, my kids, when they grow up, they'll honor God.
I hope they will.
It's even great to think, oh, my grandkids.
And I've seen some gifting in my kids that I don't have.
And that's awesome.
And then I've seen gifting in my grandkids that I don't have and my kids don't have.
And that's awesome.
But what about my grandkids' kids?
If they only digest the Bible at 17%, then how much can they really teach the next generation?
Less than 17%.
You can't teach them anything unless you teach them to learn on their own, in which case
they will learn it.
And they might get to 34%, which wouldn't be great.
The bottom line is we're called by God here in Psalm 78 as the psalmist is really recognizing
what the Bible says that we are supposed to teach.
And the end result of that would be that the generations that come, hopefully our generation
and then the ones that come, would not be like the generations before who were stubborn
and rebellious and they did not prepare their hearts and their spirits were not faithful
to God.
And then he ends with this thought, the sons of Ephraim.
Now this is what's called an analogy.
The sons of Ephraim were not necessarily actually like this, but he's saying, understand, this
is the way it was.
They were as archers equipped with bows that turned their back on the day of battle.
And so if you're a follower of God and you do not do what the psalmist is teaching us
to do, learn what it is that we need to know about God and deliver it to our generation
and the next generation so they can deliver it to the next one and so on.
If you don't do that, you're as an archer who is armed with a bow but does not come
into the conflict.
They run away instead.
So the archers are typically back here and the battle is typically up there, so they
shouldn't have to worry about running.
But if they think there's any chance that the main battle might be overrun, they have
two choices.
They can fire faster, shoot more arrows, right?
Do more work.
And if the enemy comes close to them, put their bow on their back and draw their dagger
or their short sword and fight.
That's one choice.
And the other choice is, oh, they might be overrun.
We're going to run away and live to fight another day.
And God says, if you run away and live to fight another day, you are a coward.
You are useless.
You are worthless in the kingdom of God.
That's basically what he's saying.
He's saying, you don't want to be like that.
You don't want to be an archer who turned his back in the day of battle.
Now we're on verse 10.
They did not keep the covenant of God.
This sounds bad.
They did not keep means they didn't retain it.
They didn't keep it in its fullness.
And they refused to walk in his law.
And they forgot his deeds and his miracles that he had shown them.
He wrought wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt in the field of Zoan.
So notice that we're up at this point.
And he said, what did he say?
We will tell.
This is what God's people do.
We will digest it and we will deliver it.
That's what we'll do.
And then what did he say of those who were like those people from Ephraim?
He said they forgot their job.
They didn't do it.
They forgot his deeds, his miracles that he had shown them.
He wrought wonders.
And they forgot all of those things.
What did they forget?
He wrought wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt in the field of Zoan.
That's the northern capital of Egypt, if anyone cares.
He divided the sea and caused them to pass through.
And he made the waters stand up like a heap.
Then he led them with the cloud by day and all the night with a light of fire.
He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them abundant drink like the ocean depths.
He brought forth streams also from the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers.
See, they saw God do those amazing things.
Yet when they came to the promised land, does anybody remember how that went?
Twelve spies, 10 of them came back and said, oh, it's a really rich land, but these people
are just too big.
We can't handle it.
After all that God had done, that was their response to God.
Instead of saying to their children, listen, our God is great.
Our God is powerful.
Our God is amazing.
Our God has done miracles.
Let me tell you the miracles.
As Ariana was growing up, and it's a little less so now, she just recently turned 10,
a little less so, but still to this day she'll ask me, tell me a family story.
She says, tell me a family story.
And you should be telling your family stories to your kids or to the younger generations,
whether they're your family or not.
The next generation is your responsibility, even if it's not your blood, right?
And so you should be telling those stories.
But let's check for a second, who is the star?
We tell about the great feats of our youth, the amazing things that we did, right?
So we say things like, we remember the day when Tony and Michael both hit home runs playing
softball.
But who is the feature of the story, right?
We've got to tell our kids it's all God, right?
God may be able.
God made me able then.
God makes me able now.
We've got to talk about what God is doing.
And yet we look at our superstars on the football field and our superstars on the movie.
And when superstar influencers on social media.
But the truth is, if they don't give glory to God, they have no place in your eyesight
or in your ears.
They have no place because your job is to receive the miracles, the teachings, the understanding
of who God is and deliver it to the next generation, to the people around you and to the next generation,
the kids and grandkids to come.
Because otherwise, who has delivered what is ours to deliver?
And then who will deliver it five generations down the road?
And I can answer that question for you before we're through.
But if you don't do your job, you will be missing out on promoting, speaking about,
teaching the great miracles of God as they did.
And you see what they did.
Their entire generation failed to promote it to the next generation.
And what happened to them?
They died in the wilderness.
They never went into the promised land.
They didn't make it in.
Every one of their faces went down in the sand.
That's a scary consequence for not being truthful about the miracles in the history of God.
Verse 17 says, and we're going on, yet they still continue to sin against Him.
So all those miraculous things that God did and still they continue to sin against Him.
To rebel against the most high in the desert.
And in their heart, they put God to the test by asking food according to their desire.
So God was taking care of them in every way.
And then they started complaining against God.
They said, it's not good enough.
It's not good enough.
Then they spoke against God.
They said, can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
See, He's too weak.
He can't prepare a table in the wilderness.
That was their taunt, if you will, toward God.
You think there's anybody taunting toward God in this world today?
You think it's because they've forgotten the character of God, the things that God has
done?
Absolutely that's the case.
Verse 20, behold, He struck the rocks so that waters gushed out and streams were overflowing.
Can He give bread also?
Will He provide meat for His people?
So taunting God, thinking about what God can't do or won't do rather than what God can do
and will do.
That was their mindset.
So the psalmist is saying, they wound up in rebellion.
They weren't teaching the mysteries to the generation and they wound up in rebellion
instead, taunting God.
Can God do it?
Yes, God can do it.
Verse 21, therefore the Lord heard and was full of wrath.
Let's see what God's response is to their taunting God.
He heard and was full of wrath.
Wrath means violent opposition.
It does not mean anger in this case.
There are some cases where it does, but it does not in this case.
It means violent opposition.
God was full of violent opposition and a fire was kindled against Jacob.
Jacob would be renamed Israel and Israel would be the founding man of the entire nation of
Israel to this day.
That has not stopped.
Okay?
And it says, and a fire was kindled against Jacob and anger also mounted against Israel.
Now there is the anger, right?
Because they did not believe in God and did not trust in His salvation.
So because they did not believe in God and trust in His salvation, they made God wrathful.
He would destroy them in the wilderness.
And because they did not believe in God and trust in His salvation, He took His blessings
away from them.
They would not go into the promised land.
23, yet He commanded the clouds above.
So now we're going to talk about God doing amazing things despite their rebellion.
Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of heaven.
And He rained down manna upon them to eat and gave them food from heaven.
Man did eat the bread of angels.
It doesn't mean that's what angels eat.
It just means it came from heaven and that's where it came from.
He sent them food in abundance.
He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens and by His power He directed the south wind.
When He rained meat upon them like dust, He caused the wind to blow and the birds fell
down, they sat in a camp and they took them and they ate them.
When He rained meat upon them like dust, even winged fowl like the sand of the seas, then
He let them fall in the midst of their camp, round about their dwellings.
So they ate and were well filled and their desire He gave to them.
Before they had satisfied their desire, while their food was in their mouths, the anger
of God rose against them and killed some of their stoutest ones and subdued the choice
men of Israel.
So God's providing for them despite the fact that they're not trusting in Him, not believing
like they should.
He provides for them.
So be careful because God will provide for you, give you what you need, even if you're
not faithful and obedient.
And you might start thinking, well, God's given me what I need.
I got what I need.
I'm fine.
I'm all good.
Only for God to deliver in wrath a worse provision, if you will.
In 32 it says, in spite of all this, they still sinned.
In spite of what?
Again, let's be clear.
The fact that He provided for them when they were disobedient and then He's punishing them
in wrath because they were disobedient, didn't believe, and He's already provided for them
in food and everything else, so now punishment comes in.
In spite of all this, they still sinned and did not believe in His wonderful works.
So He brought their days to an end in futility and their years in sudden terror.
And the ultimate outcome, as we talked about last week, was death.
34.
When He kindled them, then they sought Him.
I'm sorry.
When He killed them.
When He killed them, then they sought Him.
And they returned and searched diligently for God.
So in other words, as some decided, went down, they're done, right?
Somebody else said, oh, they got what they deserved.
But I'm not going to get what they deserved.
And they repented and turned to God.
So when He killed some of them, then some of them sought Him, the ones that remained.
And they returned and they searched diligently for God.
And they remembered that God was their rock and the Most High God, their Redeemer.
So does God have to kill in order for us to repent and follow Him?
That's what that mathematical equation led us to.
The final conclusion was somebody around you, somebody close to you, has to die in their
sin in order for you to figure out you don't want to go the way they go and repent and
turn to God.
Is that true?
It's not.
But that's how it played out in their circumstances.
It is possible for no one around you to die, for everyone around you to repent, because
repentance is available to everyone.
Remember in verse 36, but they deceived Him with their mouth and lied to Him with their
tongue.
So after they saw people die from it, saw people suffer and die from God's wrath, then
they repented, turned to God, and remembered that He was their rock, the Most High God,
their Redeemer.
But then later, they deceived Him with their mouth and lied to Him with their tongue, for
their heart was not steadfast toward Him, nor were they faithful in His covenant.
So again, they deceived God.
And then in 38 it says, but He, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy
them.
And often He restrained His anger and did not arouse all His wrath.
Thus He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and does not return.
So God was gentle to remember they repented and turned to Him, then they deceived Him
with their lips, and then He was still gentle.
And I submit to you that the church is in that place today.
That the church in the United States of America, the church the world over, is filled, not
filled to the brim, right?
Not everybody, but filled with deceivers, filled with people who have repented and turned
to God and are yet living in sin.
So that's the exact place where we are.
And God, in His grace and in His love, has forgiven their iniquity and does not destroy
them.
He's restraining His anger against the church, and He does not arouse all of His wrath because
He remembers that we are but flesh.
Then we're in verse 40.
This is after God realizes they are but flesh, and He has not poured out His full wrath upon
them.
They rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert.
And again and again they tempted God and pained the Holy One of Israel.
They did not remember His power the day when He redeemed them from the adversary.
That's a really touching verse right there if you'll stop and think about it for a second.
Has the church, has God's people forgotten the day that God redeemed us from the adversary?
Well, when He performed His signs in Egypt and His marvels in the field of Zohan, has
God's people forgotten the signs that God performed in Egypt, the ten plagues and so
much more?
They turned their rivers to blood and their streams they could not drink.
He sent among them swarms of flies which devoured them and frogs which destroyed them.
He gave also their crops to the grasshopper and the product of their labor to the locust.
He destroyed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore trees with frost.
He gave over their cattle also to the hailstones and their herds, the bolts of lightning.
He sent upon them His burning anger, fury and indignation and trouble, a band of destroying
angels.
He leveled a path for His anger.
He did not spare their soul from death but gave over their life to the plague and smote
all the firstborn in Egypt and first issue of their virility in the tents of Ham.
But He led forth His own people like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock
and He led them safely so that they did not fear.
But the sea engulfed their enemies.
So He brought them to His holy land, to His hill, to this hill country which His right
hand had gained.
He also drove out the nations before them and He apportioned them for an inheritance
by measure, by measurement and made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.
So God did all of that after God's people were back and forth and back and forth and
their righteousness back and forth and believing back and forth and testifying back and forth
and delivering the truth of His miracles.
And yet God did all of that.
In verse 56 it says, Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God and did
not keep His testimonies, but turned back and acted treacherously like their fathers.
They turned aside like a treacherous bow, for they provoked Him with their high places
and aroused His jealousy with their graven images.
When God heard, He was filled with wrath and greatly abhorred Israel.
So that He abandoned the dwelling place at Shiloh, that's where the tabernacle was first
settled where the first worship of God was taking place in the promised land, the tent
which He had pitched among men.
And He gave up His strength to captivity and His glory into the hand of the adversary.
He also delivered His people to the sword and was filled with wrath at His inheritance.
There devoured His young men and His virgins had no wedding songs.
His priests fell by the sword and His widows could not weep.
So God now allows those who were back and forth and back and forth that He showed grace
beyond measure.
He did so much for them after they failed to believe in Him, trust Him and deliver His
message to the world.
And now finally He allows them to suffer in the worst ways.
Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep, like a warrior overcome by wine.
Now has God ever slept?
No.
Has God ever been overcome by wine?
No.
That's not what it means.
What it means is after He allowed His people to suffer all that wrath because of what they
didn't do, because of the evils that they perpetrated, after He did all of that, now
He's coming on the scene and He's going to fix everything.
And it says He drove His adversaries backwards.
He put on them an everlasting reproach.
He also rejected the tent of Joseph and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
So those are two really big names in Israel and they would no longer be on top.
They would no longer be recognized as powerful.
They would no longer be recognized as God's chosen people.
But He chose the tribe of Judah.
That's the tribe of David.
Mount Zion, which He loved.
So Judah had Jerusalem and Jerusalem had Jesus, David's descendant.
And so God will solve all the problems.
We're almost there.
And He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which He founded forever.
He also chose David, His servant, and took him from the sheepfolds, from the care of
the ewes with suckling lambs He brought him to shepherd Jacob His people and Israel His
inheritance.
So He shepherded them according to the integrity of His heart, which was a heart after God's
own heart.
He shepherded them according to the integrity of His heart and guided them with His skillful
hands.
And therefore, you could say David received the promise that he would have an heir who
would sit on the throne forever, and that heir is Jesus.
So there's kind of like three main things I want you to see in here.
Don't forget the title, the Apothecmatic History of God.
So first of all, this psalm makes it very clear that the psalmist understood that the
history is to be told for learning God's story.
If you are a person of God, if you are a follower of God, don't ever again talk about how smart
you are, how capable you are, how strong you are, how fast you are, how you were able,
how you figured it out, how you got past a hurdle.
Don't do it unless you bring God into it because you can literally do nothing without God.
People are looking for people to look up to, and if they look up to you, they better see
a follower of Jesus, or maybe you aren't one.
History is to be told for learning God's story.
There are two famous men, probably a thousand famous men, who have commented on this topic.
And the first one is a man named Hengstenberg.
You don't need to remember his name, just know that he was a German theologian back in
the early 1800s, and like he's super red, and you go to college, you read his stuff,
you can barely understand it.
Well, let's distill one point of it.
He said, let so whoever reads understand, which call upon us to penetrate through the
shell to the kernel.
You go to the story of God, the history of God, you look at it, and you go, yeah, okay.
So Samson, what brought him down?
What really brought Samson down?
Kind of.
Yeah, he was tricked, he was deceived, right?
But was he really deceived?
I mean, she cut his hair with his head on her lap, and the men rushed in and captured
him, and he lost his strength.
Was that the first time they brushed in?
It was the third time they brushed in.
What really brought Samson down?
Well, a lecherousness, right?
He was after a woman.
It was lust, lust and money and pride, and it was the bad things about being a man, right?
The bad things of being a man brought Samson down.
What really brought him down, instead of trusting God and remaining in his Nazarite vows, one
after another, he put them away.
He getting his hair cut was the last Nazarite vows.
It wasn't even the first one that he broke.
It was his last one that he broke, right?
So what really brought Samson down?
Well, that's what brought Samson down.
He forgot who he was and the Lord, and he went after the things of this earth.
And so I got to understand when I read that story something more than I shouldn't get
my hair cut.
I got to understand when I read that story something more than I should be strong.
I got to understand something more when I read that story than I shouldn't hook up with
a harlot, right?
There's more to that story than just he hooked up with a harlot.
He let her deceive him.
She cut his hair, but God was faithful to get it back to him in the end.
He killed all the leaders of the Philistines.
There's more to that story.
And so when you read the stories of God, you don't stop at reading the stories of God.
You listen to the Holy Spirit of God and you dig deeper.
And the next time you read the story, if you didn't get it last time, you digest it again.
And if you did get it last time, what do you do?
Dig deeper.
Read it again and go deeper more.
How does this apply to my circumstance?
What am I supposed to do?
What do I need to repent of today?
How do I need to turn to Christ?
What do I look like as a human being honoring the story of my God as displayed in history?
This history of God is to be told for learning God's story and retold and retold and retold.
You may fancy yourself like some characters in the Bible.
Aaron stood up and shared about vacation Bible school that he really liked that it followed
the story of Peter.
I really liked that too.
You know why?
Because Peter was a butt head and so am I.
That's what I like.
He was a butt head before he came to Christ, before he truly turned his life over to Christ
and went so far as to be crucified.
And on the way as they marched to be crucified, they say to him, we're going to crucify you
like Jesus.
You want to be like Jesus?
We'll give it to you.
We're going to crucify like Jesus.
He says, oh no, I am not worthy to be crucified like my Lord.
So they crucified him upside down.
Now that's not in the Bible, that's church history.
But the bottom line is history is the story of God.
It's not just what's written in the Bible.
What happened in World War II?
What was God doing?
What happened in Korea?
What was God doing?
What happened when the United States elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt when in our day,
no way he gets in office?
How did our country change from then to now?
What has God been doing?
Literally the history, I didn't say the Bible, although that's certainly true.
But history is to be told for learning God's story.
A poetic man once said that history is his story.
I don't know if that's where it originates.
I'm pretty sure it's not where it originates at.
But the bottom line is the history should be told for learning God's story.
Can you tell the history of how God put this church here on this property?
How much of it can you get?
Because if you don't know it, you might want to get it because God did miraculous things
in that that happened time after time again, providing in incredible ways through his power
that you can't deny.
It's like that we didn't have it, then all of a sudden you got it.
It's there.
What?
That doesn't make any sense.
Miraculous healings, right?
Call the family in.
Okay, the church starts praying.
Okay, well, she's getting better.
She may live after all.
Time and again, historic events of God has intervened.
Judy Bolton, who died from cancer, was miraculously, miraculously, no question about it, miraculously
with the doctor saying, I can't understand this.
This can't possibly be true.
We just while we were in there, we took a look around to see how much more there is
no more cancer.
It's all gone.
That was one of the two times she was miraculously healed from cancer and she would eventually
die from cancer and not be miraculously healed.
But in that she prayed for no pain, died or sleep and she had no pain.
The nurses kept saying, you sure you don't need pain medicine?
Even sores on her feet, like literal holes in her legs.
That hurts.
They're like, you gotta have pain.
She's like, I don't have any pain.
I haven't had any pain for days.
They kept trying to give her more pain because she didn't need any, because she didn't have
any pain.
And then eventually she had a ventilator, couldn't keep her awake.
She went to sleep.
They took her off the ventilator.
She went to the Lord.
That's a miracle.
A third one that we can count in just, and she would tell you if she was here, the miracles
that she saw in her life before she ever got saved.
The history that is going on in our day must be told for learning God's story.
In order for that to be true, the people that are living it must be about Jesus.
You've got to tell your kids when something goes right, why God made it go right this
time.
And when something goes wrong, you gotta be able to tell them why God allowed it to go
wrong this time.
And the only way you're gonna be able to do that is if you're daily walking with the Lord
and you can hear His voice.
And the only way you're gonna do that is if you spend more time in Jesus than you spend
in the world.
The history must be told for learning God's story.
The other man that I would quote is a man named Novalis.
Now, Novalis, that's his kind of nickname because he's got this really long name that's
like 11 syllables that I can't even pronounce.
But all the writers always put him down as Novalis because that was his nickname in that
day.
And he was actually what's called a romantic poet.
So he saw the world through romantic eyes.
Now, he was a professing Christian.
He kind of tended toward Catholicism, but I don't hold that against him.
He was a professing Christian and he said this.
He says, the highest view which can be taken of history is that in which its events are
regarded as parables of God addressed to men.
The Jewish people believe prophecy is like this.
Here's a prophecy.
Here is the prophecy fulfilled.
Let's see if it'll get fulfilled again.
Let's see if it gets fulfilled again.
And they have prophecies that are fulfilled again and again and again.
What makes you think that the events of your life that you're living, and I know that your
life is not really about you, right?
You're just the main character physically speaking.
The real main character is a God, right?
Is God himself.
And so, but what if the events that you're going through, the actual things that you're
happening in your life are parables for you to teach the next generation about the God
that is at work in you.
And you should be telling the people around you and children and anybody who will listen,
the people you work with, whatever, you say, well, now this happened.
What do you think?
We have the inspirational moment.
We talk about, well, I saw this and God told me to pay attention to that.
And a lot of times we'll have like three, four people speak up and that's great.
But it ought to be, we all have seven to 10 of those every single week.
And you should get a book and write them down because someday you might have grandchildren
or your grandchildren might have grandchildren.
You might still be around.
You might have to deliver the gospel to somebody who needs to deliver the gospel to somebody
who needs to deliver the gospel.
That's the only person in their generation willing to be persecuted for the cross of
Christ.
You might have work to do.
And the stories of your life are the parables to tell them.
You say, well, there was a farmer who went out to sow a seed.
Yeah, everybody knows that one.
But how about when you got out of bed and didn't feel like doing what you were supposed
to do, but God said, let's go.
And then you started doing it and God empowered it.
What does that teach you?
When you got up on Sunday morning, you didn't want to go to work worship.
You didn't feel like it.
But after the second song, you're going like, all that's gone.
What does that teach you?
Where are the parables that come out of your life?
I'm going to be completely blunt with you.
I am tired of hearing people say, what do you know about God?
And all they can do is quote the Bible.
People who don't even know Jesus can know that about God.
What do you know about God?
The story of your life, the history of your life, the things that you are doing, the history
of your life is not something to look back and long for.
It's not something to look back and regret at.
It is something to digest, to give you the message, to deliver to those who need it.
Because the history is to be told for learning God's story.
The truth is, if you can't share the parables of your life with a lost and dying generation,
then you're no more like, you're no more better than Ephraim with a bow who runs from battle.
I didn't say it.
The psalmist wrote it.
Are you or are you not in the fight?
You say, yeah, sometimes it's so hard, man, it's so hard.
I'm in the fight.
I'm fighting.
If you're fighting to be in the fight, you ain't in the fight.
The fight is we are supposed to be delivering the message about God to this generation and
the generation to come.
History is to be told for learning God's story.
So often, this is the second point we see in here, that people reflect on history as
if those who suffered God's wrath were due that wrath rather than for learning how God
delivers.
Why did Samson lose?
Well, because he was a bad guy, because he was an idiot, right?
Who would be so stupid to lay his head down there a third time and give her the real last
Nazarite bow as the reason that he might lose his strength, which is kind of dumb anyway,
because God gave him the strength.
He gave him the strength because he was God's man, not because he was a Nazarite specifically,
but the point is he was willing to tempt God, willing to mock God.
Who would do that?
Who was dumb enough to do that a third time?
And we look at that and we go, I'll never be like that.
I'll learn my lesson and just not be like him.
And then the truth is years later, we're exactly like him because we misdiagnosed the story.
We looked at him and said, we don't want to be like that because we don't want that
result.
You ever hear anybody go to the doctor and they got cancer?
What's the first thing?
I'll tell you right now.
What's the first thing that goes through most people's minds other than, I'm sorry that's
happening.
I'll pray for you those basic things, right?
What is it?
Make sure you got, make sure it's real.
Right?
And then did they smoke?
Did they work with asbestos?
Right?
Where is the carcinogen?
Where is the thing that caused them to get cancer?
Right?
Because doctors know lots of things that causes people to get cancer.
Right?
And so if they smoke for, if they're 60 and they smoke for 50 years of their life and
they have cancer, then, yeah, that's how it works.
Right?
Well, guess what?
Lots of people who don't smoke get cancer.
Lots of people who don't work with asbestos get cancer.
Lots of people who don't work in coal mines get cancer.
Lots of people who don't work in factories get cancer.
You can go down the list and you can go every single reason a person might ever get cancer
and get to the bottom and there's no reason that person might have cancer and they still
have cancer.
And you'd give that person some mercy, wouldn't you?
You'd be like, oh, that's really a shame that they have cancer.
It's terrible that they have cancer because they didn't do anything to deserve it.
What?
Nobody deserves cancer.
Not in Christ, not as a believer, not if you recognize who the Lord is.
History tells us that people get it if they do things to get it, but that does not make
us not going to get it.
That's not how that works.
So you might get it and you might go, well, I don't deserve it.
I don't want it.
I feel bad on my back sore every day and I, my back shouldn't be sore.
I didn't do anything to cause my back to be sore.
Yes, you did.
You lived in your body.
That's your house.
And somehow or other, we're all not taking care of the body the way that we should.
We need to recognize as we reflect on history, instead of saying, oh yeah, they suffered
God's wrath because they were due God's wrath and I'm going to try to avoid that.
We should learn how God, what?
Delivers people from his own wrath.
That's what we're supposed to learn.
Time and again, they were rebellious and time and again, he brought them out.
He holds the more blessed, the more accountable.
If God has blessed you and given you greatly, and I'm going to say to you that it's probably
true that if you're here today, God has blessed you and given you greatly.
But you decide for yourself.
It's not my place to say, but it feels that way.
We're living in a country where you can hear the gospel preached anytime you want.
Now you may not have, but you can.
But you can own your own Bible for a buck and a quarter.
You may not own a Bible, but you can.
The blessings are delivered.
And so realize God holds more accountable those who are more blessed.
Who was the holiest man in Moses today?
Who was the guy that nobody can hold a candle to?
Moses.
And coming out of Egypt from the moment he came out of Egypt to the moment that he didn't
go into the promised land.
Can you count the number of times that Moses sinned in the snort of Moses?
I can't.
No.
Once.
One time.
There's one.
One sin listed in the entire story of Moses.
Yes, it is.
He struck the rock instead of talking to the rock.
And he said, must I give you again?
Not God will give you water on this rock.
So we his pride, his arrogance, but one.
How many times have the other people sinned?
Oh gosh.
Probably every day they were alive.
Great.
How many times have I sinned?
Yeah, probably just about every day I've been alive.
I'm not like Moses.
Moses had one sin from the time he brought them out of Egypt, from the time when the
promise land because of that God literally it says in the Hebrew spoke him dead.
For those who are more blessed, a higher level of accountability is required.
You can have the Holy Spirit of God in you.
You can be saved and walk with Christ every waking moment.
And simply you can be with him while you sleep.
He doesn't leave you.
You see, you can have something that nobody else ever had.
That's why Paul said now, now that it's been revealed is for every man to repent.
You think there wasn't anybody who went to heaven before that moment before Jesus was
crucified?
No, they were all like, well, I'm doing the best I can.
I believe in God for whatever way he's going to make.
I'm just going to do the best I can.
They had sin.
How many times in the Bible can you count sin in Jacob's life?
You know what Jacob means?
The word Jacob means deceiver.
Throughout his story, he seemed deceiving, deceiving, deceiving, deceiving.
And then he would be named Israel, become the father of all God's people.
God is a gracious God.
He wants to give.
He wants to bring you out.
But once he does that, the expectation is raised.
God holds accountable more the blessed Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament.
For all we know, they were saved.
They professed to be saved.
Nobody ever said they weren't.
But they saw Barnabas sell a property and give all the money in.
Right.
And he said, here's all the money.
Take care of the church.
Take care of the poor here.
And they all and Barmas kind of got the kudos.
Oh, that's wonderful.
You're a great guy, Barmas.
You're the best.
Name the encourager.
Right.
They're like, well, let's sell our property.
And they sold their property and they kept back some of the money.
They didn't give it all into the treasury, but they said they did.
They let everybody believe they gave all the money in the treasury.
And God struck them dead.
One at a time.
He struck them dead.
Because once you're saved in Christ, there is a higher level of accountability.
The blessed are held more accountable.
So when you look back in history and you see people sin, and they kind of make it through,
God gives them grace and it's OK.
Don't you ever say, well, he did it.
I can do it too.
God will take care of me.
Don't do that.
Because you are saved in Christ.
You have the Holy Spirit, if indeed you are.
And you have a higher level of responsibility to God who cleanses your soul, who regenerates
you, who seals you for the day of his next appearing.
God holds more accountable those who are more blessed.
He surrenders the fool to folly and he supplants the chosen with another when the chosen looks
down on his provision.
Understand that?
So if you're stupid enough to anger God, to cause the wrath of God to come upon you after
you've been called, God will move you out of the way.
Now he may kill you, but probably not.
There'll just be a break in your relationship with him that persists for the rest of your
life.
You'll take your whole family with you, like the jailer who repented and they all brought
them all in and they all accepted Christ and they all got back.
You take your whole family with you and then you fall because your folly is that you value
the things of this life more than you value God.
It mightn't be your family that you value, right?
It could be the money.
You'll do well.
You'll get promoted, promoted, promoted.
You're doing so well because you're working.
You're doing it as if you're doing it as you got.
And then you start thinking about the money one day.
Start thinking about retirement.
Start thinking about a boat or an RV or a better things for yourself or for your family.
Start thinking about it, right?
Everything's going to be okay.
I'm going to make sure everybody's going to be okay.
It's all going to be good.
I need more money.
Make sure it's all going to be good.
And where is God in that?
He's nowhere.
And then the next thing you know, this person's drifting and that person's drifting and you
were thinking you were the anchor and frankly they were thinking you were the anchor and
now you're not anymore.
And it can fall apart.
God surrenders the fool to his folly and he supplants the chosen with another when the
chosen looks down on God's provision.
Are you serving the living God?
Because if you are and in serving the living God, you delve into folly.
You let other things be more important or you start thinking about the things of this
earth like they were in the wilderness.
They were brought out from God with miraculous intervention.
They're in the wilderness then and then they start like, well, we don't like this manna
that rains down from the sky.
It's kind of plain.
Can't we get some meat?
So God made a wind blow.
The foul dropped in their midst is all to solve this example, right?
That's his example.
The foul dropped in there.
They start eating it while the meat was still in their mouths.
The strongest amongst them begin to die.
God surrenders the fool to his folly and supplants the chosen.
Israel, Jacob would be the chosen people of God.
Israel's descendants, Joseph, Ephraim, the chosen people of God will all come out of
there.
But then there was a man, David, and he switched all of that over to David and said, a descendant
of yours.
Did you know that there are women in Jesus's ancestry?
It's not even only a patriarchal ancestry.
They can trace their lineage back to Abraham, but it won't do them squat good because Christ
is the one who saves.
Christ is the leader of the people.
Christ is the head of the church.
Christ is the one who decides who goes to heaven and who doesn't.
Christ is the only way.
And he came out of the descendants of David.
And you can find Ruth in there who was a mobile.
It's not even a Jew.
And she was brought in.
She supplanted God's chosen people.
And the church is the same way we supplant the chosen people of God.
Now I understand the chosen people of God can be included.
I'll come back to that.
He after handing out blessings, he does not sleep or ignore.
God is not just letting you do whatever the heck you want, whatever you want, letting
you suffer, letting you do well, whatever.
God does not sleep or ignore.
He is present until and if the blessed show a desire more for the things of this earth
than they do for God.
If you're stupid enough to do that, then you won't be able to find him anywhere in your
life.
Even if he sealed your heart and saved you for eternity, if you choose the things of
this world over God, you might look for him and never find him because he's not going
to be part of that.
And he calls out every generation, out of every generation, he calls out worshipers
in spirit and truth.
Since Adam and Eve, every generation, he calls out worshipers in spirit and truth that can
stay the course because they have tasted and seen and known the supreme value of the Lord.
People reflect on history as if those who suffered God's wrath were do that wrath.
The reality is we were all do that wrath.
But we should reflect on history to learn how God delivers.
That brings us to our conclusion.
We must not look into the rich history of God's people and repeat the mistakes we see
happening there.
God has called the church to be this very thing, the replacement people of God.
We can reasonably expect that he can keep us, that he can fill us with his eternal character,
or he can remove us just the same as he removed the chosen fallen people before us.
The church is the replacement for those from history who failed to desire God more, love
God more, keep God's ways more, while at the same time desiring God's provision above
all things.
But the truth is they got to the point where any provision would do as long as it could
be attributed to God, and then eventually they didn't even care if it could be attributed
to God anymore just as long as they were provided for.
In case you think I'm just pulling this out of left field, it's clear that the psalmist
didn't quite say that last thing that I said.
I want to read briefly to you from Romans 11.
This is our last scripture for the day.
Some of you are going, oh, I kind of know what he's about to read.
Others of you are going, boy, I should read my Bible more and I would know what he's about
to read.
Romans 11 says this, beginning in verse 15.
He says, for if their rejection, that's Israel as the people of God, if their rejection be
the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
And if the first piece of dough be holy and the lump is also, and if the root be holy
the branches are also, but if some of the branches were broken off and you being a wild
olive were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the
olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches.
But if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the
root supports you.
You will say then, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.
Quite right.
They were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith.
Do not be conceited but fear, for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will
he spare you.
Behold then the kindness and severity of God to those who fell severity, but to you, God's
kindness.
If you continue in his kindness, otherwise you also will be cut off.
You can stop right there.
It says enough, doesn't it?
The apothecmatic history of God.
So the word apothecmatic means short, powerful saying or formulation, like a plan or a book,
right?
So this is the apothecmatic history of God.
And the truth is, you only know what your life is like, what you've witnessed with your
eyes and your living testimony, what you can talk about that you know is true.
That is the apothecmatic history of God for you.
And you say, but that's so much.
You say, no, this Bible from end to end would be so much.
So there's about, depending on your translation, there's between 725,000 and 800,000 words
in this Bible.
That sounds like a lot, but of those, almost 2% of those words are God or Lord.
So that cuts it down a little bit.
It's not 800,000 different words.
It's not.
Nobody has done the statistic to know, or at least I couldn't find it to know exactly
how many different words there are exactly.
It depends on the translation, obviously.
The bottom line is, this is definitely an apothecmatic presentation of the truth about
God.
And your life is apothecmatic.
All you have to remember is what happened to you.
Now it'd be nice if you could also remember some of what happened to your parents.
If your parents have a great testimony, remember their story.
If they walked against God and realized it and turned to God, remember their story.
If they loved God and He loved them back and were taking care of bless you, then remember
their story and deliver it to your kids and your kids' kids and say, you know, when I
was younger, I heard these stories of what God had amazingly done in my parents' life,
but I didn't really listen and I didn't really follow the way I should.
And then I repent and I turn back.
Don't make the mistake that I made.
Tell the apothecmatic history.
You say, no, it's not short.
It is short.
Pithy means essential, short, and powerful.
The Bible is a condensed version of everything.
Now how many, if you actually wanted to write down every detail that happened in the life
of Moses, it would take books upon books to write that down.
It even says that in the New Testament about the life of Jesus.
If you want to write down everything that was about Jesus, it would take books upon
books to write down everything that He did.
If you want to write down everything that happened in your life, it would take books
upon books and then it would take me years upon years to pry it out of you.
And the truth is, I probably can't.
Why?
Because we're off on ourselves so full of so much crap that we can't remember what God
is doing in us so that we can deliver it to everybody else as they need it.
The translation of the Bible doesn't matter as long as it's a translation.
But what does matter is what it means.
And we must learn it, share it with our children and our generation, striving to live up to
what we learn, chiefly giving God His proper place in sovereignty.
His ways are the only ways we want.
And you learn those ways by taking a long look at the apothecmatic history of God.
What did God deliver us, Genesis, through Revelation?
And what do you know of it?
And how do you apply it?
And then what has God done in your life?
And you say, well, God has not been good to me in my life.
Life is not good to people in general.
Suffering is a normal state of being.
God sent His only Son to die on the cross for you.
And if you'll have Him as Lord and Savior, you'll have abundant life even in the midst
of that suffering.
Miracles do happen.
I could give you a long list.
We could have a sermon of just me standing up here listing out miracles that we have
seen and there would be people in this house go, yep, I saw that one.
Yep, I saw that one.
Yes, I remember that.
Right?
And then we could pass the microphone around and you could list off five or seven or ten
as long as you knew in advance because it's not like you're telling them all the time,
right?
And if so, why not?
Because that's the apothecmatic history of God.
You're supposed to be telling them all the time.
You say, well, I've only got one the day I got saved.
If that's the only miracle you've ever seen, then you should be telling that miracle all
the time.
And if you've never seen that miracle, so you can't say that there are any, then you
need to get saved today.
You need to recognize that God has orchestrated the events of your life and the parameters
of your life, where you live, where you will be, and required you to be in this room at
this moment so that you can recognize that you have sinned and therefore are separated
from God so you can believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross of your sins and commit
your life to him and live for him from this day forward, being born again instantaneously
because God promises whosoever call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
And there I just gave you an apothecmatic history of what it means to be saved in 30
seconds.
Can you do that?
Yes, you can.
Go do it literally always everywhere and win the world to Jesus because you are the replacement
people of God.
Unless you should delve into the folly of wanting the comforts of this life more than
his presence, and then he'll replace you too.
I'm asking you today to commit yourself to following the Lord.
I'm not saying that he'll replace you and you'll lose your salvation.
You could do this.
You could say, well, I'm saved.
I know I'm saved.
I'm just going to live however I want.
And I know I'm saved.
As long as you keep knowing that you're saved, you'll probably still be saved.
It's all good unless you're just fundamentally wrong.
And if you feel like doing that and living like that, you might be fundamentally wrong.
You might not be saved.
And I would recommend it if you could just do that.
All things are permissible.
But as Paul also pointed out, not all things are profitable.
I suggest you follow the Lord and begin to deliver the apothecmatic history of God to
everyone around you and to your kids in the Sunday school classes and in the church and
to your spouse.
And if your parents aren't saved, then give it to your parents.
And if a new child is born, start brushing up and getting ready to deliver all those
same stories over again.
Because if you're waiting for me to do it, I'm going to do one a year.
I'm going to do one a week for a year and get 52 in this year.
But you should get in a minimum of 365 because you're you every day.
The apothecmatic history of God, that is what it means when it's the Great Permission.
Go and teach them all things I have commanded you.
That's what it means when it says, we proclaim what we have seen and heard that you also
may have fellowship with us and our fellowships with God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.
What can you proclaim the apothecmatic history of God?
Lord help us.
Ask the praise team to come forward and lead us in a closing hymn.
If you're here today and either you're willing to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior
for the first time ever, then you come and you respond and you make that public and say,
yes, that's me.
I'm doing that today.
It doesn't matter what people think.
I already thought you were saved.
That doesn't matter.
You're getting saved for the first time ever today.
If you made a public professional faith this last seven days and you've not told the church
yet about the decision you've made, this is your opportunity to say, I'm willing to
do Jesus starting now.
If you say, I'm a Father, Lord Jesus Christ, but I have not been sharing the apothecmatic
history of God.
I haven't been telling people what I know about God.
I haven't been telling people what the Bible says about God.
I'm not doing that.
And you repent today and say, no, I'm going to do that going forward.
Then you make that publicly known and say, that's me.
You can do that right here.
You're saying, yes, I will share.
Whatever it might be, it's on your heart, this is your opportunity to respond.
We're going offline.
Those of you who are online, leave a comment, send a message, whatever, if you've made some
kind of decision today.
We're going to do some business here in the hall with the Lord.
As we sing this song, would you stand with us and respond?
If the Lord is leading, respond.
This is our final song.
This is your opportunity to come and say, yes, that's me.
I need to live for God starting today.
Or yes, that's me.
I know I need to be sharing.
Whatever else it might be.
I surrender to Him, I believe.
I will have a love and trust in Him, His presence daily.
I surrender.
I will have a love and trust in Him, His presence daily.
I surrender to Him, His presence daily.
my soul long after me. It's the very first contemporary worship song I've heard. Now there's lots, right? They call it amazing
graces, considered contemporary worship, even though it's much, much older, right? I didn't even think of it that way. I'm not
sure I've even heard it before that time. The point is, I remember that. And then I remember Amalia and Alicia, and I, in our
little sitting room, off of Michigan, and they had given us a book, the church had given us a book, and it had that song in it. I
think it was actually East Litter that gave the book, and we were sitting there singing that song. Amalia was like two and a half,
three years old, like Zoe's age, and Alicia was about four years older than her. We were singing that song for the first time
grade, and we were praising God. And the Spirit was there, and we were reminded that day after day after day, then, reminded,
day after day, we should be longing for God, but want more God, more God's story to tell. It's not a burden to tell God's story.
Delivet it, right? It's not a burden to live it, it's not a burden to tell it. And so, praise God, we had the opportunity to
deliver the apothecmatic history of God. So, you're going to need to start keeping some journal. Oh, journal, spiritual discipline.
Why do we journal? Well, there's an example with that, because then you can tell the story, right? You're going to need to read your
Bible, why don't you read our Bible, so we can know what it says, so we can tell the story, right? God is good. It all works
together. We are His people, because He's chosen us for Himself. Do not fall into the poly of looking at those who've gone before
and saying, I'm not going to do what they did. That's not enough. You're going to go look at those who went before and see what they
did, and think about how God delivers. God delivers, and we are a people of His deliverance. That's what we do.