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I fall with the water's dawn, with the solid ground,

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Run through the beaches, drown and storm.

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When light from the Lord once danced the beach,

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When thieves are still, but shining scenes,

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When clouds don't turn, night all in all,

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Here in the love of Christ our Spare.

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In Christ alone, who took on flesh,

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The most of God in hell despair,

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These gifts of love and righteousness,

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Sparks of the ones He came to save,

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Till on that cross, as Jesus died,

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The breath of God was satisfied,

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For every sin on Him was made,

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Here in the death of Christ our name.

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And hither up His body lay,

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Light of the world, by darkness slain,

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In grousing waters, in glorious day,

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Up from the quick He rose again.

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I will call upon the Lord,

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Who is worthy to be praised,

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I shall not be stashed,

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For my love is deep, from my enemies,

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I will call upon the Lord.

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The Lord living, and blessed be the rock,

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And let the God of my salvation be exalted.

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The Lord living, and blessed be the rock,

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And let the God of my salvation be exalted.

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I will call upon the Lord,

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Who is worthy to be praised,

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I shall not be stashed,

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For my love is deep, from my enemies,

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I will call upon the Lord.

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The Lord living, and blessed be the rock,

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And let the God of my salvation be exalted.

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The Lord living, and blessed be the rock,

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And let the God of my salvation be exalted.

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The last of all my soul,

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Oh my soul,

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Worship His holy name.

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Sing like never before,

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Oh my soul,

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I worship your holy name.

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The sun comes up,

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It's a new day dawning,

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It's time to sing our song again,

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Whatever may pass,

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And whatever lies before me,

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Let me be singing when the evening comes.

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The best of all my soul,

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Oh my soul,

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Worship His holy name.

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Sing like never before,

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Oh my soul,

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I worship your holy name.

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You're rich in love,

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And you're strong to anger,

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Your name is sweet,

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And your heart is kind,

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For all your goodness I will keep on singing,

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Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.

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The best of all my soul,

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Oh my soul,

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Worship His holy name.

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Sing like never before,

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Oh my soul,

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I worship your holy name.

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And on that day,

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When my strength is failing,

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I will keep on singing when the evening comes.

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Enjoy!

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I have fallen to my knees,

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As I sing a lullaby of pain.

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I'm feeling broken,

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In my melody.

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As I sing to help the tears go away,

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Then I remember the pledge you made to me.

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I know you're always there,

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To hear my every prayer inside,

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I'm pleading to the promise of a lifetime.

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I hear the words you say,

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To never walk away from me,

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And to leave behind the promise of a lifetime.

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Will you help me fall apart?

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Pick me up and take me in your arms,

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I'll find my way back from the storm,

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As you show me I'll grow through the change.

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I still remember the pledge you made to me,

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I know you're always there,

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To hear my every prayer inside,

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I'm pleading to the promise of a lifetime.

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I hear the words you say,

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To never walk away from me,

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And to leave behind the promise of a lifetime.

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I am holding on to the hope,

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I have it inside.

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With you I will say,

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Through every day,

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Putting my understanding aside.

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And I am confident,

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To know you're always there,

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To hear my every prayer inside,

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I'm pleading to the promise of a lifetime.

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I hear the words you say,

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To never walk away from me,

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And to leave behind the promise of a lifetime.

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I know you're always there,

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To hear my every prayer inside,

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I'm pleading to the promise of a lifetime.

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Looking back at me,

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I know that you can see my heart,

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It's open to the promise of a lifetime.

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When I was younger, much younger,

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about nine or so, a little older than Ariana,

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about Zayden's age,

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my parents took my brother and I on a vacation.

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Our vacation started by going south down 75,

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and we stopped at a variety of places.

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We went to Gatlingburg, Tennessee.

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It wasn't the first time that we'd been there, visited there.

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It was a beautiful town.

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It's been reconstructed now because they had a bad fire,

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but it's still a beautiful town.

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And it's right in the Smoky Mountains.

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They call them Smoky Mountains because they're hazy and gray

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when you look at them from a distance.

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And from there we went down into Georgia and then west,

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kind of along the Gulf of Mexico.

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We stopped and saw the Gulf of Mexico once,

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and then kind of north and west through Kansas and so on,

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and into the northern part of Texas.

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While we were in like Wyoming or something,

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it came time that our long vacation was going to come to an end.

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As we traveled, we traveled in the back of a pickup truck.

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My dad and my mom would ride in the front.

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My brother and I would ride in the back,

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and they had built a kind of a bunk, a two-person bunk,

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across the top where the cap was,

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and we had carpeting on the bottom,

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and we rode back there all the time, no seatbelts.

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There were no such things as airbags.

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In fact, I'm not even sure if that truck had seatbelts

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for the people riding in the front of it.

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This was back in the day.

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And it came time for my dad to go back to work,

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and we were pretty far away,

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and they really didn't want to go back to work,

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and so he called up his boss and he says,

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hey, can I take two more weeks of my vacation?

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And if he took two more weeks of his vacation,

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they would do what's called shutdown.

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He worked in the Dana plant, and they would shutdown,

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and he would get not just the two more weeks of vacation,

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but he would miss shutdown,

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and then they would be shutdown for another two weeks after that.

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So you have a whole other month off.

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And so in the end, we traveled for six weeks,

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all the way, a big loop around.

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We went through Yellowstone National Park,

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saw Old Faithful, and I got down on my knee

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and fed chipmunks little bits of grain out of my hand

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outside Old Faithful.

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Old Faithful is the geyser that erupts at the same time

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they can predict it when it erupts,

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and it can predict water and steam up in the air.

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It was a crazy vacation.

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And I saw amazing things.

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Ben Franklin said, be careful about traveling.

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He said, in fact, if you can avoid it, don't ever do it,

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because everywhere you ever go will always look better than home.

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And I had that experience growing up

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because my parents took us on trips and so on.

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We saw a lot of things. I was not a Christian.

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And so I remember thinking, man, I want to live in Gatlinburg

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when I grow up, and then going to Texas.

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I want to live in Texas when I grow up.

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I want to live in Wyoming when I grow up.

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And thinking all these places that I had seen,

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I wanted to live there because they were all so much better.

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On another trip later, I was sitting in a restaurant,

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Pizza Hut of all things, with my dad in Gatlinburg.

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And I told him I wanted to live in Gatlinburg when I grew up.

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And he said, well, here's something you need to be aware of, son.

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And I said, what's that?

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And he said, when you visit a place

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and you see all the cool things, you realize if you live there,

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that's not the reality of what there is like.

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And he said, well, you're going to be eating here.

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You're going to be working in this pizza.

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You're eating here. You brought the money.

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You're buying the pizza. You're eating here and enjoying the pizza.

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You're going to go walk the trails and ride the horses

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and the things that you can do in Gatlinburg.

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He said, but if you were living here, you'd be making the pizzas.

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Or you'd be fixing the cars.

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Or you'd be living your normal everyday life.

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It's not like it is for a vacation.

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And I took that to heart, but I always kind of just,

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every trip we ever took, I said, well, I think I would like to live there.

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It would be really cool to live there.

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It's pretty or it's dry. Phoenix is dry.

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And Smokey Mountains are big and kind of green and blue and wet and cool

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most of the year and things like that.

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Then I got saved.

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And I began to think about how one day I'm going to pass away.

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I'm going to go somewhere else.

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And I don't know. I've never visited heaven.

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I don't know exactly what that's like.

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But I can tell you that now when I travel

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and I experience something that's really cool

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and God shows me something or God speaks to me,

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it's all really about where I'm going to go then.

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And then when I'm here and things go wrong,

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like there's lies or treachery or somebody cusses me out,

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or somebody steals from me or things like that,

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I remember those are reminders that going there then

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is going to be something amazing.

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This is not our home.

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And as I was thinking about this this week,

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I realized that a lot of times as things are going on,

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we kind of get fascinated by the things of this life

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and we forget some of the most basic and important concepts of Christianity.

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It is wonderful to be able to visit the Smoky Mountains.

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It is beautiful to be able to go out and see the huge canyons of the southwest.

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But God is the God that made all of that.

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And He made your spouse. He made your friends.

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He made your kids. He made your job.

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He made your talents. He made your hobbies.

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He made everything that we do here that's any good.

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And if we start thinking that something of this life is good

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and kind of worshiping it or thinking how good it is,

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we miss out on some key things.

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And so the sermon that we're going to have today,

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some of it will seem like, yeah, I kind of already knew that.

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And it's okay.

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But we're going to talk a little bit about how to put it into practice

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and make sure, check ourselves by Scripture,

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that we are indeed putting into practice these few things for this coming year.

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This could be the year that God does so many amazing things.

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And could we say that about 2024?

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Because God did so many amazing things in 2024.

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But that year has passed.

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Could we say it about 2020?

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Because God did so many amazing things in 2020,

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even though everybody was griping about 2020 and the COVID pandemic and everything.

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But God did so many amazing things in 2020.

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And we could say it about every year past.

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But we don't have those years to make any decisions about or how we're going to live.

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We have this year. We have 2025.

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So as we look at the sermon today, if you go, yeah, I kind of already knew that.

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You're just saying it in different words.

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I want you to check yourself and make sure if you already knew that,

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are you already doing what lines up with that?

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That's what the sermon is about.

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So the first of those things is a concept, is a doctrinal concept called eminence and imminence.

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Okay?

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Eminence means something is big, overarching, far away,

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not right here right now, but maybe in control.

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God is like that. God is holy and perfect.

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We'll talk a little bit about that out through Scripture in one second.

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Imminence is when something is near to you and affecting you right now.

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So when you go to work and they say in a month or two months,

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we may have layoffs or the schedule is going to change.

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You have to work a lot more hours or you think, well, my birthday is a couple months away

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and we're going to go do this special for my birthday.

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That's eminence. It's far away.

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You kind of got to react to it.

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You want to be prepared for it, right?

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Like if you're going to spend 500 bucks to go on a trip at your birthday time,

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you got to get that money together.

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Otherwise, you're going to be debt financing it, right?

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If that's even possible. So that's eminence.

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You got to kind of prepare for it.

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But the truth is it really isn't here.

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And then there's eminence. It's right here right now.

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You go to work and they say the plant is closing.

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You have no job as of tomorrow.

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Or they say your wife says to you, look, you said this and I'm really upset with you.

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Or your friend won't talk to you anymore because of something you did you didn't even mean to do.

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That's eminence. You've got to deal with it right now.

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There's a difference between eminence and eminence.

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Listen to what Isaiah wrote.

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This is chapter 55. You can go there in your Bibles if you want.

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It's Isaiah 55 beginning in verse 6.

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Praise the Lord.

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And this is what Isaiah wrote.

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Really he spoke it and then it was recorded.

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Almost everything in that book you'll see he was speaking out loud to everyone else.

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But there are some kind of like in prose but not so much.

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So Isaiah said this. He said, seek the Lord while he may be found.

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Call upon him while he is near.

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Let the wicked forsake his way.

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In other words, that's the thing that you do that you continually do

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that God would not want you to do.

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And you keep doing them anyway. Stop it!

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Let the wicked forsake his way.

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And the unrighteous man his thoughts.

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And let him return to the Lord.

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Stop doing those things and instead repent.

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Return to God and he will have compassion on him.

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And to our God for he will abundantly pardon.

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So here is the Gospel in the Old Testament.

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The Gospel as written by Isaiah.

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If you will repent and turn to God.

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God will have compassion on you.

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And he will pardon you for the things that you've done.

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Even wickedness which is the things that you did repeatedly knowing you should not do them.

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So if you'll just turn from that way of living and turn to God's way.

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He will have forgiveness and compassion awaiting you.

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Why? Because he already knew what Jesus was going to do.

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Everybody that ever got saved a hundred years, a thousand years, five thousand years before Jesus was born.

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Got saved through Jesus.

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They just didn't know it was Jesus.

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They just knew there was a way that God was going to make to have compassion on them.

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We're now in verse eight.

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He says this.

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He says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts.

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Nor are your ways my ways declares the Lord.

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In other words, God is eminent.

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You can try to think like God.

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You can hone your skills a lot of ways through spiritual disciplines.

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And try to think like God.

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But you'll never be God.

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And the truth is no matter all you would want to do.

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You would build a ladder.

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Climb a tree house and stack another one on top.

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Go to the top of the very highest skyscraper in the world.

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And then from there take a rocket ship up as high as you'll never get to God.

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No matter what works or things that you do.

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Because God's eminence, his thoughts, the way he thinks, the way he acts, the things he does.

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Why God hung the stars in the sky the way he did is beyond us.

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Why God wrote in DNA in every cell of every living organism exactly how to replicate.

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Why he chose to do it that way.

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That is beyond us.

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For my thoughts, he says, are not your thoughts.

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Nor are your ways my ways.

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But notice back at the beginning in verse 6 that we read.

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Call upon him while he is near.

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That's eminence.

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Near.

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He's right here right now.

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God is omnipresent.

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Which means he is everywhere that he wants to be.

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So he is far away, it says.

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And also nearby.

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A little further.

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Verse 9 says.

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For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.

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That's eminence.

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He is far away.

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And my thoughts, then your thoughts.

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For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth,

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and making it bare and sprout.

353
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Bare means to grow up things and sprout means to start a new plant.

354
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And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater.

355
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Verse 11.

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So will my word be which goes forth from my mouth.

357
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It will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire.

358
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And without succeeding in the matter in which I sent it.

359
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And so here it is that God is both eminent and imminent.

360
00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:34,200
And the crossover point at which we can understand God's eminence and imminence is what?

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It is his word.

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It is the teaching that comes out of his mouth.

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So for us that is easily the Bible.

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And in the Bible you can see a pattern, a pointed to way that God speaks.

365
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The way that God thinks and acts.

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And we can learn something about that eminence.

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Something about that far away-ness of God.

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When I say God is holy and he is just, and I think about what that means for me and the things that I have done wrong,

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that's a problem.

370
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The truth is if God would just simply judge me for the sins that I have committed in my life,

371
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I would rot or rather burn in hell for an eternity.

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That is a simple fact.

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And a person can deny that for their whole life and still wind up there for their whole eternity.

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Because it's a fact.

375
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You can deny that gravity will pull you to the earth when you jump off of a small hill in your yard or off of a tree a six foot drop.

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But if you deny that gravity will pull you to the earth when you jump off a skyscraper,

377
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you're not going to catch yourself.

378
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You're not going to bounce.

379
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You're not going to have time to go, oh wait, I think I screwed up here.

380
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Gravity did pull me down.

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Down I go.

382
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And if you deny gravity, it still exists and the same is true with heaven and hell.

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And so if you deny hell your whole life, you'll still wind up there for an eternity.

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When I think about God's holiness and his justice, that is what God must do.

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In God's eminence, in his faraway nature, because he is so different from us,

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we've had a couple of conversations over the last two weeks about culture in my family with Ariana,

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because she's running afoul of different cultures of the students in her school.

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And they treat her badly in her own mind.

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She's being persecuted by people that she would be perfectly friendly to

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because her culture is Christian and theirs is definitely not.

391
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And for other reasons as well.

392
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And she's getting upset.

393
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She's like, I'm having a hard time not being mad at them.

394
00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:28,200
I have three, four, five times they persecute me.

395
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I have a hard time not being mad at what happens and what they're doing and so on.

396
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:34,200
And so we've had a lot of conversations about culture.

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And the truth is, if you move from here to, I don't know, Turkey or Japan, you get there.

398
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They live a completely different way.

399
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Their culture is completely different.

400
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Do you know that in the United States of America, you live in a food desert

401
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if you can't walk a mile to a grocery store to buy food at a reasonable price?

402
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Walk a mile.

403
00:22:57,200 --> 00:22:58,200
Now, let's be really realistic.

404
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:05,200
In this room, how many of us have walked a mile to the grocery store in the last year?

405
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:09,200
I see two, three, four, five.

406
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That's a long way.

407
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:14,200
So the rest of us are going like, why would you walk a mile to the grocery store?

408
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:16,200
Now, those of you who raised your hands, you had your reasons.

409
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It's part of your culture maybe.

410
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:19,200
You're going like, well, I'm exercising.

411
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:22,200
I need to do that because I don't got a car.

412
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I don't got nobody to take me.

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You have reasons.

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The rest of us are going to walk a mile to the grocery store.

415
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See, that's an aspect of culture.

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And if I would stand up here as a preacher and say, well, the Lord says no one should ever walk a mile to the grocery store,

417
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then all of those of you walking by the grocery store, you'd be wrestling with them.

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You'd be like, how can you say that?

419
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That doesn't make any sense.

420
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See, the gospel is not culturally oriented.

421
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The gospel does not change culture inherently unless the culture contains sin.

422
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So now, for example, if you live from a murder culture, let's say you were back, back with Hillbilly from Iowa or something,

423
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then some small town where nobody's been forever and there were 30 or 40 of you there,

424
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,200
you developed a murder culture, which is completely illegal in the U.S.

425
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I understand that.

426
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But you developed this culture that if you kill somebody, you get to keep everything that they have.

427
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Then you come to Toledo.

428
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You try to practice your culture.

429
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You're going to wind up picked up by the cops or whatever.

430
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:14,200
You might even murder a few police officers, et cetera.

431
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:17,200
And pretty soon you're going to realize your culture is not accepted here.

432
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:21,200
If you get to heaven and you go to heaven, you say, I'm going to live the way I lived on earth,

433
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your culture is not going to be accepted there.

434
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:29,200
God's eminence is that he is holy and just and completely different.

435
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:32,200
His thoughts and his ways are above us.

436
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:38,200
Yet his eminence is with us and in us in the person Jesus Christ and in his Holy Spirit

437
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:41,200
who comes and takes up residence in us when we are saved.

438
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:46,200
This is the problem with going on in sin and doing things wrong after you become saved

439
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:50,200
and wickedly doing the thing over and over again that you know that God doesn't want you to do

440
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because the Holy Spirit is now with you.

441
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:56,200
So you're literally dragging the Holy Spirit of God through that experience

442
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:58,200
where you're doing something you should not do.

443
00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:01,200
So we've had a couple of conversations recently about culture in our family

444
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:04,200
and what we're realizing is we don't have to change somebody else's culture.

445
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:09,200
The Kingdom of God has its own culture and if anything we should be changing our culture

446
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:12,200
or letting God change our culture to match the culture of the Kingdom of God.

447
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:18,200
We should be becoming more like Jesus doing the things that we see God doing.

448
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,200
And God says, his word will not come back.

449
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:25,200
Boy, Jesus is the living word of God and here is the written word of God

450
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:29,200
and neither one of these things properly addressed will fail to affect you.

451
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:32,200
But if you don't read your Bible you're not going to be affected by your Bible.

452
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:36,200
Not even the verses that you memorized years ago when they talked you into it by offering a piece of candy.

453
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,200
That's not going to affect you because you're not going to think about them.

454
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:41,200
You're not going to focus on what God wants to change in you.

455
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:43,200
You're just going to focus on the things that are right in front of you.

456
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,200
Everybody's going to deal with the problems that they have today.

457
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:49,200
Who said what to me? What bill do I have to pay? And so on.

458
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:53,200
And that is a culture but it is a culture of this world.

459
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:57,200
The eminence of God reminds us we will eventually come into his presence

460
00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,200
and when we do something had better be right.

461
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Or you'll be judged and spend eternity away from him.

462
00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:06,200
The eminence of God reminds us that he is right here with us now

463
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:10,200
doing all the things that we are doing whether he likes it or not.

464
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,200
You understand? You feel like God kind of pulls back from you.

465
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,200
You feel like sometimes you can't hear his voice.

466
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:18,200
Maybe it's because you're doing things that essentially would chase him away.

467
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:21,200
Now he's not going to let you go. He's not actually going to leave.

468
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,200
He's both eminent, far away, and also eminent with you.

469
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:28,200
And if you are following the Lord, he's never going to leave you nor forsake you.

470
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:35,200
So say if Jesus in the book of Matthew, but that is attached to doing the things that God is doing.

471
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:42,200
And so you're going to feel like God is not present when you're doing the things that God would never do.

472
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,200
Eminence and eminence of God.

473
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:51,200
And as we take that into 2025, we need to realize when you go home, God goes with you.

474
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:54,200
It doesn't matter whether you address what I said here today or not.

475
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,200
And you can take as much as you can of what God is saying through me

476
00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:59,200
or what you're getting out of the scripture or whatever in this room

477
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,200
and put it to work in your life.

478
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:06,200
And then in a week or three weeks, if you forget it, and you forget that God is both eminent and eminent,

479
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:12,200
then you'll find yourself tempted, distracted, walking into doing things that you know God would never do.

480
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:16,200
And so doing, you're basically fist palming, slapping God in the forehead saying,

481
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:20,200
God, I don't need you imminently, I only need you eminently.

482
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:25,200
I only need a God who created everything, gives everything, saves souls for anybody who comes to Him freely.

483
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,200
That's the God I need. I don't need a God that's right here.

484
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:32,200
But did we not see that God is both there and here at the same time?

485
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:35,200
God is a God who is eminent and eminent.

486
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:38,200
Paul said this in Acts 17 before the era of Areopagus.

487
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:44,200
He said, Man of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.

488
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:47,200
So listen, you're here in church today. You wanted to be here.

489
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I hope you came because you wanted to be here. You worshiped God.

490
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:51,200
I hope you came and worshiped God.

491
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,200
If you went through what we just went through and worshiped as a body

492
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:58,200
and you couldn't bring yourself to worship, then probably there is a heart condition.

493
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:03,200
Because I totally forgot y'all were in the room for a few minutes while I was worshiping.

494
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:05,200
And I was with the Lord here in the front row.

495
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:08,200
By the way, if you're having trouble doing that, move to the front row.

496
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:12,200
If you're thinking about the people sitting next to you, your spouse, your friend, whatever, your phone,

497
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:16,200
put your phone away, leave your phone on the back row and then come to the front row.

498
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,200
Because then all you can see is the people who are singing.

499
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:22,200
And you don't want to focus on them because you know that they don't want you to worship them.

500
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:24,200
They are just trying to lead you to worship God.

501
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:26,200
So then all you have left to focus on is God.

502
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:30,200
And so if you could go through what we just went through and not worship the Lord, oh my goodness,

503
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:34,200
you are religious in all respects. Good for you. Praise God for that.

504
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,200
But this is what Paul says in verse 23.

505
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:42,200
For while I was passing through the examining and examining the objects of your worship,

506
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:46,200
in other words your chairs, your instruments, you know, they had statues and idols and all these things,

507
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:50,200
he said, I also found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God.

508
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:52,200
Now is there a problem with that?

509
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:55,200
If you're in this room and you've not become a Christian, not become a follower of the Lord,

510
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,200
that's not a problem that you don't know God.

511
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:03,200
It's not a problem. Actually, it's the only thing you have going for you right now in this moment.

512
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,200
If you're here and you've not actually accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,

513
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:11,200
what you have going for you is that you realize that God is eminent and you want Him.

514
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:15,200
You're trying to figure out what that looks like to be eminent with Him, to be present.

515
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,200
So you're looking for God, you're searching for God. That's good.

516
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:21,200
In fact, Paul's about to say that if you do that, God will do something in return.

517
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:26,200
So he saw them with an altar, that means an object of worship toward an unknown God,

518
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:31,200
and it says, therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you,

519
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:35,200
the God who made the world and all things in it, that's an eminent God.

520
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:38,200
Since He is Lord of heaven and earth, that's an eminent God.

521
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:42,200
Does not dwell in temples made with hands, that's an eminent God.

522
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,200
Nor is He served by human hands, He's too eminent for that.

523
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:47,200
As though He needed anything.

524
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:53,200
Since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things, that's all God's amazing eminence.

525
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:58,200
And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth,

526
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,200
and having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,

527
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:06,200
that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him,

528
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:12,200
though He is not far from each one of us. That's an eminent God.

529
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,200
If God seems far away from you, if you're worshiping a God that you don't know today,

530
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:21,200
you start at Jesus, accept Jesus as Lord, and God will make Himself obvious to you.

531
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:24,200
He will be eminent, He will be with you.

532
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:30,200
Verse 28, For in Him we live and move and exist, that's an eminent God.

533
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:34,200
As even some of your own poets have said, for we also are His children.

534
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:39,200
We have the right to call ourselves the children of God because Jesus Christ died to bring us into the family.

535
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:46,200
29 says, being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone,

536
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:51,200
an image formed by the art and thought of man. What are people doing when they think money is God?

537
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:54,200
What are people doing when they try to make little gold statues and worship that,

538
00:30:54,200 --> 00:31:01,200
or set up an altar in the front of the room that's got 40 different things and glowing candles and gold and silver and what costs $30,000?

539
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:04,200
What are they trying to do? They're trying to bring God to eminence.

540
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:08,200
They're trying to bring God down to something that they control, something that they handle,

541
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,200
something they can contact when they want to.

542
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:17,200
In light of the fact that the funeral is upcoming, nobody in my family had a phone number for my aunt and my uncle,

543
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:20,200
who were my dad's brother and sister. Can you imagine?

544
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:23,200
They were eminent. Everybody knew that they were out there.

545
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:30,200
We're like, we've got to contact my aunt and my uncle about my dad dying. We've got to do that.

546
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:39,200
And so we reached out to somebody, happens to be my uncle's ex-wife, and asked her, do you have a number?

547
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:43,200
She said, no, he's out there, but I don't have a number for him.

548
00:31:43,200 --> 00:31:47,200
But my kids, the kids that she had with him, they have his number.

549
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:52,200
She reached out to them. They gave her his number. She gave me his number.

550
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:55,200
I gave my brother and my mom his number.

551
00:31:55,200 --> 00:32:02,200
You see, what we did was, my uncle was eminent. He was out there and we knew that. He was far away.

552
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:07,200
And we brought him eminent by going through somebody who eminently knew him.

553
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:10,200
That's what you could do right now in this place.

554
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:16,200
You could go through somebody who eminently knows God, and you might be thinking, I'm talking about me, but I'm not.

555
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:28,200
I do eminently know him, but my eminent relationship with him is colored by my culture, by who I am, the way I think, the way I act, the way I have been, the fact of what I have seen and what I have not seen.

556
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:33,200
But the eminence of Jesus, now Jesus can bring you to God.

557
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:36,200
You don't need me for that. You need Jesus.

558
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:42,200
You don't need anybody else in this room, not your parent or somebody else, your youth leader or your teacher from class.

559
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:51,200
You need Jesus. Jesus came. He is God in the flesh, was God in the flesh, and now is God eminent.

560
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:55,200
He is Immanuel, God with us. That means God eminent.

561
00:32:55,200 --> 00:33:05,200
Being then the children of God, we ought not to live, not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.

562
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:10,200
Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, see God knew that people didn't know previously.

563
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:15,200
He overlooked it. God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent.

564
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:22,200
Basically, he's saying, yes, I have been an eminent God, but now I am an imminent God and I will be from now on.

565
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:29,200
So turn to me or else. That's it. There is no other way. You turn to me now.

566
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:34,200
Now I have killed my own son by the hands of sinful men.

567
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:42,200
And if I have done that for you, you had better turn to me now or there is no alternative.

568
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:54,200
And this because he has fixed the day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead.

569
00:33:54,200 --> 00:34:04,200
God is eminent and imminent and he's proved it. And if you will dismiss him after that, you've got a problem, a problem that will last you for an eternity.

570
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:14,200
I told you I traveled. Never got to the Grand Canyon. We were actually in Arizona once as a kid. We went through there, but we never went to the Grand Canyon.

571
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:21,200
So I always kind of wanted to see it. So we took the girls and Aaron and I can't remember Arden. Yeah, I think Arden too.

572
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:26,200
We took all of them and we went in a van and we went south and we stopped in Tennessee and we went across Kansas and whatever.

573
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:34,200
We were heading to the Grand Canyon. It's further than it looks on a map. I mean I know you know it's far away, but it's far away. It took us a long time and we didn't get there.

574
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:41,200
Instead we went to Moab, Utah, which is kind of like the northern eastern. It's sort of like in the chain of the Grand Canyon.

575
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:52,200
And there, standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, which was not the Grand Canyon, it was grand to us. It was Golden Arches Park standing there, a thing they call like high point.

576
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:59,200
I could look and see the edge of the canyon on the other side. How many miles away it was? Let me take a guess. Just give me a number.

577
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:08,200
How many miles away do you think the canyon edge on the other side was? He says five. He says ten. No, it wasn't a thousand. That's a big number.

578
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:18,200
225 miles. And most people will never see that distance ever in their life. You cannot see that distance normally.

579
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:24,200
Standing on the ground out here where we are and looking at the horizon, that is three miles away.

580
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:33,200
The curvature of the earth curves away. You cannot see further. Now if there's something tall just beyond it, like a tall building or a mountain, you can see that much further.

581
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:39,200
But just looking at the ground, it's roughly three miles away in this part of the world. Different parts of the world are different.

582
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:45,200
But there, standing at the edge, it was not because the curvature of the earth was different. It was because there was nothing in between.

583
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:55,200
The ground went down and away thousands of feet. And then you're looking across that and you can see. I took a picture with my cell phone. And guess what it saw?

584
00:35:55,200 --> 00:36:06,200
Nothing. The cell phone couldn't take a picture. There was not enough light coming to the cell phone to take a picture of the ground that far away.

585
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:11,200
I could take a picture of the canyon below me, but it couldn't take a picture of the ground over there.

586
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:20,200
God is too mighty to be captured in pictures on your cell phone. God is too mighty to be captured in your imagination because He is eminent.

587
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:25,200
He created everything. Nothing that's ever been created ever completely encapsulated the person that created it.

588
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:35,200
No painting, no poetry, no song, no all of creation, not all the Megavir. If you could know everything that exists all at once, you would know a fraction of who God is.

589
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:42,200
He's eminent. He's well beyond that. I once said in a block party on mainstream, I said, God could take the whole universe and put it in His hand like this and wash it with a little bit of dish soap.

590
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:48,200
And clean it all up if you wanted to. Now do you know that God can do that?

591
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:58,200
If you do, it's only through Jesus Christ because your mind is stretched just thinking that all the planets and all the stars and all the space in between and all the trees and every atom that exists.

592
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:06,200
Not now, but ever since God said let there be light and ever will. All at one time He could take all of that and put it in His hand.

593
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:12,200
You can't even imagine that. You can't imagine what happened 100 years ago. We thought we were all like, oh gosh, the pandemic. Everybody's dying.

594
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:20,200
That has happened two times in the past where as many people as died in the COVID pandemic died in the world already. It's already been done.

595
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:28,200
We were all like, oh, this is terrible. This has never been seen before. Nothing under the sun has never been seen before.

596
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:35,200
It's all about how you react and what you do with what you know. As much as you know, and if you keep increasing what you know, you will have more to react to.

597
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:43,200
But the bottom line is God is eminent like that. He's too big. I didn't get to see the Grand Canyon with my kids.

598
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:51,200
So when Sherry and I went on our 20th wedding anniversary trip, we were determined to see the Grand Canyon.

599
00:37:51,200 --> 00:38:01,200
We went to a free pastor and spouse retreat down in Phoenix, Arizona and from there drove up to a little town on old Route 66 and from there caught a train to the edge of the Grand Canyon.

600
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:08,200
We stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon. I looked over there. I thought, man, it's a big hole in the ground. I could see the other side plain of sand.

601
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:17,200
I picked up my cell phone and I took a picture. Came out perfectly clear. It was not 200 plus miles away. It was maybe 10 or 15 miles away.

602
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:25,200
It's big and the canyon goes on in both directions. It's really, really far. It's huge. We thought, well, we want the Grand Canyon to be imminent though.

603
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:31,200
We really want it to be imminent. So we're going to hike down into the Grand Canyon. We started hiking down and back and forth on this gravel, sandy trail.

604
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:37,200
We're thinking like we've got to get back up there by 415, 430 because we'll miss our train. We'll have to get another hotel here. It'll be really expensive.

605
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:48,200
We don't want that. So we're hiking down and it's hot outside. We're all the way down. We're debating with ourselves just exactly how imminent we want the Grand Canyon to be, just exactly how close we want to get to be to actually see the bottom.

606
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:56,200
We're hoping we can get pretty far down and eventually down there we can see a way station and the way station was one quarter of the way down.

607
00:38:56,200 --> 00:39:02,200
We're hoping to hike as far as the way station because they have fresh water down there and go to the bathroom and whatever. None of that's on this trail.

608
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:08,200
We're hiking down and down and back and forth and back and forth and we hike for got to be about two, two and a half hours.

609
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:13,200
And we're going like, okay, now going back up is going to be slower. Going back up is going to be harder.

610
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:19,200
So exactly how much we've got to hike all the way down here. How much difficulty are we going to have getting back up to the train?

611
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:25,200
And every step we're debating with ourselves, can we go to a little more eminence? Can we get a little closer? Can we get closer to the bottom?

612
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:33,200
It's clear now we'll never get to the bottom. Not happening today. But how far can we go? Can we get to the way station?

613
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:38,200
And you know, we never did make it to the way station. We had to turn back and then we got back up the top.

614
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:47,200
Absolutely exhausted, sucking down water like crazy. Got on the train with about 15 minutes to spare and the train rolled out and took us back to town.

615
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:55,200
You can do all the work you want to try to make God eminent in your life. And you will fail, fail, fail.

616
00:39:55,200 --> 00:40:01,200
But here's what will never fail. The living Word of God, Jesus Christ. The written Word of God, His Word that we can study.

617
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:08,200
We're talking about Bible intake for this six months. I'm telling you, you need this. You need this to be personal with the Lord.

618
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:13,200
You need this to be with God. You need this to be the person that God has made you to be.

619
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:20,200
The second point, that's the first one. The second point for 2025 that we want to think about is that God's plans unfolding today.

620
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:25,200
The things that God are doing today, they are His plans of yesterday.

621
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:32,200
Now I know that God is eternal. That means that God exists already. When you walk into heaven, God is already there waiting.

622
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:40,200
So if you don't go for 10 years, 20 years, or 50 years yet, you don't go for 100 years yet. He's already there in that moment. He already sees you walking in.

623
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:47,200
He is present in all moments of time. Now you can argue with me doctrinally about that if you want at another time, but the bottom line is this is our God.

624
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:51,200
Is it hard to understand? Yes. It's hard to understand that He is both eminent and imminent.

625
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:56,200
Far away and far above everything and bigger than everything and bigger than we can understand and yet imminent and personal with us.

626
00:40:56,200 --> 00:41:01,200
That's a hard thing to understand, but the word says it clearly. Also, God has a plan for your life.

627
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:08,200
For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

628
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:15,200
God says He's got a plan for you. He personally has a plan for you. It's a good plan.

629
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:21,200
Now ultimately it is that you'll be in heaven for eternity, but even between now and then it's a good plan.

630
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:27,200
Had I not hoped that I would see the blessing of the Lord in this lifetime, I would have lost hope, David said.

631
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:33,200
You can know that God has a good plan for you. Bless you.

632
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:37,200
And the plan that is ongoing today, the thing that's unfolding today, which could include something bad.

633
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:45,200
You could have disease, illness, hurt, financial ruin, a breakup, a lost job. The bad things of today, lose a father, lose a mother.

634
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:51,200
Those bad things, they are part of the plan that God laid out for you in the past.

635
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:56,200
And we got here because God directed it here. This is what He says in Isaiah 37.

636
00:41:56,200 --> 00:42:01,200
He says, Have you not heard long ago I did it from ancient times I planned it?

637
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:08,200
Now I have brought it to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

638
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:13,200
In other words, the things that will stand against you when you know that what's going on right now in your life,

639
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:17,200
that what you're doing right now, the choices that you're making right now are in line with the plans that God has for you.

640
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:23,200
And that He is unfolding something amazing, something great that you can expect that God is going to do something.

641
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:27,200
And what is He doing? What is His goal? He's setting you up as a victor.

642
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:31,200
He's setting you up as a winner. He's setting you up as an overcomer.

643
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:35,200
He's setting you up to be greater than that which you will face so that you can tear it down,

644
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:41,200
tear it to shreds and walk over top of its ruined corpse into glory.

645
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:45,200
Will you face death? Will you face disease? Will you face pain?

646
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:49,200
Will you face broken relationships and lost financial situations and everything else in your lifetime? Absolutely.

647
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:53,200
And what is your status? What is your point? You go on Facebook, here's my status.

648
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:59,200
People put, I'm struck today. I'm hurt today. I'm falling apart today. Is that your status?

649
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:03,200
No. You are riding in glory today. You are an ultimate victory today.

650
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:07,200
You are overcoming the sting that's coming against you today.

651
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:12,200
Anybody remember Muhammad Ali? Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee?

652
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:17,200
Until the end when he began to struggle, nobody could touch him.

653
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:20,200
Nobody can touch you either.

654
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:25,200
In your immanence with God, the God of the universe is delivering power and capability into your life.

655
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:30,200
It isn't power and capability to make everything turn out exactly the way your human flesh might want it to be.

656
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:35,200
It's power and capability to run roughshod over top of anything that comes against you.

657
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:42,200
Do you not realize he says, long ago I did it from ancient times I planned it, now I have brought it to pass.

658
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:49,200
God saw you as a twinkle in your great, great, great, great, great, can I go on, grandfather's eye.

659
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:53,200
You were a twinkle one day in Noah's eye.

660
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:59,200
Probably sipped a little wine and thought I'm going to go lay with my wife and make Kishon in a few thousand years.

661
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:07,200
And God saw it then and then said, and I will send Jesus to die on the cross so that Kishon will become a mighty warrior

662
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:13,200
overcoming anything that stands against him. Watch this.

663
00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:17,200
You know the little kids, they're in a play or in a sporting event and they're like, come watch me.

664
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:24,200
Come see what I can do. Watch me shoot. Watch me tackle. Watch me sing. Come watch me. See what I can do.

665
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:31,200
God is imminent like that. He wants you to come watch him and see what he can do and more.

666
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:35,200
See what you can do. But you're doubting, not just doubting God.

667
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:39,200
That'd be bad enough, a man who doubts says nothing.

668
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:45,200
But also doubting yourself. Because God has made in you a creator.

669
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:49,200
And when necessary, a destroyer.

670
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:57,200
These plans that unfold in our lives, say good, bad, ugly, whatever they are, they are God's good plans for us yesterday.

671
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:00,200
You say, well how could God ever plan me losing a job?

672
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:05,200
And when I lose that job, God's going like, that's going to be the good plan for you.

673
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:11,200
Because God knows better. God knows life is not about a job or health or even your money or your talents

674
00:45:11,200 --> 00:45:18,200
or what somebody says or does to you. It's about his imminence in you. God died to give you his presence.

675
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:25,200
And when things of this life interfere with that, God removes them and teaches you to become a remover.

676
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:29,200
Psalm 33, 11 says, the counsel of the Lord stands forever.

677
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:35,200
What God has planned and determined, the way he has set it up, that's not going to not go that way.

678
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:45,200
You can fret a few more, whine, throw a fit, kick the car door, put your fist through a drywall, tear it up, burn it up, blow it up.

679
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:53,200
But today is part of God's plan for you. So all you're doing when you behave that way, all you're doing when you curse the God of the universe

680
00:45:53,200 --> 00:46:00,200
is cursing the God of the universe. This day, what God is doing in you, as bad as it might seem to you in the moment,

681
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:06,200
this day is part of God's good plan for you. God doesn't fail. God's counsel doesn't fall apart.

682
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:11,200
What God planned to do is not going to come to ruin. Rather, what the enemy does is going to come to ruin.

683
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:20,200
And you're going to deal the cards. You're going to live for Jesus in 2025 and run roughshod over every opposition.

684
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:27,200
You're going to doubt whether or not you can get baptized, preach the gospel, teach a Bible study, share with a friend at work,

685
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:31,200
share with a friend at school, stand up for Jesus, wear your cross in front of people that you know hate God.

686
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:34,200
You're going to doubt whether you can do that. And God's going to say, oh, you can do it.

687
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:40,200
Not only can you do it, when you do it, a light will shine that will push back the darkness in a way that you have not yet seen.

688
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:49,200
God says, my counsel stands forever. The plans of my heart stand from generation to generation.

689
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:58,200
The last point that we desperately need for 2025, at least for today, is that God wants us to want what he wants.

690
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:04,200
God wants us to want what he wants. We've all got desires. Everybody wants better, tastes better.

691
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:07,200
You know, like you eat something and one thing tastes good. You eat something else and it tastes bad.

692
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:10,200
You go like, I'm going to eat the thing that tastes good. I'm not going to eat the thing that tastes bad.

693
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:12,200
We all have wants and desires. We basically know how to respond to them.

694
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:16,200
Your culture kind of dictates the decisions that you'll make and that kind of thing. But basically, you want it.

695
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:22,200
So, you know, if this thing is medicine or vitamins or is a good healthy food, maybe like asparagus,

696
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:30,200
and this thing over here is like a bloody red steak or a piece of chocolate cake, you know, if you eat three or four of these, it's really not good for you.

697
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:35,200
If you eat three or four of these, you could eat like 50 of these and it'd be good. And the more you eat, it's better within reason. Right?

698
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:42,200
And so we have the ability to deny our own desires, to say, I'm not going to eat too much bloody red steak or too much chocolate cake.

699
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:46,200
Instead, I'm going to eat me some asparagus and broccoli and cauliflower and beans. Right?

700
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:49,200
I'm going to eat some things that will be good. I'm going to take my vitamins and my supplements. I'm going to drink my water.

701
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:55,200
I'm going to get my rest. I'm going to study my Bible. I'm going to preach the gospel. I'm going to live for the Lord even when it's inconvenient.

702
00:47:55,200 --> 00:48:02,200
We have the ability to turn away from our own desires in the flesh and do the things that God wants. And that's what God wants for us.

703
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:11,200
In fact, Jesus instructed the disciples in the disciples prayer to pray at something like this. He said, Our Father in heaven. Oh, that's eminent.

704
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:18,200
Hallowed be our name, your name. That's eminent. Your kingdom come. That's a begging for eminence. Right?

705
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:26,200
Your will be done. That's what we're supposed to be praying. But a lot of times, that's not what we're praying.

706
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:36,200
Give me better taste. Give me more collection. Let me consume more. Let me look a little bit, just enough like the world to win a lot of friends and influence people.

707
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:47,200
But the truth is, when you are in Christ, you can do what nobody else can do. You can be trained to do what nobody else can do.

708
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:57,200
Because nobody else is exactly you. We are equal because we're unique. So we're supposed to say to God, OK, God, give us today what we need.

709
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:04,200
Give us our daily bread. Your will be done here like it is there. Your will be done imminently like it is imminently.

710
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:08,200
Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us.

711
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:15,200
We look at who hurt us, who did wrong, and we forgive them. And we say, God, forgive us like we have forgiven them.

712
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:23,200
If you have a hard time praying, forgive us like we have forgiven them. Because you know you have not forgiven them, you might want to get your cart behind your horse and start doing some forgiving.

713
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:31,200
And then when you do some forgiving and pronouncing the forgiveness of God to people, then you'll be able to pray in earnest, forgive us as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

714
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:39,200
It says, lead us not into temptation. What is temptation? It's the opportunity to work your will instead of God's will.

715
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:47,200
To do what you want instead of what God wants in your flesh, in your mind, in your desires, in your dreams.

716
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:53,200
But we're asking God daily and saying, OK, Lord, please don't put us in those situations.

717
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:59,200
Lead us not into that situation where we would choose to do what we want over what you want. He says, but deliver us from evil.

718
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:06,200
Now, let's be super clear about this. This is what we're praying. And God says, deliver us from evil when he talks about us being tempted.

719
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:14,200
Right? And so if you're tempted to do what you should not do, that's evil. It's not you doing evil, it's the world's evil.

720
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:17,200
Right? The world is doing evil to you, tempting you to do what you should not do.

721
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:25,200
And then when you choose to do what temptation leads you to do, then that becomes evil that you have done.

722
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:31,200
And we need to be delivered from that. We need to want what God wants. That's what God wants from us.

723
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:38,200
He desires for us eminently and imminently that we would desire his will on the earth.

724
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:47,200
Because the kingdom, the power, and the glory are his. They're not yours. They're not mine. We're not going to claim them.

725
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:53,200
Now, the beauty of it is that he, in some sense, shares those things with us, but he doesn't have to.

726
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:58,200
He is eminent, but he chooses to be eminent. And therefore, is both.

727
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:04,200
That brings us to our conclusion, but I'll go back over them for those who are note takers in the room,

728
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:08,200
and probably more importantly, for those who are not note takers in the room, so you will not forget.

729
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:12,200
The first one is that God is both eminent, that means he's far away and above all and can never be fully grasped,

730
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:19,200
and eminent, that means he's right here in us all the time, for those of us who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

731
00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:26,200
And Jesus is eminent with God the Father, and so if you have not accepted Jesus, do that and become eminent with God.

732
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:33,200
Secondly, God's plans unfolding today are the good plans that he promised from yesterday,

733
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:38,200
even when they don't look that way or feel that way or even when you think you don't want it to be the way it is.

734
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:42,200
And then third, God wants us to want what he wants.

735
00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:46,200
So what that all comes together then is in kind of like one thing.

736
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:53,200
God is an active God. God is doing things, changing things.

737
00:51:53,200 --> 00:52:00,200
He's creating even now, and he wants to know, are you in?

738
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:06,200
Are you willing to join in with that? Are you going to be part of that?

739
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:08,200
In the Great Commission it says, go ye therefore, and it ends with,

740
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:11,200
and lo, I shall be with you even unto the end of the age.

741
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:16,200
And in the middle is baptizing them and teaching them all things that I've taught you.

742
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:20,200
We're supposed to do the things that God is doing and do it.

743
00:52:20,200 --> 00:52:27,200
So I have kids, my boys were playing baseball, and they wanted to be good,

744
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:30,200
because if you're playing a sport you want to be good.

745
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:34,200
And so they come to me and they said, will you come up in the yard and throw the ball?

746
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:36,200
And I'm like, yeah, let's do it. I throw the ball.

747
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:39,200
Hit him some rounders, throw him a little line drive, throw the ball, something like that.

748
00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:44,200
Now I'm getting better at baseball as they're getting better at baseball,

749
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:46,200
because we're doing it together.

750
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:51,200
God is an evangelist. God is a servant. God is a lover. God is kind and gentle.

751
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:54,200
God is faithful for sure. He is patient for sure.

752
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:58,200
What does this sound like? It sounds like the fruit of the Holy Spirit that God creates in us,

753
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:00,200
and the Holy Spirit lives in us. Why? Because the Holy Spirit lives in us.

754
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:06,200
He is in us doing what He does, being who He is, living out the culture of Heaven,

755
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:10,200
of the Kingdom of God. And God wants us to do the same.

756
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:15,200
He's saying, this is what I'm about. This is what I'm doing. Will you come and live with me?

757
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:23,200
Will you come and live in me? Will you want and do the things that I want and am doing?

758
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:26,200
He's spreading the Gospel, telling people there's a new covenant.

759
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:28,200
There's a way that you can be saved.

760
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:33,200
Now in Jesus people can believe and receive salvation.

761
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:37,200
The new covenant is essentially the New Testament. It's very clearly laid out.

762
00:53:37,200 --> 00:53:41,200
He said to the disciples, and it carried over as a command to us,

763
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:45,200
that you will be my witnesses. Power will come upon you.

764
00:53:45,200 --> 00:53:50,200
Power. Why power? Because you're smart, because you're strong, because you're capable, creative.

765
00:53:50,200 --> 00:53:55,200
You may be all of those things or none of those things, depending on who we're talking about.

766
00:53:55,200 --> 00:53:59,200
You may be something else. But God is powerful.

767
00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:03,200
And if you are imminent with God, then you are imminent with power.

768
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:06,200
And the power that comes upon you is the power to do what?

769
00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:09,200
In that case, Acts 1-8, it's very clear, to be his witnesses.

770
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:13,200
They would wait until the power of God came upon them to be his witnesses.

771
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:18,200
And the Greek word there is martyrs. Essentially it's martyro, which is martyrs.

772
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:21,200
So you will die, which points to Jesus saying, deny yourself.

773
00:54:21,200 --> 00:54:25,200
Take up your cross daily and follow after me.

774
00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:29,200
Ephesians 5-29 says, For no man ever yet hated his own flesh.

775
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:32,200
You shouldn't hate yourself. It's not healthy to do that.

776
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:37,200
But rather he nourisheth it and cheriseth it, even as the Lord the Church.

777
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:43,200
That's what I want you to see. God nourishes and cherishes the Church.

778
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:48,200
God takes care of us as his people. If you are searching for your nourishment somewhere else.

779
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:53,200
If you feel good or feel better when people have a good opinion of you.

780
00:54:53,200 --> 00:54:57,200
Or when you eat certain foods. Or when you behave a certain way.

781
00:54:57,200 --> 00:55:00,200
Then you are not getting your nourishment and your cherishing from God.

782
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:04,200
And you need to repent. Because we now live in the day that repentance is the only way.

783
00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:11,200
You turn to God and he will provide. And if he does not, you will be continually searching, seeking, looking for that everywhere else.

784
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:13,200
And you will never find it or you will find it for periods of times.

785
00:55:13,200 --> 00:55:16,200
And ultimately after death you will never find it for eternity.

786
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:22,200
You need God imminently. And to have God imminently, he lives in you.

787
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:25,200
And to know that he is imminent, you need to be about the things that he is about.

788
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:28,200
Doing the things that he is doing.

789
00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:34,200
We are called the body of Christ. And as if the body, if as the body we stop working.

790
00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:39,200
Then his presence in the world in a way that people can see it die off.

791
00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:43,200
I will not get to experience my dad in this world again.

792
00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:47,200
And some of you feel that same pain about loved ones that you have met.

793
00:55:47,200 --> 00:55:56,200
I ask you, dare you, are you willing that the God of the universe should die off of the earth among men?

794
00:55:56,200 --> 00:56:01,200
No. Never let it be.

795
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:07,200
Rather let men who are his true temple always walk in Christ.

796
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:13,200
Let us represent him. Let us show the example of what it means to allow God to work through us.

797
00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:18,200
And to overcome obstacles. Cherishing and relishing the opportunity to suffer like they did in Acts 4.

798
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:22,200
Oh, they praised God and gave him glory that they were allowed to suffer like Jesus.

799
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:27,200
Should you want to suffer? No. You want what God wants for you.

800
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:33,200
And if God deems that you should suffer, then you suffer not only willingly but rejoicingly.

801
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:38,200
Half the suffering that we do, we do because we are pursuing things that we cannot have.

802
00:56:38,200 --> 00:56:40,200
That God does not intend for us.

803
00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:46,200
But if you will just pursue what God wants for you, then you will be his body and presence on the earth.

804
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:53,200
You will live where we once were dead in our transgressions and sins. You will live.

805
00:56:53,200 --> 00:56:57,200
That's sad that people would allow God's presence on the earth to die off.

806
00:56:57,200 --> 00:57:02,200
And it should be mourned. But there is hope. Hope in repentance.

807
00:57:02,200 --> 00:57:07,200
We turn to him, deny ourselves again today, take up our crosses again today,

808
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:18,200
and follow after him going forth as his body and working in the world as he is working, letting him work through us.

809
00:57:18,200 --> 00:57:20,200
A couple of illustrations and we're done.

810
00:57:20,200 --> 00:57:24,200
The first one is WWJD. Does anybody remember WWJD?

811
00:57:24,200 --> 00:57:28,200
Does anybody remember where it comes from?

812
00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:31,200
So it grew up in the church. Like it was a really big thing.

813
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:35,200
And it is a Christian written story. It was written by a man with the last name Sheldon.

814
00:57:35,200 --> 00:57:41,200
The interesting thing about that book is when it went to the Library of Congress to be permanently recorded, copyrighted,

815
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:45,200
two pages were misprinted which broke the copyright.

816
00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:50,200
And companies all over the world, so in Europe and Italy and all over the world, reprinted the book.

817
00:57:50,200 --> 00:58:00,200
And it became the third most printed and bought and read book in the world after the Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress.

818
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:04,200
The Bible, the Pilgrim's Progress, and In His Steps. That's the name of the book.

819
00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:08,200
If you can't afford to get a copy of it, you want to read it, I'll buy one for you.

820
00:58:08,200 --> 00:58:12,200
It's not not expensing if I'm on the internet for three or four bucks because the copyright was broken.

821
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:17,200
And in the first year, two million copies were printed, bought, sold, and read in one year.

822
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:23,200
Now that's unheard of until social media and electronics and like that now happens all the time.

823
00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:27,200
Ten million in a month is common enough.

824
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:32,200
But back then it was unheard of. It was a printed paper book, not an electronic book. That didn't exist.

825
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:40,200
It was traveling around the world by email. It was printed in dozens of countries and bought and read by everybody, passed around.

826
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:44,200
In that story, a church was challenged and some people stayed after the service.

827
00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:51,200
And they said, well, I'm going to do everything that I do first asking the question, what would Jesus do?

828
00:58:51,200 --> 00:58:57,200
And then the rest of the story of what happened when they said, I'm going to do everything I do first asking, what would Jesus do in that circumstance?

829
00:58:57,200 --> 00:59:05,200
And it starts to unfold. They make really like the one guy runs a newspaper. He decides that Jesus would not print a newspaper on Sunday because that requires people to work on Sunday.

830
00:59:05,200 --> 00:59:09,200
It gives people paper to read on Sunday. You got to go buy the paper. You've got to deliver the paper.

831
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:13,200
So his business, the main part of his paper business was coming in on Sunday.

832
00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:16,200
And they all told him, if you do that, you'll destroy your company. You'll go bankrupt.

833
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:21,200
And he said, but Jesus wouldn't do it. So I'm not going to do it. And he quit printing the paper on Sundays.

834
00:59:21,200 --> 00:59:25,200
And after that, his paper prospered in a crazy way and he did very well.

835
00:59:25,200 --> 00:59:28,200
But in the meantime, everybody in the industry was telling him he's nuts.

836
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:34,200
So it's a great book. And what would Jesus do comes out of that book. It's the only place that anybody had ever thought of it.

837
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:40,200
And it was prospered all over the world. But what I'm telling you today is based on what we just read.

838
00:59:40,200 --> 00:59:45,200
What would Jesus do is not sufficient. And we're not even doing it.

839
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:50,200
We don't even go so far as to ask ourselves always, would Jesus do what I'm about to do?

840
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:58,200
But it's just not enough. The question, what would Jesus do, assumes that you can make a decision the way God would make the decision.

841
00:59:58,200 --> 01:00:02,200
And that's probably not true. Because you're going to make it in your culture, making your limited mindset.

842
01:00:02,200 --> 01:00:07,200
Know not enough about God to do it. You're taking the authority yourself and saying, do I think Jesus would do this?

843
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:11,200
Okay, well then I'm going to do it. And I'll say to you, it's better than nothing.

844
01:00:11,200 --> 01:00:15,200
It's better than what most people are doing. But it's not what God would give us.

845
01:00:15,200 --> 01:00:22,200
Now, Blackaby wrote a study called Experiencing God. And in Blackaby's study Experiencing God, he said, here's what you do.

846
01:00:22,200 --> 01:00:26,200
See where God is at work and then go and join him in it.

847
01:00:26,200 --> 01:00:31,200
I submit to you in that day, now tens of millions of copies later, that revolutionized Christianity.

848
01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:37,200
And everybody said, well that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to look for God at work and I'm going to go do what it is that God is doing.

849
01:00:37,200 --> 01:00:41,200
And that's good. And I submit to you that based on what we just read, it's not enough.

850
01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:46,200
It's better than what most people are doing. Because we say, oh I see God at work there.

851
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:49,200
I go join in. I donate. I serve. I give. Whatever. That's better.

852
01:00:49,200 --> 01:00:52,200
And a lot of people are like, hey God's at work there. Cool. That's good for them over there.

853
01:00:52,200 --> 01:00:55,200
I'm going to see if I can get God to work over here in my life to do this thing that I want.

854
01:00:55,200 --> 01:01:00,200
That's what most people are doing. I'm going to work a little harder, make a little more money so that I got more money later.

855
01:01:00,200 --> 01:01:04,200
Yep, they're okay. Clearly they're okay because what's going on over there.

856
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:07,200
If God's at work over there, then they don't need my money. They don't need my service. They don't need anything.

857
01:01:07,200 --> 01:01:11,200
I'm going to work over here and try to get this one bolstered. That's what most people do.

858
01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:14,200
But black would be said, see where God is working. Then join him in it.

859
01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:19,200
But I submit to you based on what we have just studied, that's not enough. It's not enough.

860
01:01:19,200 --> 01:01:23,200
So WWJD, which most people don't even get that far, is not enough.

861
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:26,200
And where is God at work and where should I go join him in it, that's not enough.

862
01:01:26,200 --> 01:01:33,200
So what would be enough based on what we just said? Well, nothing less than we have an eminent and imminent God who has a plan for us.

863
01:01:33,200 --> 01:01:38,200
And he's carrying it out today in our lives, despite whether we like it or not.

864
01:01:38,200 --> 01:01:43,200
He's carrying it out right now. And we must want what he wants.

865
01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:47,200
We have to submit ourselves to him and go, okay, this is clearly what God wants.

866
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:53,200
And so yes, you can ask yourself, would Jesus do this? So Jesus says, no, I'm not going to do that.

867
01:01:53,200 --> 01:01:58,200
I'm going to do this. And you say, okay, Jesus, let's do that. Whatever it is.

868
01:01:58,200 --> 01:02:02,200
Jesus says, suffer, let's suffer. Jesus says, pay, let's pay. He says, give, let's give.

869
01:02:02,200 --> 01:02:05,200
He says, be patient. That person's trying to hurt you, but you don't have to let them do it.

870
01:02:05,200 --> 01:02:10,200
Then we'd be patient, love them, despite the fact they're trying to hurt us, we don't have to let them do it.

871
01:02:10,200 --> 01:02:17,200
It's not what would Jesus do or Jesus doing something over there, but it's a realisation that Jesus is doing something right here.

872
01:02:17,200 --> 01:02:21,200
Right here, right now, and now, and now, and now.

873
01:02:21,200 --> 01:02:28,200
And if the pastor just stood here 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and said, Jesus is doing it now, that would always be true.

874
01:02:28,200 --> 01:02:37,200
And so every time we say, well, we're going to go do this, and don't take into account that that means Jesus is in us going to do that, we've missed the vote.

875
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:44,200
When we say, what would Jesus do? Clearly, you're not doing what Jesus is doing, because Jesus doesn't say what would Jesus do.

876
01:02:44,200 --> 01:02:52,200
Right? He never thinks about what he would do. He knows what he is going to do, and he is actively doing it, carrying out the plans of the Father.

877
01:02:52,200 --> 01:03:04,200
So he looks at God, and he says, I am doing what God is doing. You say, well, Jesus, what would you do in my situation with my boyfriend, my girlfriend, my brother, my spouse, my whatever, my doctor, my medical, what would you do?

878
01:03:04,200 --> 01:03:17,200
Jesus already knows what he's going to do. All you have to do is realise he's imminently in you, and do what he is doing, which will result in you overcoming every barrier that you face.

879
01:03:17,200 --> 01:03:23,200
And you can claim the promise that God says, see, did I not say, see, have I not been doing it?

880
01:03:23,200 --> 01:03:32,200
God started working your salvation, winning your friends and family to Christ before you or they were ever born.

881
01:03:32,200 --> 01:03:39,200
God started teaching you to overcome hardship and difficulty, mourning and loss before you were ever born.

882
01:03:39,200 --> 01:03:49,200
He's always been doing it. He's doing it now, and if you have to wonder, then actually you're in doubt. And he who doubts shouldn't think he has anything.

883
01:03:49,200 --> 01:03:55,200
Following the commands of Scripture falls short. God says, do this, go do that.

884
01:03:55,200 --> 01:04:06,200
By the time you, if you're reading something in the Bible, and you hear God say, go do what you just read, it's probable you're in sin and you need to repent.

885
01:04:06,200 --> 01:04:10,200
So that makes sense. God told me something, that's awesome. God loves me, God's imminent, he's working in me.

886
01:04:10,200 --> 01:04:14,200
So how can it be that by the time I read it, I'm already in sin?

887
01:04:14,200 --> 01:04:21,200
Because if you had to read it to know that you're supposed to do it, you already missed the boat, baby. You already should have been doing it.

888
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:27,200
So God says to you, thou shalt not lie, and you catch yourself lying, you're like, oh, I shouldn't have been lying, I repent and turn back to God.

889
01:04:27,200 --> 01:04:34,200
God says, go share the gospel, and you go, yeah, I really need to do that more, and you go on the next day and don't do it, and the next day and don't do it, and the next day and don't do it.

890
01:04:34,200 --> 01:04:40,200
See, we're walking in sin and we need to repent and turn to God and let God do in us what God is already actively doing.

891
01:04:40,200 --> 01:04:45,200
God is a God doing things, and if you're a follower of that God, you will be doing things.

892
01:04:45,200 --> 01:04:49,200
You will deny yourself daily, take up your cross, and follow after him.

893
01:04:49,200 --> 01:04:56,200
And the one who tries to keep his life will lose it, and the one who tries to submit his life completely to God and give up his life will retain it.

894
01:04:56,200 --> 01:05:04,200
Our identity has been changed. We are now the body of Christ.

895
01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:11,200
What you do, Jesus does. You are the body of Christ.

896
01:05:11,200 --> 01:05:24,200
In Galatians 5 verse 2, Paul tells the Galatians if they would go and get circumcised, which is what people are trying to teach them to do, that Christ would be of no benefit to them.

897
01:05:24,200 --> 01:05:33,200
If you get up from here and go and try to follow a set of rules or directions, or you hear, well one thing I heard Pastor Dan say today, I'm just going to do that from now on.

898
01:05:33,200 --> 01:05:38,200
It's going to be a thing for my life from now on. Christ will be of no benefit to you whatsoever.

899
01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:47,200
You must allow him to be present in you. You start by saying, God, I'm willing. Come, live in me, lead my life.

900
01:05:47,200 --> 01:05:55,200
And then every day, just do what God is doing. What's it going to take to do that?

901
01:05:55,200 --> 01:06:02,200
Well, you're going to grow, you're going to know, you're going to learn, your culture is going to change, you're going to become a better person in a lot of ways.

902
01:06:02,200 --> 01:06:12,200
You're going to suffer because that's on the road. You're going to moan and groan, and every time you do, that is God's remembrance to you that this is not your home.

903
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:23,200
Where are you going? If you're going home to be with your Father, ultimately, then the way you live this life will reflect that you're ultimately going home to be with your Father.

904
01:06:23,200 --> 01:06:28,200
That's what Jesus did. And if we believe in him, we ought to walk as he walked.

905
01:06:28,200 --> 01:06:33,200
I ask the praise team to come forward and lead us in Jesus' name. Amen.

906
01:06:33,200 --> 01:06:42,200
Thank you very much. This concludes our services.