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["Stay Distant"]

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I will never forget you

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And oh, happy day, happy day

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One more day away

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Oh, happy day, happy day

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I'll never be the same

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I'll never be the same

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Whoever I may be

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When I turn around and look back

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When I start to think of things to be

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I know I'll never be the same

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I'll never be the same

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If I'm so far away from you

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I'll never be the same

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I'll never be the same

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So pray that you don't stay too long

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I'll never be the same

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In the light

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And oh, happy day, happy day

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One more day away

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Oh, happy day, happy day

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I'll never be the same

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Forever I am the same

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Oh, what a glorious day

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What a glorious day

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And through our pain and pain

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And through our glorious day

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What a glorious day

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And oh, happy day, happy day

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Watch my step away

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Oh, happy day, happy day

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I'll never be the same

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Oh, happy day, happy day

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Watch my step away

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Oh, happy day, happy day

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I'll never be the same

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Alright, good morning, good morning, good morning

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We're gonna have some folks traveling, have some folks still on the way

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So we're praying that the Lord will be with all of them

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And also be with us as we try to give the Lord glory in this place today

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We're gonna learn a little bit from God's Word and have a little fun

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Just kind of two reminders real quick

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One of you see up there on the screen, actually see both of them up there on the screen

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So this evening at 5 o'clock at Pearson Park near the tennis court there

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So when you go through the park, you can be on the left-hand side, playground tennis courts

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And I think now you pull in the first driveway, I think that's the way they do it

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This is the second one

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This is the second one?

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They change it to the second one

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So you pull in the second driveway and then move back around, that's how they do it now

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And so we'll be there for a cookout and play some games together and just have a little bit of fun

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And that starts at 5 o'clock

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And so Ken, I'll show up right at 5

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You're welcome to get there a little bit early and help set up and that kind of thing

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And 5 o'clock at the cookout at Pearson Park

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And then next week, not this week, but the following week starts Vacation Bible School

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It is literally right in our face, it came up fast after our last event

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And so we got people who are scrambling to be ready for that

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And it will be, I'm going to get this right, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday

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That's how we did it, so it's Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

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And then we'll be here on Sunday morning just like normal

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And then Monday, Tuesday

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And that's all the evenings

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And then we'll have two runs from 6.30 to 8.00, that's two hours every night, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

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And of course we have Bible study on Tuesday

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So it will literally be Bible study Tuesday, VBS Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

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Sunday morning church, VBS Monday, Tuesday

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That's what the week is going to be like

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We're going to be on a mission for Jesus, learning and living together

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And we're going to have a lot of fun

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So dinner

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I still need helpers for all of the classes and I have not done any scheduling for dinner yet

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Okay, so we need dinner, if you're willing to help make dinner

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And we need volunteers to help in the classes yet

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So most of the classes, I think, actually preschool nursery actually has a helper, right

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So theoretically we have a helper there

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But otherwise every class needs a helper

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And then dinner is at 6.00

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So you can come and eat at 6.00

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But if you're going to come eat at 6.00, you might want to come at quarter to 6.00 and help out with dinner

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And let you know in advance you're going to do that

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So that we have the manpower to do what we've got to do

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And obviously we'll get these announcements out to those who couldn't be with us today

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Because they're out of town and that kind of thing

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So we're trying to make sure everybody's in the loop, okay

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All right

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So remember that

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And then the last announcement, which is not in the bulletin, not on the radar, is our spiritual discipline

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So as of May 22nd, we do one spiritual discipline as an emphasis for six months

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And so as of last Sunday, we needed a new spiritual discipline to emphasize for six months

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And it is going to be prayer, okay

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So for the next six months, we're going to be talking a lot about prayer, different kinds of prayer

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The benefits of prayer, that kind of thing

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We'll do it in an inspirational moment, we'll do it in the classrooms and lessons on Tuesday nights

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We're in the review of our 30 disciplines

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Prayer was in there, we'll hit it

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We haven't already, but we'll hit it very soon

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And then we're starting in just the next couple of weeks

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The Baptist Faith and Message Bible study, which is a book-based Bible study

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On the Baptist Faith and Message, which is what I think is probably the best doctrinal statement

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That has ever been written under the sun, outside the Bible

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The Bible is the best, right, but outside that

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That's a good summary of what the Bible says about various doctrines

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So we'll be doing that on Tuesday nights

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We have about 15 books, so we hope people come and get a book and plug in

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And do that Bible study with us, and we're going to be promoting that

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And then remember I told you last week that there is a gift coming for the church

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And it will be next Sunday

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So next Sunday we'll hear about that gift, and it's something that you will get

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And you will be able to take it home with you

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And it will be for just about all ages to benefit from

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So it will be kind of an exciting thing

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And we'll take a few minutes to look at it together as a group

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And then get to see what that's all about and what we can do with it, okay?

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And so that's coming next Sunday

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Which that's the Sunday right before VBS, so that's a good way to do that

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So it'll be the Sunday right before VBS

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And then we'll start Tuesday night Bible study, Wednesday night VBS, and right on into it

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And then around the corner, down the bend a little bit, and not too far

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Is the Freedom Celebration on Main Street

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And so we're doing that block party opposite the Fourth of July

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And that always takes some labor, and we've got to make sure we have plenty of manpower

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If you're willing to sit in a dunking tank, volunteer early

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So we get that list formed

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And then we're going to need everybody to serve food

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And we're going to promote that, we did have a good showing last year

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But if this block party that we just did on our lot was in the indicator

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My guess is the block party that's going to be on Main Street this year is going to be even bigger than it was

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Now last year we had a couple hundred people show up over there

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We had about 350 people here on Sunday, last Sunday

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And we did have a lot of folks who were asking questions about coming to church

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A lot of folks who were asking about, so there's a lot of that going on

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So I expect we're going to see some decisions, we're going to see some growth

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It's a pretty cool time to be serving Jesus

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And a lot of folks are looking forward to New Heights

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We've also had a bunch of people following us from literally all over the world

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Following us on Facebook or following us downloading our apps

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So that's kind of weird but kind of exciting at the same time

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We have people looking in our direction from all over the world

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Even though it's for this little teeny church

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So you are a city on a hill, stand firm, serve the Lord

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Alright, so in honor of our spiritual discipline of prayer

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I'm going to open us in prayer this morning

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As I do so, I will say part of my prayer is an adoration to God

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Part of my prayer is a confession to God

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Part of my prayer is a thanks to God

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And a part of my prayer is asking God for some thanks

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Alright, so let's pray together

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Hey, King, real quick

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I have a prayer request

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My niece, Erolyn, is asking some really touchy questions

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Because her biological dad shot himself

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And she's asking her sister questions about whether it's her fault or not

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So she's praying for Erolyn as she's processing the death of her dad

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And the bad situation

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Alright, Father in heaven, we adore you

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You are amazing

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We've got to have our hands up, our voices up

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We've got to have our butts up

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We've got to have the Lord just looking to you in all things

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Because you are an awesome God

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We were talking this morning, driving the van back to the field park

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Maddie and Maya and I were talking about migraines

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And how the body is complex

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And sometimes there's some things wrong with the human body

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And we don't know exactly what causes it

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The doctors can't even figure it out

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And so they give it a name

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And they'll say, well, that's migraines

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Or that's IBS or that's fibromyalgia or whatever

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And what that really means is they don't know

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Because God, they are not you

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No one is you

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You are the creator God

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You alone were present when there was not even an atom of matter

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And you brought it all into existence

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You are an amazing, powerful God

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And we recognize you today

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To be sovereign over us

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To protect us and guide us as we need it

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To be living in us for those of us who believed in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior

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To be providing for us daily

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Every bit of food, every penny that comes our way

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Every hour of every day

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You made it possible and we adore you

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For being that kind of generous, giving, loving God

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Love, love, love

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At the same time though we confess to you that we've made a lot of mistakes

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We made some decisions that didn't honor you

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There were times when

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It may not be true of everybody but there were times when we lied

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When we took something that didn't belong to us

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And we slacked off and stood around the corner

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Rather than stepping into a situation where we really could have done something that could have made a difference

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We didn't step up and witness and testify

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My God is awesome, He can save your soul

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Or we didn't ask, would you be willing to be saved?

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Would you be willing to be a follower of Jesus Christ?

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Or we said we would pray for somebody and we didn't

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Just forgot

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Lord we are weak compared to you

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We ask you for forgiveness and we know that it is available through Jesus Christ your Son

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And we spend aid for past, present, and future

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And Father we thank you for that

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We thank you for this place

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We thank you for all the resources you have provided

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We thank you for your love and your care towards us

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We thank you for our friends and family that are gathered here today to worship you

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We pray that even as we are beginning to worship

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We know many churches all over the world are finishing their worship

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And there are others who won't worship for hours and hours yet

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We pray that this Lord's day would be your day

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That it would truly honor you

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We thank you for the opportunity to do it

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And we ask you Lord to inhabit the praises of your people

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Make us your good representatives

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Pillars of strength and truth

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We would stand up and be

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What it is that we are supposed to be

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Father I ask you to do a little zoli right now

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Just bump yourself

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We pray for Arden's back and my back

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We pray for all the folks who are suffering from allergies

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It's been a lot this year

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Palmitron has been so high

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We pray for a deep and abiding healing

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For Michael, the stuff that he's had going on with his stomach has been years

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And Father we pray for those who couldn't be with us today

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Because they have health concerns

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Struggling with a migraine, struggling with issues

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Struggling with things that are distracting them or drawing them away from you

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Father we pray that you would be so real and so present and so powerful

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That no one could deny that you are a God who answers prayers

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Who loves us, who is innocent with us and working on us

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We pray that you will do these things not because we are good

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Because we know that would be a foolish argument

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But Lord we pray that you will do these things because you are good

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Please Lord we turn this time over to you

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That it would truly honor you

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We pray it all in Jesus name, Amen

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Music

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Jesus, the King of my life

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Jesus, you have the power to govern and bless with your Spirit

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Here in the heart of my heart you are

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The heaven rising where you are God in the mountains we know

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Your breath my olive oil and your blood your blood

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This is the flower of love Jesus, you save my soul

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I'll thank you forevermore Jesus, the love of what I know are

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The heaven rising where you are God in the mountains we know

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Your breath my olive oil and your blood your blood

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This is the flower of love Jesus, I am in awe of the love that you have shown

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Jesus, how precious you are to me to me The heaven rising where you are God in the mountains we know

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Your breath my olive oil and your blood your blood

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The heaven rising where you are God in the mountains we know

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Your breath my olive oil and your blood your blood

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This is the flower of love

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I'll thank you forevermore I'll thank you forevermore

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This is the song of love

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Music

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There is an endless song that goes in my soul I hear the music ring

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Until the storm may come I am going on To the path I take

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How can I keep from praying in your name? How can I ever say no?

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How a pain to give you love How can I keep from shouting your name?

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And now I am alive by the gate And it breaks my heart my faith

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As you lift my eyes in the darkest night For I know I think of them

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And as I walk into your window see me through And see the storm fill me

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How can I keep from praying in your name? How can I ever say no? How a pain to give you love

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How can I keep from shouting your name? And now I am alive by the gate And it breaks my heart my faith

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I can sing in the troubled times Sing when I'm with you I can sing let alone myself And fall down again

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I can sing as you make me laugh Sing as you laugh I can sing as you give me more But only you will know

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I can sing as I let myself sing for love And I'll sing with the angels and sing for all the world

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How can I keep from singing your name? How can I ever say no? How a pain to give you love

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How can I ever shout in your name? And now I am alive by the gate And it breaks my heart my faith

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And it breaks my heart my faith And I'll sing let alone myself

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Alright, so we come to inspirational moment time and we ask ourselves how has the Lord been speaking this week?

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What did you see that drew your attention? I do want to remind you in case you've not really paid attention to that direction

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or look at that or whatever that tomorrow is Memorial Day. I was reminded as I was in prayer about that

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the purpose of Memorial Day is to remember that those veterans who have lost their lives in service to our country

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that is the purpose. I did some reading and some studying and I found out that the concept of Memorial Day

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as we understand it was actually put into practice in 1971 which is only a year after I was born

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but it's been my whole life that I've had that Monday to think about how people have literally given their life

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for our country and I'm guessing that I didn't start really doing that at all until after I got saved

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and I think that's pretty interesting that the church then stands as a pillar of truth, a reminder

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for those who sacrificed themselves for our country. How many people do you think are out there

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and it's a sad testimony who will tomorrow they'll grill or they'll sleep in or whatever

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but they will not remember the great sacrifice that has been made by so many in order that our country can stand

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We this, oh probably two weeks ago we can have a go we watched a movie about Dunkirk which was a war movie

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and it was rated PG and so Ariana watched Part Civil with me and we talked about how many people gave their lives

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in World War II and she said well what is the war that most people died in, most Americans died in,

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what was the civil war actually because everybody who died on both sides of the war was an American

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they just had different visions of what America was going to be like and that was a tragic time

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many would be Americans died in the Revolutionary War but America didn't exist at that time

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we hadn't been constituted as a country. So I'm reminded of a professor of mine named Paul Kisling

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he went over to Russia as a missionary and it was right after the Iron Curtain of Thoth, if you don't know what that is

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there was a time at which Jesus was not allowed to be shared in Russia

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not only that but no Bibles were allowed, Bibles were illegal

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and so there were missionaries who were sneaking Bibles into Russia behind enemy lines as it were behind the Iron Curtain

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and Paul was there the week after that opened up and the wall was torn down and this was in the 1980s

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and people were allowed to bring Bibles and talk about Jesus for a period of time anyway

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and he went to a house church and as he walked down the hallway, there were pictures on the wall

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he said like over a hundred or whatever, the whole wall from floor to ceiling was covered with pictures

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8 by 10 pictures of people, men, almost about 99% or maybe all men

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and he said are those the founding members of this little house church? That's pretty incredible

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and the person who was walking said oh no, those are our martyrs

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whenever there is something that is worth something, there is someone who has died for it

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and the Kingdom of God has been seasoned over the years with the blood of martyrs, people who stood up for Jesus

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and I will say to you that the many many many soldiers who have died for America over the years

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died for America believing they were serving God, serving their family

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protecting a nation in which people could be free to worship or to speak out for what they believe in

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and we should not forget as a church, in fact I believe that being a pillar of the truth

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is to be a reminder that we have seen much sacrifice by veterans of our country for our country

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and then on top of that many of them died and maybe more now than ever, faith is much needed

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and so we are very blessed that that price was paid

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that will be tomorrow, so don't just cook out, don't just sleep in

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don't just hang out with your family on an extra day off or thank God that you don't have to go to work

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and put away groceries or do snow or do maintenance or whatever

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don't just do your chores and your project, Menards, one of the busiest days ever, Memorial Day

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because everybody gets a chance to do it, don't just do your project, you want to do the private? Fine

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They died in parts so you can do that, but I realize that tomorrow has great value

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so they can take a moment to thank God that there were those who cared enough to stand up

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that we are still here as the United States of America today and also for the Kingdom of God at the same time

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so praise God for that. Okay, moving on from the world they talked for a moment

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and as we close out we will pray that folks will honor that

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but before we do that, how has the Lord been speaking to you this week? What have you seen? What have you heard?

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Where's Ariana? Ariana, you had something you wanted to share, right?

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Yeah. Video? Can you pull that video up? It should have already been there, you just have to get to it

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because it's in the background or minimized.

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Okay, come on.

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Press the play button, it's on the bottom? Press space. Space, yeah.

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Music

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Dear friends

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We are two love, one and other

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For love is from God

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And when we love one another He lives in us

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And if you don't love then you don't know God

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Because God is love

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And if you don't love then you don't know God

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Because God is love

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Oh this is love

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Not that we loved God, but that He loved us

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And since His Son

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So He could save us, offer Him for us

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Oh this is la la la la la la love

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Oh this is la la la la la la love

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Dear friends

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We are two love, one and other

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For love is from God

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And when we love one another He lives in us

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And if you don't love then you don't know God

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Because God is love

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And if you don't love then you don't know God

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Because God is love

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Oh this is love

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Not that we loved God, but that He loved us

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And since His Son

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So He could save us, offer Him for us

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Oh this is la la la la la la love

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Oh this is la la la la la la love

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Oh this is how we shout His love

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Oh this is how we shout His love

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He said it's time to tell the world

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So we can live

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Oh this is love

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Oh this is love

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Not that we loved God, but that He loved us

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And since His Son

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So He could save us, offer Him for us

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Oh this is la la la la la la love

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Oh this is la la la la la la love

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Oh this is la la la la la la love

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Oh this is la la la la la la love

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Yay!

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So this song reminds me about

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God loves us so much that He sent His only Son to die on the cross for our sins

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So He could be forgiven

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Very good, and if He could be that, then we should like it. Good word.

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Anybody else?

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That song came from a software by the way called Right Now Media. You'll hear more about that later.

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Anybody else got something going on? Are you trying to pull something up?

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Yeah.

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While RJ is doing that, I'll talk to you briefly. I told you I'd be at a cage.

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I might share some more things out of the current fasting retreat that I went to.

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I also already shared part of the story, the background for what I'm about to say, which is

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I went to my tent that night and I was praying and I felt like my own fatigue was getting in my way of praying and studying the Word because I kept falling asleep.

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The funny thing is when I would wake up and I would pray and I would study the Word some more, I did not feel guilty.

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I thought about that because in the past there have been times where I was praying and I would fall asleep and I was like, oh I shouldn't fall asleep and praying is so important.

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And you know in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night that Jesus was arrested, they came so far with Him and then Peter came a little further, Peter and John I think came a little further,

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and then he said stay here and pray and keep watch and they fell asleep and he came back and he woke them up and then he went back and then he came back and woke them up again.

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And I would read that story and I was like, oh how could you do that? Jesus Himself was with you and told you to pray and fall asleep.

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And I thought about that over time since I was in the current fasting retreat, like why didn't I feel guilty?

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And every time I woke up I went right back to praying and right back to studying the Word.

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And I did feel like I let myself get so tired that I couldn't do a good job and then I needed to fix that.

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Like I needed to not be so tired when I decided to pray and fast.

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You know that needs to be, maybe the higher priority needs to be God and the less priority needs to be the things that made me so tired.

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But that being said, I didn't feel guilty. And afterwards I asked the Lord, so why? Why didn't I feel guilty about that?

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And He said, look I don't care if you fall asleep while you're praying, just keep praying.

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So I thought about that and I thought, you know, if you go to sleep praying and you wake up praying, who's to say you're not praying while you're sleeping?

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You know, obviously you have to block out time to pray to do that, right? You have to be praying.

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And I do think, I did feel the conviction as I said that I need to make the time before I get so tired that I can't say, hey I'm falling asleep while praying.

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I think that is important. But the point is, 2nd Thessalonians 5 17 says, I think I got the right reference, pray without ceasing.

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If you pray right up until we go to sleep and start praying again right when we wake up, I think we're honoring that verse.

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And I would encourage you to try to do that. If you lay down and act like you're so tired, oh man I'm aching or whatever, I gotta get to sleep.

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Take time to pray, you know, and maybe your spirit will find peace when your body doesn't. Are you ready now?

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Alright.

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So before I do this, Zoe has found her favorite movie, Moana. So I've been watching a lot of Moana lately because she absolutely loves this movie.

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It's a cute movie, but this particular scene keeps playing over in my head and I'll explain after, but there's a reason for it.

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So I'm gonna answer it.

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Are you okay?

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Zoe?

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Hurry up. Keep your mouth shut.

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I told you to turn back.

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I thought we could make it.

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We?

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I thought I could make it.

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We can fix it.

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It was made by the gods. You can't fix it.

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Next time we'll be more careful. Tikal was stuck on the barrier island. It's lava. It can't go in the water. We can find a way around.

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I'm not going back.

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We still have to restore the heart.

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My hook is cracked. One more hit and it's over.

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Molly, you have to restore the heart.

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Without my hook, I am nothing.

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That's not true.

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Without my hook, I am nothing.

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We are only here because you stole the heart in the first place.

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We're here because the ocean told you you're special and you believed it.

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I am Moana of Motului. You will board my boat.

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Goodbye, Moana.

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Stay all across the sea.

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I'm not killing myself so you can prove yourself that you're not.

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I restore the heart of Tifiti. The ocean chose me.

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It chose wrong.

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The biggest thing about this scene that has stuck with me is, for one, how he says without his hook he's nothing.

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Everyone finds something that defines them as a person.

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We feel that without that we're nothing.

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In this, he feels that it's his natural finish hook that without it he's nothing.

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As a Christian, we need to realize that our something is God.

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Without God, we're nothing.

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We're broken people full of flaws, full of mistakes, full of bruises.

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But without God, we're nothing.

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But with God, we can have that confidence like Moana has to say, I know who I am.

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I know that God chose me to do something.

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And he chose me for a reason.

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Even though someone else might say that we're not that person and that we're not special, in God that is a lie.

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In God we are special. We are something. We are meaningful.

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We are here for a reason. We have to find that reason though.

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And then we can have that confidence that she had and say, no, I know who I am. I know what I'm here for.

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No matter how much the world tries to put you down, you have to realize that if you're with God,

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if God is your thing that divides you, then nothing can stop you.

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As you were speaking, two things struck me. First of all, I never really realized that was a fish hook.

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I've seen that movie probably eight or ten times. I never even thought about the fact that that was a fish hook.

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It's a hook. I'm like, oh, it's a hook. It's a fish hook. Duh.

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I'm like, why does he have a hook? Now I get it. It's a fish hook. Okay.

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Secondly, it's interesting too that you're talking about a fish hook that allows him to change shapes.

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And actually that plays right into what you're talking about because people are always changing roles.

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All the time we're changing roles. I'm a mom now. I'm a worker now. I'm an office person.

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I'm a medic taking care of a bruised kid's knee or whatever.

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You're always changing roles from place to place to place to place.

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But in Christ, we have one role. We are a child of God. We are saved.

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And we can do all of those things as a child of God.

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You don't have to stop being a child of God to be a mom, to be an office worker, to be whatever else.

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You're a child of God always. So he's saying that which allows him to change roles makes him powerful.

463
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:47,000
And she's saying, no, what makes you powerful is I know who I am. See the contrast? That's powerful.

464
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:50,000
Yeah. Knowing who you are, that's powerful.

465
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:56,000
If you think you can only be one thing, which is maybe going to be a mom or a dad or whatever at one time,

466
00:38:56,000 --> 00:39:01,000
and you have to leave behind those other things, that actually sucks. It's hard.

467
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:05,000
It feels like that you that was that other thing died in order to be what you have to be now.

468
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:08,000
That's very painful. People have to do that all the time.

469
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:12,000
Like people lose a job and they're like crushed because, oh, I worked there for eight years.

470
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:16,000
I love that job or whatever, you know, or I hated that job, but it paid my bills, whatever.

471
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:19,000
And they're crushed because of the change.

472
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:25,000
But when you know what's really important is who you are in Christ, the change doesn't affect you the same way.

473
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,000
You know, like, OK, now I'm not going to be that anymore. I'm going to be this.

474
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:31,000
And the seasons of God come and go.

475
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:35,000
And you're able to change roles and still know who you are in Christ.

476
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,000
So he was trusting in that which changed him from one thing to another.

477
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:42,000
You could fly now, you could swim now, whatever. And she was saying, no, I know who I am.

478
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:47,000
That is actually a great message. Thank you for that. Anybody else?

479
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:51,000
OK, Brother Rob, would you pray for us as we transition and remember Memorial Day

480
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:57,000
and the sacrifice of our veterans and brothers and sisters in Christ?

481
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:00,000
God, Father in heaven, we thank you.

482
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,000
Thank you for lessons that you teach us throughout the week.

483
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:09,000
Lord, the times when we look to you for wisdom and you share it with us,

484
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:13,000
you open it up in our hearts and our minds.

485
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:21,000
We're glimpses of your glory that is yet to be fully revealed.

486
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:25,000
Father, please be with all of us this weekend.

487
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:33,000
Thank you for the men and women who served in our armed forces that have given everything

488
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:38,000
so that we can enjoy this freedom.

489
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:42,000
Lord, I pray for their families, their loved ones right now.

490
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:49,000
That you would help them honor and remember them this weekend.

491
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:56,000
That when we are celebrating tomorrow and when we're doing our various things that we have planned to do,

492
00:40:56,000 --> 00:41:07,000
that we would always remember that we have the freedom to do it on the backs of those people that gave their lives.

493
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:19,000
And I pray that we'll always remember that you gave your life first so that we can enjoy freedom.

494
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:24,000
I pray, Lord, that everyone will come to repentance.

495
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:28,000
I know I come to repentance on this day.

496
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:32,000
And I thank you for being the God of a thousand changes.

497
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:36,000
Bless this day. Bless the rest of our worship, Jesus.

498
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:40,000
I pray it's pleasant to your ear.

499
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:45,000
I pray for the sermon. I pray that it will be spoken with wholeness and conviction.

500
00:41:45,000 --> 00:42:07,000
Thank you in Jesus' name, amen.

501
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:42,000
Thank you.

502
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:53,000
Just real quick for those of you that need to give electronically, I'll have the thing at the end of the service.

503
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:59,000
Alright, children to the front. It's all me today, so let's do this together.

504
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:04,000
I'm going to walk you through these motions because it's been a long time since I've done this one.

505
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:09,000
It's really simple. I'm going to change the motions and then we're going to do it twice.

506
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:16,000
Okay, so we're doing great and mighty. So this is great. Muscles on this side. Mighty on this side.

507
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:26,000
Okay, so great and mighty is the Lord, with an L, Lord our God. Great and mighty is he.

508
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:33,000
Do that again. Great and mighty is the Lord our God. Great and mighty is he.

509
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:40,000
Lift up your banner, let the anthems ring. Praises to our King.

510
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:50,000
So make a King like this. King. Great and mighty is the Lord our God. Great and mighty is he.

511
00:43:50,000 --> 00:44:03,000
Do the whole thing twice. Okay?

512
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:32,000
Praises to our King. Great and mighty is the Lord our God. Great and mighty is he.

513
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:40,000
Great and mighty is the Lord our God. Great and mighty is he.

514
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:50,000
Great and mighty is the Lord our God. Great and mighty is he.

515
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:57,000
Lift up your banner, let the anthems ring. Praises to our King.

516
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:05,000
Great and mighty is the Lord our God. Great and mighty is he.

517
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:13,000
Great and mighty is the Lord our God. Great and mighty is he.

518
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,000
Good job.

519
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:42,000
He touched the low like a bee, though I could pry myself in the door.

520
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:52,000
For I've been blessed beyond measure, and by His strength alone I overcome.

521
00:45:52,000 --> 00:46:01,000
Oh, I could stop at times of success, and pull like diamonds in my hand,

522
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:12,000
but those trophies could not equal to the grace by which I stand.

523
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:25,000
If I stand alone and find my trust, if I find only the power of the cross,

524
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:47,000
in every victory let me sell and be my source of strength, my source of hope in Christ alone.

525
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:57,000
If I stand alone and find glory, for only by His grace I am free.

526
00:46:57,000 --> 00:47:08,000
It's only His tender mercy that reached beyond my weakness to my knee.

527
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:17,000
Now I can sing no praises or unhappiness, and just an open heart,

528
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:26,000
and to count my deeds will blossom to the glory of the Lord.

529
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:40,000
If I stand alone and find my trust, if I find only the power of the cross,

530
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:54,000
in every victory let me sell and be my source of strength, my source of hope

531
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:57,000
in Christ alone.

532
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:08,000
If I stand alone and find my glory, for only by His grace I am free.

533
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:26,000
In every victory let me sell and be my source of strength, my source of hope in Christ alone.

534
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:43,000
My source of strength, my source of hope in Christ alone.

535
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:49,000
This next song, I'm going to, this song really speaks to the inspirational moments that we had today,

536
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:55,000
and I changed the order last night before I sent it out to put this song in place of another one,

537
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:59,000
kind of because Amalia wasn't here, but kind of because this song was stuck in my head all week,

538
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:03,000
and so I think that was God saying, hey, this song, not that one,

539
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:10,000
and this song is a challenge for me, and I was not expecting a sore throat, so I am sorry if my voice cut out.

540
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:15,000
I, a couple years ago, told Tim I wanted a challenging song.

541
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:21,000
I was feeling proud of myself for singing some of the songs that I could sing back in the day,

542
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:25,000
and I was like, I'm going to sing you this song, and then it took me like six months to be able to sing this song.

543
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:31,000
So, but in that, with the words and listening to the words of this song,

544
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:38,000
asking the question, is God strong enough or pure enough or brave enough to pull you in,

545
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:44,000
to give you a second chance to be the strength that you need, and the answer is yes,

546
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:48,000
and the song speaks to that, and I did put the words up there,

547
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:54,000
so you'll have those to read and sing along if you want, but this song really hit me hard in preparing this song,

548
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:58,000
and then again this past week, because I've been listening to it a lot.

549
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:21,000
As I rest against this cold hard wall, will you pass me by?

550
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:29,000
Will you criticize me and as I sit and cry?

551
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:36,000
I had fought so hard, thought that all my battles had been won.

552
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:44,000
Oh, please, I find the war has just begun.

553
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:59,000
Is he not strong enough? Is he not pure enough to break me, pull me out, and start again?

554
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:22,000
Is he not brave enough to take my chance on me? If can I have one chance to start again?

555
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:37,000
Will my weakness for an hour make me suffer for a lifetime? Is there any way to be made whole again?

556
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:45,000
If I'm healed, renewed, and find forgiveness by the strength I've never had,

557
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:52,000
will my scars forever ruin all God's plan?

558
00:51:52,000 --> 00:52:07,000
Is he not strong enough? Is he not pure enough to break me, pull me out, and start again?

559
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:23,000
Is he not brave enough to take my chance on me? If can I have one chance to start again?

560
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:31,000
He took the life into his hands and turned it all around.

561
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:41,000
My most desperate circumstances there I finally found.

562
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:56,000
Is he not strong enough? Is he not pure enough to break me, pull me out, and start again?

563
00:52:56,000 --> 00:53:15,000
Is he not brave enough to take my chance on me? Oh, thank you for my chance to start again.

564
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:43,000
Amen.

565
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:46,000
Love it when there's a heart-wrenching song right before you get up to preach.

566
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:50,000
You feel like going, let's just go straight to the invitation, shall we?

567
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:53,000
Awesome. That was awesome. Thank you so much.

568
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:57,000
I'm going to tell you a story. This is a first-person, first-hand, me.

569
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:02,000
I was there. I saw it. I lived it. I'm telling you the story that happened in my life.

570
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:09,000
So this is about 15 and a half years ago. I know because Arden was about a year and a half old.

571
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:13,000
We got to take a wonderful trip and we thought we were going to go to the Grand Canyon,

572
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:18,000
but we discovered in driving to the Grand Canyon that it's a heck of a lot of a drive.

573
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:24,000
It's a lot further than we thought. So we went to Moab, Utah, which is northeast.

574
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:34,000
It has a great, they call it Arches State Park. Just huge, huge canyons there, not unlike the Grand Canyon,

575
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:39,000
except for there, it's a lot of red dirt and rock and in the Grand Canyon, it's a lot of foliage.

576
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:41,000
There's a lot of plants and stuff like growing in the Grand Canyon.

577
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:46,000
That is a little different because Sherry and I got to go there later as part of our wedding anniversary trip.

578
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:50,000
But this trip, we took the kids and we camped in the tent.

579
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:53,000
And as we camped in the tent and got the red dirt everywhere,

580
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:58,000
it was kind of neat because everywhere that you would camp in a tent, they had little like shelters.

581
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:01,000
You would have a roof over your tent. And I thought that's kind of weird.

582
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:04,000
You'd stay in a campground and have a shelter. But then one night it rained.

583
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:09,000
And man, when it rained, it rained. Like it came down like golf ball sized rain drops, not hail,

584
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:13,000
but rain drops coming down just heavy hitting that roof. We could hear it roaring.

585
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:17,000
But anyway, so while we were there, we went on a hike.

586
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:22,000
And we decided we would take a hike into the wilderness, into Arches State Park,

587
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:28,000
and see this, what looked to be this beautiful set of stone arches that God had created.

588
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:36,000
We parked our car early in the afternoon and the hike was nine miles each way.

589
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:40,000
Now that's a long hike with a one and a half year old.

590
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:44,000
But he was a rugged little kid and we thought, you know, well, we'll get through it.

591
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:48,000
And Aaron was two and a half years older than him, whatever.

592
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:55,000
And I may not have the exact years right. But Aaron was a hiker extraordinaire.

593
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:59,000
He loved to hike. He had a hiking pole. And when we go on a trip, he'd say,

594
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:02,000
I've taken my hiking pole, even if we weren't planning on hiking. He loved to hike.

595
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:07,000
And he's still very physically capable of walking and hiking really long distances.

596
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:13,000
And so we parked the van, which I think was a rental van, I think we had.

597
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:18,000
But then we parked the van and we got out and we had plenty of hours left in the day until it would get dark.

598
00:56:18,000 --> 00:56:21,000
So we thought, no problem. It's not going to be a problem.

599
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:23,000
And we started hiking down this trail and it was awesome.

600
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:29,000
And we took like hundreds of pictures and I thought, man, I would like to have pictures of this trip here to show you today.

601
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,000
But as you can see, I don't exactly have pictures here to show you today.

602
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:39,000
But anyway, as we're hiking and just having a great experience, we get about six, seven miles into the hike.

603
00:56:39,000 --> 00:56:45,000
And Aaron starts to complain his feet are hurting and it is kind of hot outside and it's in the desert.

604
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:50,000
But then there was some trees and foliage around us and shelter from rocks and stuff.

605
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:53,000
And so we stopped and we had a little snack and then we hiked some more.

606
00:56:53,000 --> 00:56:56,000
We stopped, we had a little break and we hiked some more.

607
00:56:56,000 --> 00:57:00,000
And we walked through the river, get our feet nice and cooled off.

608
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:03,000
And all this was going on.

609
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:05,000
And we got to be at about seven and a half, eight miles.

610
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:07,000
So we're about a mile away or a little less than a mile away.

611
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:10,000
It might have been just over eight miles from the arches.

612
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:12,000
And Arden was, he said, I'm done.

613
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:14,000
And I don't want to go any further.

614
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:16,000
So my feet hurt so bad.

615
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:18,000
And he said, I just need to rest.

616
00:57:18,000 --> 00:57:22,000
And I thought, that's a problem, because we're eight miles from the van.

617
00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:24,000
And it's going to be a trek back.

618
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:26,000
And I thought, so we better let him rest.

619
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:28,000
Sherry said she would stay with him.

620
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:31,000
And we got up on the biggest kind of promontory.

621
00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:32,000
You could see a long ways.

622
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:33,000
It was really pretty beautiful.

623
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:39,000
And she sat down with him and they had another snack and a drink and talk and stuff, trying to take his mind off of it.

624
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:42,000
And Alicia and Amalia and I walked on to the arches.

625
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:45,000
And we took some video of the arches and it's a cave.

626
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:48,000
And you look up and you see slivers of the sky.

627
00:57:48,000 --> 00:57:49,000
And it was beautiful.

628
00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:51,000
And the rock was all different colors.

629
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:52,000
Beautiful pictures.

630
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:54,000
Someday I could show you the pictures.

631
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:58,000
But anyway, we were in there for about a half hour, 45 minutes.

632
00:57:58,000 --> 00:58:00,000
So they got a good solid rest.

633
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:05,000
And I took some video and I sent live footage back to Sherry, because she wasn't going to get to see the arches.

634
00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:07,000
And it was pretty cool.

635
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:09,000
And then we walked back to them and we got back up on there.

636
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:10,000
And we're like, OK, we got to go.

637
00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:11,000
Let's go.

638
00:58:11,000 --> 00:58:12,000
We're going to head back to the van.

639
00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:13,000
And Arden's like all chipper.

640
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:14,000
He's excited.

641
00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:18,000
And for about the first 100 yards, he was raring and ready to go.

642
00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:21,000
And then after that, he's like, you carry me.

643
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:22,000
It's too hard.

644
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:23,000
I can't do this anymore.

645
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:25,000
And so I said, well, I'll make you a deal.

646
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:28,000
You walk a quarter mile, then I'll carry you a quarter mile.

647
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:30,000
And so then he walked about a half mile.

648
00:58:30,000 --> 00:58:32,000
And then I honored my deal after that.

649
00:58:32,000 --> 00:58:33,000
I carried him for about a quarter mile.

650
00:58:33,000 --> 00:58:36,000
I didn't tell him he walked about a half mile at that time.

651
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:37,000
But he was still going.

652
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:38,000
So I was just going to let him go.

653
00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:40,000
And then I picked him up and I carried him for a while.

654
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:42,000
And then I put him down.

655
00:58:42,000 --> 00:58:46,000
And then he walked maybe a couple hundred yards.

656
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:47,000
And he was ready to be carried again.

657
00:58:47,000 --> 00:58:50,000
So just up there around that van, I kept pushing him, pushing him a little bit,

658
00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:52,000
walk a little bit, walk a little bit, because I don't want to carry him.

659
00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:55,000
Eight miles is a really long way.

660
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:57,000
Now it's late in the afternoon.

661
00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:01,000
We've still got a good six miles to get back to the van.

662
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:03,000
And it's starting to kind of, you know, sun's low in the sky.

663
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:05,000
And we're like, we may not make it back before dark.

664
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:08,000
And in our infinite wisdom, we did not bring flashlights.

665
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:11,000
And we started right after like 1 o'clock.

666
00:59:11,000 --> 00:59:13,000
So we figured it's no problem to make the walk.

667
00:59:13,000 --> 00:59:14,000
And we didn't bring flashlights.

668
00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:16,000
And we thought, this is going to get dark, dark.

669
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:17,000
We had seen it the night before.

670
00:59:17,000 --> 00:59:22,000
And like there were stars, but there was no moon or very little moon.

671
00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:23,000
And it was very little light.

672
00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:25,000
And it was really pitch black, dark.

673
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:28,000
And we thought, we are in trouble out here away from anything like a streetlight or a flashlight.

674
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:30,000
We are in trouble if we don't get back to the van.

675
00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:32,000
So we're pushing real hard.

676
00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:34,000
And Alicia carried Arden some.

677
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:39,000
And Amalia tried to carry him a little bit, but he was heavy for her.

678
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:40,000
And so she couldn't carry him very much.

679
00:59:40,000 --> 00:59:41,000
And I was carrying him.

680
00:59:41,000 --> 00:59:45,000
And so we get to be like three miles, three, four miles away from the van.

681
00:59:45,000 --> 00:59:46,000
And he's just done.

682
00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:49,000
He will not walk another step, even in between.

683
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:51,000
Like he's complaining.

684
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:56,000
And of course, then Sherry was kind of getting worried about him because his feet were obviously sore.

685
00:59:56,000 --> 00:59:57,000
And it was a problem.

686
00:59:57,000 --> 01:00:04,000
And so it was me carrying him three miles.

687
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:06,000
Alicia was pretty well cooked by that time.

688
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:11,000
It was me carrying him three to four miles or we weren't going to make it back to the van.

689
01:00:11,000 --> 01:00:12,000
That was what was left.

690
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:22,000
Now, you have to understand Arden, when he was that age, he weighed about 55 pounds,

691
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:29,000
which is for a not so strong guy like me, a lot of weight.

692
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:31,000
I carried him on my shoulders.

693
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:32,000
I carried him on my back.

694
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:33,000
I carried him on my front.

695
01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:34,000
I carried him on my side.

696
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:36,000
I switched him side to side.

697
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:38,000
And that's how we got through about the next mile.

698
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:42,000
So we're between two and three miles away from the van now.

699
01:00:42,000 --> 01:00:43,000
And there's no mile markers.

700
01:00:43,000 --> 01:00:44,000
We really didn't know how far we were.

701
01:00:44,000 --> 01:00:46,000
But afterwards we figured out.

702
01:00:46,000 --> 01:00:51,000
And I told her, and I'm like, I'm at the point where I don't think I could do it anymore.

703
01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:54,000
And I said, you know, why don't we sing praise songs?

704
01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:56,000
We're in a tough spot here.

705
01:00:56,000 --> 01:00:59,000
I had already prayed, been praying for the last couple of miles.

706
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:00,000
And I said, we're in a tough spot here.

707
01:01:00,000 --> 01:01:02,000
Why don't we sing praise songs?

708
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:07,000
And Alicia and Amalia had both started singing worship, leading worship as young people

709
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:09,000
as part of the praise band at New Heights.

710
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:12,000
Neither one of them were playing an instrument at that time, but they were both singing.

711
01:01:12,000 --> 01:01:13,000
And they said, OK.

712
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:17,000
So I started naming a praise song, which I probably couldn't have sung three words of it

713
01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:20,000
without their help because I've always been terrible, still terrible this day.

714
01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:23,000
I can, they can do a song we've only done two or three times.

715
01:01:23,000 --> 01:01:26,000
I can sing along, even close my eyes maybe part of the time and sing along.

716
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:29,000
But if I'm two lines into closing my eyes, I'll mess it up.

717
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:32,000
So if I watch their models, I can sing right along with them.

718
01:01:32,000 --> 01:01:34,000
But if I have to remember the words, I'm in trouble.

719
01:01:34,000 --> 01:01:36,000
And so I would give them a song.

720
01:01:36,000 --> 01:01:39,000
We started, of course, with like Amazing Grace and we did Jesus Loves Me

721
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:41,000
and just every song that I could think that I knew the words of.

722
01:01:41,000 --> 01:01:43,000
And then I was having them help me remember the words.

723
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:44,000
And I'm carrying Arden.

724
01:01:44,000 --> 01:01:51,000
And I found that I was able to carry him long stretches, long distances,

725
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:55,000
like half mile, mile at a time if we were singing praise songs.

726
01:01:55,000 --> 01:01:57,000
And so we walked for about a mile, mile and a half.

727
01:01:57,000 --> 01:02:01,000
And I carried him and we did that mile and a half in about, you know,

728
01:02:01,000 --> 01:02:03,000
it was probably about an hour.

729
01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:04,000
It wasn't fast.

730
01:02:04,000 --> 01:02:05,000
We were moving real slow.

731
01:02:05,000 --> 01:02:09,000
But then we had done through all the praise songs that we'd done.

732
01:02:09,000 --> 01:02:11,000
And we threw them like most of them three or four times.

733
01:02:11,000 --> 01:02:13,000
And we took a little break and I'm carrying them again.

734
01:02:13,000 --> 01:02:15,000
We've got to be a mile, two miles from the van still.

735
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:18,000
And I'm just beat.

736
01:02:18,000 --> 01:02:19,000
I'm just done.

737
01:02:19,000 --> 01:02:21,000
And I'm like, and we weren't singing anymore.

738
01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:22,000
And I'm like, something's wrong.

739
01:02:22,000 --> 01:02:24,000
And I said, we better sing.

740
01:02:24,000 --> 01:02:26,000
And Alicia and I didn't kind of didn't really want to sing more

741
01:02:26,000 --> 01:02:28,000
because they'd already sung for like an hour straight, you know,

742
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:29,000
most of the time.

743
01:02:29,000 --> 01:02:31,000
And I said, we just got to sing.

744
01:02:31,000 --> 01:02:32,000
So we sang praise songs.

745
01:02:32,000 --> 01:02:37,000
And I was able to carry him the last mile and a half or whatever back to the van.

746
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:42,000
We got to the van, got in the van, started the van.

747
01:02:42,000 --> 01:02:43,000
And the dome light came on.

748
01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:44,000
We opened the door.

749
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:49,000
And within just a few minutes, it got so dark that if it was not for the light of the van,

750
01:02:49,000 --> 01:02:52,000
we would not have been able to see.

751
01:02:52,000 --> 01:02:54,000
Now, you can say whatever you want to say about praise songs,

752
01:02:54,000 --> 01:02:57,000
give you strength, praise songs don't give you strength.

753
01:02:57,000 --> 01:02:59,000
That's your call, your opinion, whatever.

754
01:02:59,000 --> 01:03:02,000
But I can tell you this, this I know for a fact.

755
01:03:02,000 --> 01:03:05,000
Absolutely, to be honest, out of a doubt, this I know for a fact.

756
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:08,000
Had they not sung those praise songs and led me in singing,

757
01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:14,000
had I not been singing praise songs, we would not have made it back to the van before it got dark.

758
01:03:14,000 --> 01:03:16,000
I know it for a fact.

759
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:18,000
Absolute certainty.

760
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:22,000
And that's a scary place to be in with your family,

761
01:03:22,000 --> 01:03:24,000
a quarter mile, half mile into a wilderness hike.

762
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:27,000
Like, did you don't know we went down it on the way out, but with no lights.

763
01:03:27,000 --> 01:03:29,000
It wasn't like a trail that you could follow back.

764
01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:33,000
We were pushing branches out of the way, stepping over rocks,

765
01:03:33,000 --> 01:03:35,000
going back and forth over the stream.

766
01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:37,000
We wouldn't have made it.

767
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:39,000
So God did that.

768
01:03:39,000 --> 01:03:40,000
Did he do it because we were praising him?

769
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:42,000
Did he do it because we were praying to him?

770
01:03:42,000 --> 01:03:45,000
Did he do it because I had prayed, Lord, please get us back safely?

771
01:03:45,000 --> 01:03:48,000
Did he do it because he could feel my heart starting to tremble in fear

772
01:03:48,000 --> 01:03:50,000
whether we're going to be stuck in the wilderness?

773
01:03:50,000 --> 01:03:56,000
And have to call the park rangers and say, hey, we think we're about a half mile from our van.

774
01:03:56,000 --> 01:03:57,000
We don't know where we are.

775
01:03:57,000 --> 01:04:00,000
Can you find us on GPS or something because we're lost in the wilderness?

776
01:04:00,000 --> 01:04:02,000
Is that going to be us?

777
01:04:02,000 --> 01:04:04,000
Did he do it to make that not the case?

778
01:04:04,000 --> 01:04:06,000
I don't know, but this much I know.

779
01:04:06,000 --> 01:04:11,000
If we had not prayed and sung praise songs, we would not have made it back to the van before dark.

780
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:16,000
I want you to bear that in mind as we look at one of the shortest Psalms today.

781
01:04:16,000 --> 01:04:21,000
We will use some other text to support it and break it down a little bit.

782
01:04:21,000 --> 01:04:25,000
But we're going to go to one of the shortest Psalms in the Psalms today.

783
01:04:25,000 --> 01:04:29,000
Maybe give me a hoot to holler at amen as we go to Psalm 134.

784
01:04:29,000 --> 01:04:30,000
Amen.

785
01:04:30,000 --> 01:04:31,000
Thank you very much.

786
01:04:31,000 --> 01:04:34,000
That reminds us that from here on out, this is the word of the Lord.

787
01:04:34,000 --> 01:04:36,000
Obviously, I explained some things.

788
01:04:36,000 --> 01:04:39,000
My explanations are not necessarily inspired of God.

789
01:04:39,000 --> 01:04:40,000
I try to do the best I possibly can.

790
01:04:40,000 --> 01:04:44,000
But what we read here is for sure God's word and we can be affected by it.

791
01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:47,000
So Psalm 134, it is only three verses.

792
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:51,000
So as I break down and expose these three verses, they will go by very quickly.

793
01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:58,000
So kind of try to absorb as you go as quickly as you can so we get as much out of this as we can.

794
01:04:58,000 --> 01:05:02,000
And then as I said, we will use some other references to help us understand these texts.

795
01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:03,000
There's a couple of phrases in here.

796
01:05:03,000 --> 01:05:05,000
If you just read it, you probably wouldn't get it.

797
01:05:05,000 --> 01:05:06,000
Okay?

798
01:05:06,000 --> 01:05:07,000
So here we go.

799
01:05:07,000 --> 01:05:09,000
Psalm 134, beginning in verse 1.

800
01:05:09,000 --> 01:05:18,000
Behold, bless the Lord, all servants of the Lord, who serve by night in the house of the Lord.

801
01:05:18,000 --> 01:05:19,000
Okay?

802
01:05:19,000 --> 01:05:21,000
So first of all, behold, that's an easy one.

803
01:05:21,000 --> 01:05:24,000
Anytime you see behold, it's like, look, pay attention.

804
01:05:24,000 --> 01:05:25,000
Come on.

805
01:05:25,000 --> 01:05:26,000
This is important.

806
01:05:26,000 --> 01:05:32,000
The same word in the New Testament, sometimes you see lo, lo, behold, look here.

807
01:05:32,000 --> 01:05:34,000
All of those phrases mean the same thing.

808
01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:36,000
Like, pay attention to this.

809
01:05:36,000 --> 01:05:37,000
Bless the Lord.

810
01:05:37,000 --> 01:05:41,000
And blessing the Lord is a power-packed phrase, right?

811
01:05:41,000 --> 01:05:43,000
It's hard for us to think of us blessing God.

812
01:05:43,000 --> 01:05:44,000
What does God need?

813
01:05:44,000 --> 01:05:47,000
Like, we're going to buy Him something or give Him something?

814
01:05:47,000 --> 01:05:48,000
That's not what it's saying.

815
01:05:48,000 --> 01:05:49,000
Okay?

816
01:05:49,000 --> 01:05:51,000
So we'll break it down in a minute.

817
01:05:51,000 --> 01:05:52,000
Bless the Lord.

818
01:05:52,000 --> 01:05:54,000
The Lord here is the Creator God, Yahweh.

819
01:05:54,000 --> 01:05:58,000
If you're reading in a New American Standard Version, you'll notice that it's L-O-R-D, all capitals.

820
01:05:58,000 --> 01:06:01,000
And that means that it's the Yahweh Creator God.

821
01:06:01,000 --> 01:06:03,000
It's the Lord God who created everything.

822
01:06:03,000 --> 01:06:04,000
We're going to bless the Lord.

823
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:08,000
We're going to give blessings to God, the Creator of everything.

824
01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:11,000
And it says, all servants of the Lord.

825
01:06:11,000 --> 01:06:14,000
And so that word, their servant, just means those who serve, right?

826
01:06:14,000 --> 01:06:16,000
I once read a book and it said this.

827
01:06:16,000 --> 01:06:20,000
It said that there are those who sometimes serve and then there are servants.

828
01:06:20,000 --> 01:06:22,000
And they are completely a different thing.

829
01:06:22,000 --> 01:06:28,000
A servant is a person who goes, I will serve in any way I can, any time I can, anyone I can.

830
01:06:28,000 --> 01:06:30,000
That's what a servant is.

831
01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:35,000
Those who serve are people who see an opportunity or they have a skill or an ability and they go,

832
01:06:35,000 --> 01:06:37,000
Okay, I can fit.

833
01:06:37,000 --> 01:06:38,000
I can make a difference.

834
01:06:38,000 --> 01:06:42,000
Or they feel prodded by God and they'll say, I can make a difference or whatever, and they'll step in and do it.

835
01:06:42,000 --> 01:06:50,000
But a servant is a person who says, I will serve in any way I can, anyone I can, any time I can.

836
01:06:50,000 --> 01:06:53,000
And so these are servants of the Lord.

837
01:06:53,000 --> 01:06:57,000
And I submit to you, if you are a servant of the Lord Creator God,

838
01:06:57,000 --> 01:07:00,000
you are an aspect of the God of Heaven's ministry.

839
01:07:00,000 --> 01:07:03,000
If He's the one who made you, He's the one who's doing it,

840
01:07:03,000 --> 01:07:08,000
then if you're a servant, then you ought to be willing to serve at any time, in any capacity,

841
01:07:08,000 --> 01:07:11,000
in any way you can, anybody you can, right?

842
01:07:11,000 --> 01:07:16,000
Remember, the Creator God is a servant, right?

843
01:07:16,000 --> 01:07:19,000
Jesus is a servant.

844
01:07:19,000 --> 01:07:23,000
He got down, got up, rather, because they were probably lounging on the floor, got up,

845
01:07:23,000 --> 01:07:26,000
put a strapped towel on Himself and began to wash their feet.

846
01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:30,000
And when He got done, He said, now, if you know what I have done to you, right?

847
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:32,000
Because if I would do this, then you need to do that.

848
01:07:32,000 --> 01:07:35,000
Jesus is a servant, right?

849
01:07:35,000 --> 01:07:41,000
And if we are a servant of the Lord, it says, bless the Lord, all servants of the Lord.

850
01:07:41,000 --> 01:07:45,000
We ought to be servants like that, ready to serve at any time, any opportunity, anyone we can.

851
01:07:45,000 --> 01:07:48,000
That is the idea, that is certainly who Jesus is.

852
01:07:48,000 --> 01:07:50,000
Sometimes Jesus gets abused because of that.

853
01:07:50,000 --> 01:07:52,000
He certainly did while He was alive.

854
01:07:52,000 --> 01:07:54,000
And we will too. You will.

855
01:07:54,000 --> 01:07:57,000
You will be like, ah, man, every time I set out to serve, somebody of you,

856
01:07:57,000 --> 01:07:59,000
it always comes back to bite me, right?

857
01:07:59,000 --> 01:08:03,000
Or as I am fond of saying, kind of jokingly, but also it is kind of sad,

858
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:06,000
and that is that no good deed goes unpunished, right?

859
01:08:06,000 --> 01:08:09,000
You go out of your way to try to help somebody, it is going to cost you.

860
01:08:09,000 --> 01:08:13,000
And they might even be the reason it costs you.

861
01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:18,000
So, behold, pay attention, bless the Lord, all servants of the Lord,

862
01:08:18,000 --> 01:08:20,000
who serve by night in the house of the Lord.

863
01:08:20,000 --> 01:08:23,000
And so that is an interesting phrase, right?

864
01:08:23,000 --> 01:08:27,000
Not during the worship service, per se, but there is something more going on there,

865
01:08:27,000 --> 01:08:30,000
and we will come back and break that down in the points as well,

866
01:08:30,000 --> 01:08:32,000
so you will get a better picture of what that is.

867
01:08:32,000 --> 01:08:34,000
So this is another kind of servant.

868
01:08:34,000 --> 01:08:38,000
It is a servant that serves by night in the house of the Lord.

869
01:08:38,000 --> 01:08:40,000
And that is kind of like, that is a little odd.

870
01:08:40,000 --> 01:08:44,000
Verse 2, lift up your hands to the sanctuary.

871
01:08:44,000 --> 01:08:48,000
And so here is that command, lift up your hands to the sanctuary.

872
01:08:48,000 --> 01:08:54,000
This is where Islam gets its idea of praying and always praying toward the Temple Mount.

873
01:08:54,000 --> 01:08:56,000
And there are some devout Jews who do the same thing.

874
01:08:56,000 --> 01:08:59,000
They always pray toward whatever direction Jerusalem is.

875
01:08:59,000 --> 01:09:02,000
That is the direction I am going to pray. I am praying toward Jerusalem.

876
01:09:02,000 --> 01:09:05,000
But that is totally misunderstanding the context of this verse,

877
01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:08,000
if this verse were used to support that.

878
01:09:08,000 --> 01:09:11,000
Lift up your hands to the sanctuary is clearly talking about God,

879
01:09:11,000 --> 01:09:14,000
the sanctuary is representing God's presence,

880
01:09:14,000 --> 01:09:16,000
and technically we become the sanctuary, right?

881
01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:21,000
But lift up your hands to the sanctuary means lift up your hands toward God's presence.

882
01:09:21,000 --> 01:09:24,000
And it literally means lift up your hands.

883
01:09:24,000 --> 01:09:27,000
So if you are in worship and you are praising God,

884
01:09:27,000 --> 01:09:30,000
and you find that you cannot lift up your hands,

885
01:09:30,000 --> 01:09:33,000
now if you are physically unable because of a health condition, that is one thing.

886
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:36,000
Maybe you cannot lift your left arm, maybe you lift your right, whatever.

887
01:09:36,000 --> 01:09:39,000
You say, well I am physically unable lifting either one of my arms because of a health condition.

888
01:09:39,000 --> 01:09:44,000
Otherwise, if you are not able to lift your hands in worship, there is a problem.

889
01:09:44,000 --> 01:09:50,000
Now, if you feel compelled by lifting your hands in worship by something other than God,

890
01:09:50,000 --> 01:09:52,000
that also would be a problem.

891
01:09:52,000 --> 01:09:54,000
So don't take my word for it.

892
01:09:54,000 --> 01:09:57,000
Don't listen to me or my idea of it.

893
01:09:57,000 --> 01:10:00,000
But there are words for praise that talk about lifting up your hands,

894
01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:04,000
and they are all over the Psalms, but they are really all over the Bible.

895
01:10:04,000 --> 01:10:07,000
So if you see me lifting up my hands, like why is Pastor Dan lifting up his hands?

896
01:10:07,000 --> 01:10:11,000
I will tell you, I am lifting up my hands out of obedience to the Lord.

897
01:10:11,000 --> 01:10:17,000
I don't care whether you think I should or not, because I am doing what God wants me to do.

898
01:10:17,000 --> 01:10:25,000
Now, if I see you not lifting up your hands, I am going to assume that you are not lifting up your hands out of obedience to the Lord,

899
01:10:25,000 --> 01:10:30,000
which is moderately problematic because all over Scripture it says lift up your hands.

900
01:10:30,000 --> 01:10:34,000
But I am not going to judge you, and I would encourage you not to do the same when you look at me.

901
01:10:34,000 --> 01:10:40,000
Lift up your hands to the sanctuary literally means lift up your hands to the presence of God.

902
01:10:40,000 --> 01:10:43,000
Lift up your hands. It doesn't mean do a little work.

903
01:10:43,000 --> 01:10:47,000
People think my hands are down on my side. I see that needs to be picked up. I am going to lift up my hands.

904
01:10:47,000 --> 01:10:50,000
No, that is not what that means. It means lift up your hands.

905
01:10:50,000 --> 01:10:56,000
They would never in the temple have worship where they would not lift up their hands. Ever.

906
01:10:56,000 --> 01:11:03,000
If you were a Jew, it would be unheard of for you to worship God without at some point in time lifting up your hands,

907
01:11:03,000 --> 01:11:06,000
because it is commanded in the Scripture all over the place.

908
01:11:06,000 --> 01:11:10,000
The fact that Christians do it on a semi-regular basis, before we are done,

909
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:14,000
you have to make a decision whether or not that is going to be acceptable for the rest of your life.

910
01:11:14,000 --> 01:11:16,000
I am never going to lift up my hands in worship.

911
01:11:16,000 --> 01:11:21,000
Well, I am going to take that up with the Lord at some point in time. That is probably not going to be the case.

912
01:11:21,000 --> 01:11:27,000
Lift up your hands to the sanctuary. He says, and bless the Lord. There it is again.

913
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:34,000
And bless the Lord. Do something for God. Do something that God quote unquote needs you to do or would be blessed by.

914
01:11:34,000 --> 01:11:37,000
Do something that he would be blessed by. Verse 3.

915
01:11:37,000 --> 01:11:40,000
May the Lord bless you from Zion.

916
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:46,000
Zion was always a reference in place with his presence, kind of Jerusalem on earth, but then really heaven.

917
01:11:46,000 --> 01:11:50,000
We are talking about heaven. May the Lord bless you from heaven.

918
01:11:50,000 --> 01:11:53,000
He who made heaven and earth.

919
01:11:53,000 --> 01:11:57,000
If you are going to get a blessing, that is a good place to get one, because he made heaven and earth.

920
01:11:57,000 --> 01:12:02,000
When your body is broken, there is somebody who knows exactly what is wrong with it and exactly how to fix it.

921
01:12:02,000 --> 01:12:09,000
And it is the Lord. A doctor may know, may not know, but the Lord knows exactly what is wrong and he knows exactly how to fix it.

922
01:12:09,000 --> 01:12:13,000
The problem sometimes why we do not get there is because, number one, we do not trust him.

923
01:12:13,000 --> 01:12:19,000
Think about the guy at the pool in Bethesda. And Jesus said, do you want to be healed?

924
01:12:19,000 --> 01:12:22,000
And I want to say this to you as just a little bit of an aside for a minute.

925
01:12:22,000 --> 01:12:30,000
You would be careful about what you ask the Lord to do. To whom much is given on him much is expected.

926
01:12:30,000 --> 01:12:35,000
So you are working, right now you work seven days a week, you work for the Lord.

927
01:12:35,000 --> 01:12:40,000
You do ministry on Sunday, you do ministry on Saturday, Monday through Friday, you do your job.

928
01:12:40,000 --> 01:12:44,000
Whatever your job is, whatever task you have, you do that as if you are working for the Lord.

929
01:12:44,000 --> 01:12:49,000
And then you are sick, you have some kind of an illness, you have a financial condition, you have an emotional struggle, something like that.

930
01:12:49,000 --> 01:12:53,000
And you say, God, please help me with X in Jesus' name.

931
01:12:53,000 --> 01:12:57,000
Now if God does that, then what are you going to do that is more?

932
01:12:57,000 --> 01:13:01,000
Well, how are you going to respond if God does what you ask him to do?

933
01:13:01,000 --> 01:13:05,000
Because of him to whom much is given, of him much is expected.

934
01:13:05,000 --> 01:13:11,000
So if you ask God to heal you now physically, and you are already serving him seven days a week, what are you going to do?

935
01:13:11,000 --> 01:13:14,000
Well, part of that is going to be described here in the points.

936
01:13:14,000 --> 01:13:18,000
So we have been through Psalm 134, 1-3, I am going to read it again now.

937
01:13:18,000 --> 01:13:20,000
I can do that because it is only three verses. It will be awesome.

938
01:13:20,000 --> 01:13:26,000
Behold, bless the Lord, all servants of the Lord, who serve by night in the house of the Lord.

939
01:13:26,000 --> 01:13:29,000
Lift up your hands to the sanctuary and bless the Lord.

940
01:13:29,000 --> 01:13:34,000
May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth.

941
01:13:34,000 --> 01:13:40,000
Alright, so there are three things in here. They are going to seem simple at first, but actually they are quite challenging if you kind of begin to process it.

942
01:13:40,000 --> 01:13:47,000
The first thing is, we bless God. That is hard for me to swallow because he is God.

943
01:13:47,000 --> 01:13:55,000
I think about when Moses was in the wilderness and God said, I am just going to wipe out the Israelites and start over again.

944
01:13:55,000 --> 01:13:59,000
And Moses said, oh no please. And he got on the way and he got down on his knees and on his face and he begged the Lord,

945
01:13:59,000 --> 01:14:07,000
no please don't do that for your witness because the Egyptians will say that he was so mad at his people he had to call them out of the wilderness and destroy them.

946
01:14:07,000 --> 01:14:11,000
For God's sake, he begged God not to destroy them because he didn't want them to be destroyed.

947
01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:17,000
He loved them just like God loved them. Maybe not as powerfully because God is loved, but he loved them in the same way that God did.

948
01:14:17,000 --> 01:14:21,000
He did not want to see that happen. We bless God.

949
01:14:21,000 --> 01:14:27,000
There is something about what we are, what we do that we are called to bless God.

950
01:14:27,000 --> 01:14:32,000
So go first with me. There is going to be some flipping here. I hope you brought your Bibles and you are willing to play this game.

951
01:14:32,000 --> 01:14:35,000
Because some of these verses are a little bit more obscure even.

952
01:14:35,000 --> 01:14:39,000
I am going to read to you a verse right now that you may never have read ever in your life.

953
01:14:39,000 --> 01:14:46,000
So the first one is 1 Chronicles 9, so chapter 9. So it is to the left, 1 Chronicles, back into Chronicles.

954
01:14:46,000 --> 01:14:52,000
I always remember Chronicles is after kings because the Chronicles is kind of like the history of the kings.

955
01:14:52,000 --> 01:14:55,000
It is the story of how the kings came about. So it is easy to remember.

956
01:14:55,000 --> 01:14:58,000
Samuel has got to be before kings because Samuel anointed the kings.

957
01:14:58,000 --> 01:15:00,000
Then you have the kings and then you have the Chronicles of the kings.

958
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:02,000
So that is how I remember the order.

959
01:15:02,000 --> 01:15:06,000
So 1 Chronicles 9, verse 33, and it says this.

960
01:15:06,000 --> 01:15:10,000
It is talking about the servants in the temple and how they would be set up and like that.

961
01:15:10,000 --> 01:15:20,000
And it says this, Now these are the singers, heads of fathers, households of the Levites,

962
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:24,000
who lived in the chambers of the temple, free from other service.

963
01:15:24,000 --> 01:15:28,000
For they were engaged in their work day and night.

964
01:15:28,000 --> 01:15:34,000
And so it is talking about, remember our verse says this, Behold, bless the Lord, all servants of the Lord,

965
01:15:34,000 --> 01:15:36,000
who serve by night in the house of the Lord.

966
01:15:36,000 --> 01:15:40,000
So we are going to learn a little bit about the kind of people it is talking about.

967
01:15:40,000 --> 01:15:43,000
Bless the Lord, do it. What are they going to do?

968
01:15:43,000 --> 01:15:47,000
They are going to praise God. Day and night praise God.

969
01:15:47,000 --> 01:15:53,000
And it is interesting, and I will come back to this later, that they are excused from other service.

970
01:15:53,000 --> 01:15:59,000
So substantial is their service and so continuous is their service that they are excused from other things

971
01:15:59,000 --> 01:16:07,000
that they might need to do or that Levites or Kohathites or whatever might need to do in temple service.

972
01:16:07,000 --> 01:16:11,000
They are excused from that because they praise the Lord day and night.

973
01:16:11,000 --> 01:16:14,000
So these are singers. These are praisers.

974
01:16:14,000 --> 01:16:19,000
So how do you bless the Lord? Well you bless him with praise, first of all.

975
01:16:19,000 --> 01:16:21,000
And you do it day and night.

976
01:16:21,000 --> 01:16:24,000
But it is interesting that they were ordained to do that.

977
01:16:24,000 --> 01:16:30,000
They were chosen by God and then put in place by Moses, essentially, and Joshua,

978
01:16:30,000 --> 01:16:36,000
to honor God with their praise, to bless God by their praises.

979
01:16:36,000 --> 01:16:42,000
And they were to do that day and night.

980
01:16:42,000 --> 01:16:48,000
Now this song that we are reading here, most of them are songs or prayers, right?

981
01:16:48,000 --> 01:16:53,000
This song is what is called a song of ascent.

982
01:16:53,000 --> 01:16:58,000
So this is a song that the Israelites would sing as they are going up to Jerusalem.

983
01:16:58,000 --> 01:17:01,000
So the people come in and they say,

984
01:17:01,000 --> 01:17:07,000
Behold, bless the Lord, all servants of the Lord, who serve by night in the house of the Lord.

985
01:17:07,000 --> 01:17:12,000
Basically they are saying, come on you singers, sing!

986
01:17:12,000 --> 01:17:18,000
And God is commanding the servants of the Lord who can sing, sing.

987
01:17:18,000 --> 01:17:23,000
And they are like, well, but I can't, I am not good at singing, right?

988
01:17:23,000 --> 01:17:26,000
I don't see anything about skill in there.

989
01:17:26,000 --> 01:17:30,000
Obviously there would be those who were distinguished maybe,

990
01:17:30,000 --> 01:17:35,000
recognized as quote unquote melodic or better singers than somebody else.

991
01:17:35,000 --> 01:17:41,000
But the bottom line is, if God called you to be a servant of the Lord, sing!

992
01:17:41,000 --> 01:17:44,000
Sing! Praise the Lord!

993
01:17:44,000 --> 01:17:46,000
In church, heck yeah!

994
01:17:46,000 --> 01:17:48,000
In the hallway, yes!

995
01:17:48,000 --> 01:17:50,000
In your car, yes!

996
01:17:50,000 --> 01:17:57,000
With the weed eater or the hammer or the drill or the saw or whatever in your hand, yes!

997
01:17:57,000 --> 01:18:04,000
Praise the Lord and do it day and night because that will bless the Lord.

998
01:18:04,000 --> 01:18:06,000
Amen.

999
01:18:06,000 --> 01:18:12,000
You want to give God praise because number one, God deserves praise.

1000
01:18:12,000 --> 01:18:19,000
God has ordained for Himself praise from all creation, only humans among creation,

1001
01:18:19,000 --> 01:18:23,000
unless you count demons and evil spirits, but among the creation of the earth,

1002
01:18:23,000 --> 01:18:30,000
only humans ever have decided not to praise the Lord.

1003
01:18:30,000 --> 01:18:34,000
Suspicious, isn't it?

1004
01:18:34,000 --> 01:18:37,000
It's suspicious because of this.

1005
01:18:37,000 --> 01:18:40,000
Because in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sinned against God

1006
01:18:40,000 --> 01:18:42,000
because they wanted to be like God.

1007
01:18:42,000 --> 01:18:47,000
They knew that God alone was worthy of praise and they wanted to be like God

1008
01:18:47,000 --> 01:18:51,000
because He is worthy of it, not the trees, not the plants.

1009
01:18:51,000 --> 01:18:53,000
You could say the fruit, right?

1010
01:18:53,000 --> 01:18:55,000
She looked at the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

1011
01:18:55,000 --> 01:19:00,000
and she saw that it looked good to eat and also was beneficial for wisdom.

1012
01:19:00,000 --> 01:19:01,000
By the way, what's that called?

1013
01:19:01,000 --> 01:19:03,000
It's called praise.

1014
01:19:03,000 --> 01:19:07,000
When you see something is good for this and good for that and you say it,

1015
01:19:07,000 --> 01:19:08,000
it's called praise.

1016
01:19:08,000 --> 01:19:11,000
When you think it in your head, that's a version of praise.

1017
01:19:11,000 --> 01:19:13,000
It's preparation for praise when you think it in your head

1018
01:19:13,000 --> 01:19:15,000
and it becomes praise when you say it.

1019
01:19:15,000 --> 01:19:16,000
You say, that looks good.

1020
01:19:16,000 --> 01:19:17,000
It looks good to taste good.

1021
01:19:17,000 --> 01:19:18,000
It looks good for wisdom.

1022
01:19:18,000 --> 01:19:20,000
She praised an object of creation.

1023
01:19:20,000 --> 01:19:23,000
She took the praise that could belong only to God

1024
01:19:23,000 --> 01:19:25,000
and she praised an object of creation.

1025
01:19:25,000 --> 01:19:27,000
Then she took the object of creation and ate it

1026
01:19:27,000 --> 01:19:30,000
because she wanted to praise herself because she wanted to be like God.

1027
01:19:30,000 --> 01:19:35,000
Every time you are choosing not to praise God, whatever you are going through,

1028
01:19:35,000 --> 01:19:37,000
don't kid yourself.

1029
01:19:37,000 --> 01:19:40,000
You are despising the God of heaven.

1030
01:19:40,000 --> 01:19:44,000
You are making him small and not worthy of praise

1031
01:19:44,000 --> 01:19:46,000
because you are in a difficult spot,

1032
01:19:46,000 --> 01:19:48,000
because you don't like the way things went down,

1033
01:19:48,000 --> 01:19:51,000
because you are in the midst of complaining or cursing somebody else or whatever.

1034
01:19:51,000 --> 01:19:52,000
What does James say?

1035
01:19:52,000 --> 01:19:59,000
He says, with our mouths we bless God and then turn around and curse mankind

1036
01:19:59,000 --> 01:20:01,000
who was made in God's image.

1037
01:20:01,000 --> 01:20:05,000
While you are cursing somebody and saying slanderous words or gossip to them,

1038
01:20:05,000 --> 01:20:11,000
and it is gossip if you are repeating something to somebody else that they didn't see.

1039
01:20:11,000 --> 01:20:13,000
Not between husband and wife.

1040
01:20:13,000 --> 01:20:15,000
You are sitting with your husband and you are telling him what you saw.

1041
01:20:15,000 --> 01:20:17,000
You are sitting with your wife and you are telling her what you saw.

1042
01:20:17,000 --> 01:20:18,000
That is not gossip.

1043
01:20:18,000 --> 01:20:21,000
You move outside the marital covenant and you start telling somebody

1044
01:20:21,000 --> 01:20:24,000
what they didn't see is gossip.

1045
01:20:24,000 --> 01:20:27,000
Our mouths are made to testify about the God of heaven.

1046
01:20:27,000 --> 01:20:30,000
So now you have gossip and you have slander.

1047
01:20:30,000 --> 01:20:34,000
Both of those things are curses by comparison to what we are supposed to be doing,

1048
01:20:34,000 --> 01:20:36,000
which is praising God.

1049
01:20:36,000 --> 01:20:38,000
Your mouth was made for praising God.

1050
01:20:38,000 --> 01:20:42,000
Only humans of all creation have decided not to praise God.

1051
01:20:42,000 --> 01:20:46,000
And we as believers having now been reconciled to God, we should be reversing that.

1052
01:20:46,000 --> 01:20:51,000
We should be praising God all day long every day.

1053
01:20:51,000 --> 01:20:57,000
Because the breath you just took was a gift from the God of heaven.

1054
01:20:57,000 --> 01:21:05,000
And if you are not willing to praise Him for it, you stole that gift.

1055
01:21:05,000 --> 01:21:09,000
Because He deserves our praise.

1056
01:21:09,000 --> 01:21:15,000
We bless God when we praise Him as servants of the Lord day and night.

1057
01:21:15,000 --> 01:21:16,000
That means all the time.

1058
01:21:16,000 --> 01:21:18,000
And night has an interesting connotation.

1059
01:21:18,000 --> 01:21:21,000
Because day is praising Him in the sunshine.

1060
01:21:21,000 --> 01:21:23,000
Praising Him in the gentle breeze.

1061
01:21:23,000 --> 01:21:25,000
Praising Him when the check comes in.

1062
01:21:25,000 --> 01:21:27,000
Praising Him when you are feeling strong.

1063
01:21:27,000 --> 01:21:31,000
Praising Him when you are receiving some comment from someone that makes you feel better about yourself.

1064
01:21:31,000 --> 01:21:35,000
Praising Him when somebody recognizes you for being a good person because you worked hard.

1065
01:21:35,000 --> 01:21:38,000
Praising Him then, that is praising Him in the day.

1066
01:21:38,000 --> 01:21:41,000
Praising Him in the night is praising Him when it is hard.

1067
01:21:41,000 --> 01:21:43,000
Praising Him when somebody says something you do not like.

1068
01:21:43,000 --> 01:21:45,000
When things go the wrong way.

1069
01:21:45,000 --> 01:21:46,000
When it is raining.

1070
01:21:46,000 --> 01:21:48,000
When you wish you could be out in the sun.

1071
01:21:48,000 --> 01:21:49,000
When your health is failing you.

1072
01:21:49,000 --> 01:21:52,000
When you wish you could do some work.

1073
01:21:52,000 --> 01:21:56,000
Praising Him in the day and night means you praise Him all the time.

1074
01:21:56,000 --> 01:21:58,000
Your waking day you praise Him.

1075
01:21:58,000 --> 01:22:01,000
If you are a servant of the Lord you are called by this Psalm.

1076
01:22:01,000 --> 01:22:04,000
And I could give you probably 20 other places if we wanted to take the time.

1077
01:22:04,000 --> 01:22:06,000
You are called to praise Him.

1078
01:22:06,000 --> 01:22:09,000
Day in and day out.

1079
01:22:09,000 --> 01:22:10,000
Praise Him.

1080
01:22:10,000 --> 01:22:15,000
Or maybe, just maybe, you are not a servant of the Lord.

1081
01:22:15,000 --> 01:22:19,000
Or maybe, just maybe, you are a servant of the Lord.

1082
01:22:19,000 --> 01:22:25,000
And you need to be admonished by the Lord and hear the Psalmist say,

1083
01:22:25,000 --> 01:22:27,000
Praise Him servant.

1084
01:22:27,000 --> 01:22:28,000
Bless Him.

1085
01:22:28,000 --> 01:22:30,000
Bless Him singer.

1086
01:22:30,000 --> 01:22:33,000
Bless Him.

1087
01:22:33,000 --> 01:22:38,000
Psalm 100 verse 4 and 5 sums this up beautifully.

1088
01:22:38,000 --> 01:22:45,000
Helping us to see that the Psalmist really did mean and really understand this concept.

1089
01:22:45,000 --> 01:22:47,000
Psalm 100.

1090
01:22:47,000 --> 01:22:50,000
So we are back almost smack dab in the middle of the Bible.

1091
01:22:50,000 --> 01:22:54,000
Psalm 100 verse 4 and 5 they say it this way.

1092
01:22:54,000 --> 01:22:57,000
Enter His gates with thanksgiving.

1093
01:22:57,000 --> 01:22:59,000
And His courts with praise.

1094
01:22:59,000 --> 01:23:00,000
How do you come to God?

1095
01:23:00,000 --> 01:23:01,000
You want to draw near to the Lord?

1096
01:23:01,000 --> 01:23:02,000
How do you do that?

1097
01:23:02,000 --> 01:23:04,000
Sing praises.

1098
01:23:04,000 --> 01:23:07,000
Enter His gates with thanksgiving.

1099
01:23:07,000 --> 01:23:09,000
And His courts with praise.

1100
01:23:09,000 --> 01:23:10,000
Give thanks to Him.

1101
01:23:10,000 --> 01:23:13,000
Bless His name.

1102
01:23:13,000 --> 01:23:15,000
For the Lord is good.

1103
01:23:15,000 --> 01:23:18,000
His loving kindness is everlasting.

1104
01:23:18,000 --> 01:23:21,000
And His faithfulness to all generations.

1105
01:23:21,000 --> 01:23:24,000
In the midst of the difficulty when you are facing something that you don't like what you are going through.

1106
01:23:24,000 --> 01:23:31,000
Don't you dare think for an instant to turn off the faucet of praise.

1107
01:23:31,000 --> 01:23:34,000
What? So you are going to go through some difficulty, some thing that is bad.

1108
01:23:34,000 --> 01:23:36,000
Some hurt that you are going to go through.

1109
01:23:36,000 --> 01:23:39,000
And in that moment you are going to say God is not worthy of praise.

1110
01:23:39,000 --> 01:23:40,000
I am going through some stuff.

1111
01:23:40,000 --> 01:23:42,000
I am going to be belligerent.

1112
01:23:42,000 --> 01:23:43,000
I am going to be upset.

1113
01:23:43,000 --> 01:23:44,000
I am going to get worked up.

1114
01:23:44,000 --> 01:23:45,000
I am going to break something.

1115
01:23:45,000 --> 01:23:46,000
Or I am going to go do something.

1116
01:23:46,000 --> 01:23:47,000
Or whatever.

1117
01:23:47,000 --> 01:23:48,000
You are going to get in that moment of time.

1118
01:23:48,000 --> 01:23:49,000
You are going to do something.

1119
01:23:49,000 --> 01:23:50,000
That you are going to make it better.

1120
01:23:50,000 --> 01:23:53,000
Because the God of heaven ceased to be worthy of praise.

1121
01:23:53,000 --> 01:23:57,000
Because in that moment things are not going the way you wanted them to go.

1122
01:23:57,000 --> 01:23:59,000
You are not God.

1123
01:23:59,000 --> 01:24:01,000
You are not God in your house.

1124
01:24:01,000 --> 01:24:03,000
You are not God in your family.

1125
01:24:03,000 --> 01:24:04,000
You are not the God of the Bible.

1126
01:24:04,000 --> 01:24:05,000
You didn't create it.

1127
01:24:05,000 --> 01:24:11,000
You barely get to use it for a short time compared to the extent that creation exists.

1128
01:24:11,000 --> 01:24:14,000
You are a blink of an eye compared to God.

1129
01:24:14,000 --> 01:24:18,000
You are not allowed to despise the God of heaven.

1130
01:24:18,000 --> 01:24:21,000
Certainly not as a servant of the Lord.

1131
01:24:21,000 --> 01:24:23,000
Not as a saved individual.

1132
01:24:23,000 --> 01:24:26,000
If that is who you are and what you do when things don't go the way.

1133
01:24:26,000 --> 01:24:28,000
You need to repent.

1134
01:24:28,000 --> 01:24:31,000
You need to turn to the Lord and say in that moment praise the Lord.

1135
01:24:31,000 --> 01:24:34,000
When I was not even a Christian yet there was a young man.

1136
01:24:34,000 --> 01:24:37,000
His name was Dave who worked at my Pizza Hut.

1137
01:24:37,000 --> 01:24:40,000
And my Pizza Hut was as foul mouth as the day is long.

1138
01:24:40,000 --> 01:24:43,000
When I got saved it became a problem because I was trying to give up that.

1139
01:24:43,000 --> 01:24:45,000
I didn't become a preacher or anything but I was trying to give it up.

1140
01:24:45,000 --> 01:24:47,000
And everybody around me was like that.

1141
01:24:47,000 --> 01:24:48,000
So I knew what he was like.

1142
01:24:48,000 --> 01:24:52,000
He had gone away to Bible college in Texas by the time I got saved.

1143
01:24:52,000 --> 01:24:54,000
But he was working on a Friday night.

1144
01:24:54,000 --> 01:24:57,000
It was like 7 o'clock and tickets were streaming off on the floor.

1145
01:24:57,000 --> 01:24:59,000
And pizzas were taking an hour and a half to get to people's houses.

1146
01:24:59,000 --> 01:25:02,000
We were selling $5,000, $10,000 worth of pizza in one day.

1147
01:25:02,000 --> 01:25:03,000
It was absolutely nuts.

1148
01:25:03,000 --> 01:25:06,000
And everybody was like F this and F that.

1149
01:25:06,000 --> 01:25:07,000
And every cuss word all over the place.

1150
01:25:07,000 --> 01:25:10,000
I dropped it and they're cussing up a storm and it ain't this.

1151
01:25:10,000 --> 01:25:12,000
All these cuss words are flying all over the place.

1152
01:25:12,000 --> 01:25:16,000
And he was the best cook I ever had working lead on the make table.

1153
01:25:16,000 --> 01:25:19,000
He pulled that ticket and he made the pizzas.

1154
01:25:19,000 --> 01:25:23,000
We had pizzas stacked like in a pyramid shape like 10, 15 high on the end

1155
01:25:23,000 --> 01:25:25,000
because you couldn't go in the oven because the oven was backed up.

1156
01:25:25,000 --> 01:25:27,000
It was totally full.

1157
01:25:27,000 --> 01:25:34,000
And in the middle of that somebody spewed a cuss word and he said, praise the Lord.

1158
01:25:34,000 --> 01:25:35,000
And I'm not a Christian.

1159
01:25:35,000 --> 01:25:37,000
I'm going like that was weird.

1160
01:25:37,000 --> 01:25:40,000
A minute later somebody said a cuss word and he said, hallelujah.

1161
01:25:40,000 --> 01:25:42,000
I didn't even know what that meant back then.

1162
01:25:42,000 --> 01:25:44,000
I didn't know that hallelujah meant praise the Lord.

1163
01:25:44,000 --> 01:25:45,000
I didn't even know what that meant.

1164
01:25:45,000 --> 01:25:48,000
A little bit later he said somebody cussed or something.

1165
01:25:48,000 --> 01:25:50,000
He said, praise the Lord.

1166
01:25:50,000 --> 01:25:54,000
And I'm thinking, so now I'm thinking he's thanking God for people cussing.

1167
01:25:54,000 --> 01:25:55,000
That's what I figured out.

1168
01:25:55,000 --> 01:25:56,000
Like that would make a lot of sense.

1169
01:25:56,000 --> 01:26:00,000
So after the rush started to die down, I had about 10, 15 times.

1170
01:26:00,000 --> 01:26:05,000
And I said, why are you screaming praises to God in the middle of the rush?

1171
01:26:05,000 --> 01:26:07,000
I said, could you please not do that?

1172
01:26:07,000 --> 01:26:08,000
I'm on the phone.

1173
01:26:08,000 --> 01:26:10,000
Mind you, they're cussing up a storm, right?

1174
01:26:10,000 --> 01:26:13,000
And I probably was too because I wasn't saying that's kind of who I was back then.

1175
01:26:13,000 --> 01:26:15,000
And I didn't have any problem with them cussing up a storm.

1176
01:26:15,000 --> 01:26:17,000
I didn't want the customer on the phone to hear that.

1177
01:26:17,000 --> 01:26:19,000
But other than that, I didn't have any problem.

1178
01:26:19,000 --> 01:26:21,000
And they're rushing around and cussing and stuff.

1179
01:26:21,000 --> 01:26:24,000
And I didn't correct them unless they got where a customer was.

1180
01:26:24,000 --> 01:26:26,000
But he'd yell, praise the Lord, real nice and loud on the phone.

1181
01:26:26,000 --> 01:26:27,000
You could hear that, right?

1182
01:26:27,000 --> 01:26:29,000
And I said, you've got to really tell it.

1183
01:26:29,000 --> 01:26:31,000
If you're going to do that, I don't know what that's all about.

1184
01:26:31,000 --> 01:26:33,000
But you really got to tone it down.

1185
01:26:33,000 --> 01:26:36,000
And he said, well, I'm going to tone it down if you want me to.

1186
01:26:36,000 --> 01:26:40,000
But I'm going to yell, praise the Lord, and say hallelujah every time somebody else cusses,

1187
01:26:40,000 --> 01:26:41,000
as long as we're in the middle of it.

1188
01:26:41,000 --> 01:26:44,000
Because in the middle of it, the Lord deserves the praise.

1189
01:26:44,000 --> 01:26:47,000
And what they're doing is the reason people are cussing,

1190
01:26:47,000 --> 01:26:51,000
the reason people are using cuss words is because their soul in the middle of it

1191
01:26:51,000 --> 01:26:53,000
is not capable of praising God.

1192
01:26:53,000 --> 01:26:55,000
And they can't get out the words they should get out,

1193
01:26:55,000 --> 01:26:57,000
which is praise the Lord, hallelujah.

1194
01:26:57,000 --> 01:26:58,000
They can't get that out.

1195
01:26:58,000 --> 01:27:00,000
So they're spewing cuss words because they don't know what to say.

1196
01:27:00,000 --> 01:27:02,000
Just listen to anybody who's talking.

1197
01:27:02,000 --> 01:27:04,000
Anybody who's a lot of cuss words, when do the cuss words come in?

1198
01:27:04,000 --> 01:27:07,000
They come in when they don't know what else to put in there, right?

1199
01:27:07,000 --> 01:27:11,000
So it's a big cuss word blue truck.

1200
01:27:11,000 --> 01:27:12,000
Because there's some word for that.

1201
01:27:12,000 --> 01:27:13,000
I don't know what is a big truck.

1202
01:27:13,000 --> 01:27:15,000
And you've got to know it's a really big truck.

1203
01:27:15,000 --> 01:27:17,000
And I can't think of a word right now for really big.

1204
01:27:17,000 --> 01:27:21,000
So it's a really big cuss word blue truck, or a cuss word blue really big truck,

1205
01:27:21,000 --> 01:27:24,000
or something, because they don't know how to say gargantuan or huge.

1206
01:27:24,000 --> 01:27:26,000
Or they just want you to think it was so big.

1207
01:27:26,000 --> 01:27:28,000
So they've got to throw a cuss word in there.

1208
01:27:28,000 --> 01:27:29,000
So that's what we do.

1209
01:27:29,000 --> 01:27:32,000
We throw cuss words when we can't get the words out,

1210
01:27:32,000 --> 01:27:35,000
and we're created to praise God in the middle of trials.

1211
01:27:35,000 --> 01:27:39,000
And so he said, so in the middle of trials, I'm going to say praise the Lord every time they cuss,

1212
01:27:39,000 --> 01:27:42,000
because they're praising their God, and I'm praising mine.

1213
01:27:42,000 --> 01:27:46,000
Do you understand?

1214
01:27:46,000 --> 01:27:48,000
Bless God.

1215
01:27:48,000 --> 01:27:52,000
Praise Him day long, night long.

1216
01:27:52,000 --> 01:27:55,000
Every time something goes wrong, every time something goes right,

1217
01:27:55,000 --> 01:27:58,000
every time nothing goes.

1218
01:27:58,000 --> 01:28:01,000
Bless Him.

1219
01:28:01,000 --> 01:28:07,000
Secondly in the text, you see it says, we lift up holy hands.

1220
01:28:07,000 --> 01:28:10,000
We lift up holy hands.

1221
01:28:10,000 --> 01:28:15,000
Turn with me if you would to 2 Chronicles, also chapter 29.

1222
01:28:15,000 --> 01:28:25,000
2 Chronicles, in 29.

1223
01:28:25,000 --> 01:28:34,000
2 Chronicles, chapter 29, I'll begin in verse 10, and this is what it says.

1224
01:28:34,000 --> 01:28:42,000
Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel,

1225
01:28:42,000 --> 01:28:46,000
that His burning anger may turn away from us.

1226
01:28:46,000 --> 01:28:52,000
My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before Him,

1227
01:28:52,000 --> 01:28:58,000
to minister to Him, and to be His ministers and burn incense.

1228
01:28:58,000 --> 01:29:03,000
From the Levites arose, I'm going to mess this up,

1229
01:29:03,000 --> 01:29:09,000
a bunch of names, let's do that, down to, and from the sons of El-Az-Zafan,

1230
01:29:09,000 --> 01:29:13,000
Shemri and Jael, from the sons of Asaph, Zechariah, and Madaniah,

1231
01:29:13,000 --> 01:29:18,000
and from the sons of the man Jehiel and Shemiel, from the sons of Jehudotham, and so on.

1232
01:29:18,000 --> 01:29:23,000
And 15 it says, and they assembled their brothers, they consecrated themselves,

1233
01:29:23,000 --> 01:29:29,000
and they went in to cleanse the house of the Lord according to the commandment of the King by the word of the Lord.

1234
01:29:29,000 --> 01:29:33,000
These folks, these are the Levites of their day.

1235
01:29:33,000 --> 01:29:39,000
They're the folks called to relate to God, and so what did they do?

1236
01:29:39,000 --> 01:29:43,000
They consecrated themselves, they consecrated the temple.

1237
01:29:43,000 --> 01:29:46,000
How do you consecrate something? Let's talk about that for just one second.

1238
01:29:46,000 --> 01:29:50,000
You consecrate it maybe with holy water, how do you make holy water?

1239
01:29:50,000 --> 01:29:56,000
Say it again? Amen. It's prayer. We're talking about prayer.

1240
01:29:56,000 --> 01:30:02,000
We're talking about asking God to bless the altar, asking God to bless His priests,

1241
01:30:02,000 --> 01:30:08,000
asking God to bless the holy water. We ask God to make holy that which is not holy.

1242
01:30:08,000 --> 01:30:13,000
That's how something becomes holy. You ask God to make something holy that's not holy,

1243
01:30:13,000 --> 01:30:17,000
and nothing holy without God. That's the reality.

1244
01:30:17,000 --> 01:30:21,000
And you ask God to make it holy. Pray over your children. Pray over your life.

1245
01:30:21,000 --> 01:30:26,000
Pray over your relationships. Pray over your house. Pray over your finances.

1246
01:30:26,000 --> 01:30:31,000
But here's what we do. We wait until it's in the tank, when it's going away, when it's falling down,

1247
01:30:31,000 --> 01:30:37,000
when it's burned up in ashes, and then we say, God, will you resurrect it?

1248
01:30:37,000 --> 01:30:46,000
We lift up holy hands to God's presence means we pray to God for God to do what needs to be done

1249
01:30:46,000 --> 01:30:53,000
before it's too late. Stop praying for resurrections and start praying for life.

1250
01:30:53,000 --> 01:30:59,000
Stop praying to fix whatever's broken and start praying to be a good steward of what you've been blessed with

1251
01:30:59,000 --> 01:31:04,000
so that when the time comes, if it's broken, you already know that it wasn't meant to be.

1252
01:31:04,000 --> 01:31:08,000
Because you can use everything for what it's supposed to be used for.

1253
01:31:08,000 --> 01:31:14,000
We lift up holy hands. Turn to the New Testament in case you're disagreeing with me in any way.

1254
01:31:14,000 --> 01:31:21,000
First Timothy. Go to First Timothy. So we're going all the way down there on the right to the T's,

1255
01:31:21,000 --> 01:31:25,000
which sometimes are tricky to find because they're not very long.

1256
01:31:25,000 --> 01:31:31,000
But if you find anything like a Thessalonian or a Timothy, you're in the right area.

1257
01:31:31,000 --> 01:31:40,000
First Timothy, chapter 2, beginning of verse 1.

1258
01:31:40,000 --> 01:31:43,000
First Timothy, chapter 2, beginning of verse 1. He says this. He says,

1259
01:31:43,000 --> 01:31:53,000
First of all, then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgiving

1260
01:31:53,000 --> 01:32:01,000
be made on behalf of all men for kings and all who are in authority in order that we may lead a tranquil

1261
01:32:01,000 --> 01:32:08,000
and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. Who do we pray for? We pray for everybody.

1262
01:32:08,000 --> 01:32:12,000
You get busy praying for everybody, you have less time to do other things.

1263
01:32:12,000 --> 01:32:16,000
Unless you're going to do things while you're praying, which in that case you're going to have to memorize

1264
01:32:16,000 --> 01:32:19,000
who everybody is and the prayer list and so on.

1265
01:32:19,000 --> 01:32:29,000
Verse 3 says, this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all men to be saved

1266
01:32:29,000 --> 01:32:34,000
and to come to the knowledge of the truth. You know a lost person who wants nothing to do with God?

1267
01:32:34,000 --> 01:32:41,000
You should be praying for them every day and if at all possible every day, every time you think about it.

1268
01:32:41,000 --> 01:32:47,000
If the sun goes up and you start praying, the sun goes down and you pray, and you pray five or six or seven times in between,

1269
01:32:47,000 --> 01:32:52,000
and I'm not saying repeat the exact same rote phrases or think you're going to get it just because you're praying.

1270
01:32:52,000 --> 01:32:56,000
That's your heart, that becomes your concern. I want to see this person come to the Lord.

1271
01:32:56,000 --> 01:33:04,000
It may actually happen. There's so many stories, right? So many stories about how people come to Christ

1272
01:33:04,000 --> 01:33:08,000
who everybody thought would never come because somebody was praying for them.

1273
01:33:08,000 --> 01:33:13,000
Anybody ever heard of a man named Elvis Presley? Had the opportunity to meet his brother who lived with him

1274
01:33:13,000 --> 01:33:20,000
in the mansion for the last years of his life. That young man dated a girl who was a church going young lady

1275
01:33:20,000 --> 01:33:28,000
and she said, well I'll see you for lunch after church on Sunday. He wasn't going to church, he wasn't a professor of Christian,

1276
01:33:28,000 --> 01:33:37,000
she would not date him unless he came to church. And then they could do lunch after church on Sunday with her mom

1277
01:33:37,000 --> 01:33:44,000
or whatever. There had to be somebody else there, she wasn't going to date him. So he went a couple times to church

1278
01:33:44,000 --> 01:33:54,000
and eventually their relationship separated, whatever. Elvis Presley died, he'd never seen her again,

1279
01:33:54,000 --> 01:34:01,000
I guess I think she went on and got married to somebody else or whatever. Twenty years later, he said,

1280
01:34:01,000 --> 01:34:08,000
I was eighteen to twenty years later, he went to that little church that he had gone to and walked into the church

1281
01:34:08,000 --> 01:34:16,000
and he sat down and he said several people from the church recognized him and went up and said hi.

1282
01:34:16,000 --> 01:34:25,000
And he's like, I don't understand, how can you recognize me? He was not any kind of a celebrity at that time.

1283
01:34:25,000 --> 01:34:30,000
He had worked in the background on the business side, been employed by Elvis' production company like that

1284
01:34:30,000 --> 01:34:35,000
but never in the front lines. So he didn't understand how they recognized him and they just said okay.

1285
01:34:35,000 --> 01:34:39,000
And then it would come time for the invitation, he walked forward and got saved.

1286
01:34:39,000 --> 01:34:43,000
Now we went to evangelism celebration about ten years ago, he was there preaching and I got to meet him.

1287
01:34:43,000 --> 01:34:51,000
He's telling this story. And he said when he got saved, there was a revival, the Holy Spirit broke out of the church

1288
01:34:51,000 --> 01:34:57,000
and everybody got super excited. And he's like, well that's awesome, everybody got excited that I got saved.

1289
01:34:57,000 --> 01:35:03,000
And then one woman came walking forward and he recognized her and it was that girl's mom.

1290
01:35:03,000 --> 01:35:10,000
She had continued to attend that church for twenty years and she walked up to him and pointed out on their prayer list

1291
01:35:10,000 --> 01:35:21,000
in that church his name. They had been praying for him for twenty years or however long it was, fifteen to twenty years.

1292
01:35:21,000 --> 01:35:29,000
And that day he came, not somewhere else, not by a televangelist, not by some guy at 1-800-Ask-Me-Questions-About-the-Lord

1293
01:35:29,000 --> 01:35:35,000
and not by some guy handing him a track, but he walked forward in their church at their invitation and got saved

1294
01:35:35,000 --> 01:35:42,000
because they were praying for him for fifteen to twenty years by name. He said he was the worst drug addict.

1295
01:35:42,000 --> 01:35:48,000
He'd been in drug sales, he'd been in prison for a time, he'd done everything under the sun except even consider,

1296
01:35:48,000 --> 01:35:56,000
even think twice about Jesus. But he got saved. They were praying for him. Pray because God desires all men to be saved

1297
01:35:56,000 --> 01:36:03,000
and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Verse five says this, for there is one God and one mediator also between God and men,

1298
01:36:03,000 --> 01:36:12,000
the man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony, born at the proper time.

1299
01:36:12,000 --> 01:36:18,000
And for this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am telling the truth. I am not lying.

1300
01:36:18,000 --> 01:36:24,000
As a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Therefore, listen, wait for it, here it comes.

1301
01:36:24,000 --> 01:36:34,000
Therefore, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath, that means opposition,

1302
01:36:34,000 --> 01:36:44,000
and dissension, that means breaking apart. I want all men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands to God

1303
01:36:44,000 --> 01:36:54,000
without wrath and dissension. Paul wrote to Timothy that we should pray and lifting up holy hands, and by doing so,

1304
01:36:54,000 --> 01:37:04,000
I submit to you, bless the Lord. Back to Psalm for one second. This will go by quickly. Psalms 28. Psalm.

1305
01:37:04,000 --> 01:37:12,000
Psalms 28. There we go. Psalm 28. Psalm 28. I guess it's both.

1306
01:37:12,000 --> 01:37:24,000
Psalm 28, and we're just going to look briefly at verse 2. Psalm 28, verse 2. Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to thee for help.

1307
01:37:24,000 --> 01:37:32,000
When I lift up my hands toward thy holy sanctuary, what's it talking about, lifting up your hands toward the holy sanctuary?

1308
01:37:32,000 --> 01:37:40,000
It's talking about prayer. And I submit to you that we should be praying everywhere, all the time.

1309
01:37:40,000 --> 01:37:46,000
Just try this. I don't know if it'll work. I haven't tried it. Go to a restaurant and use this by your head for every food, right?

1310
01:37:46,000 --> 01:37:56,000
Why don't you try this? Father God, please bless this food. I thank you for it. I know you created everything, sent your son Jesus to die for us.

1311
01:37:56,000 --> 01:38:04,000
Father God, bless me. If there's anybody in the sound of my voice who needs to know more about Jesus, tell them I'm here and I'm willing.

1312
01:38:04,000 --> 01:38:13,000
Otherwise, Lord, if there's somebody in the sound of my voice who's somehow offended by my praying, Lord, comfort them. Soften their heart in Jesus' name. Try that.

1313
01:38:13,000 --> 01:38:20,000
You guys ready? Yeah, I'll try it. Why not? Let's try it. What do you think might happen? I don't know.

1314
01:38:20,000 --> 01:38:26,000
We pray out loud as a family every time we go out. But what happens if you do it with hands up raised?

1315
01:38:26,000 --> 01:38:34,000
It's like, Lord, bless this food. Lord, bless this food. I didn't even have to try. My voice came out of my body.

1316
01:38:34,000 --> 01:38:41,000
Louder, bolder. We got people in this room that are twice as bold as me about what they prefer to eat.

1317
01:38:41,000 --> 01:38:58,000
The man at Walmart today was a loud boy. The whole time I was waiting outside and I could hear him. He sounded like from the Broadway. We ended up finding him and he had a Bible and he was standing out with a loudspeaker.

1318
01:38:58,000 --> 01:39:07,000
But I couldn't understand what he was saying. It's one of the problems with loudspeakers is the annunciations are hard and his accent.

1319
01:39:07,000 --> 01:39:18,000
So we got, we blessed the Lord in praises. We got, we blessed the Lord in prayers.

1320
01:39:18,000 --> 01:39:26,000
And then lastly, and I think this one, everybody go, oh yeah, that just makes sense. We need God's blessing.

1321
01:39:26,000 --> 01:39:36,000
We need it. Not want it. You probably want it too. Right? But you need it. And the truth is, if you knew, again, as I said before, the full ramifications of receiving God's blessings,

1322
01:39:36,000 --> 01:39:48,000
you might not be quite as quick to draw down on it. If God's Holy Spirit fills you up to the point that you're preaching and teaching the gospel, everywhere you go you're going to encounter persecution.

1323
01:39:48,000 --> 01:40:02,000
Someone, sometime or other is going to strike you. Or your vehicle, or your house, or your family. I already know that to be true because that's already happened to me.

1324
01:40:02,000 --> 01:40:13,000
And I'm just a pastor of a little church in Toledo. Right? I've already had a contract taken out on my life in the street, among the street gangs. I'm nobody.

1325
01:40:13,000 --> 01:40:21,000
But if you will start asking the Lord to work through you and speak through you in every case, and if you'll pray like that, your waitress might come over and say,

1326
01:40:21,000 --> 01:40:29,000
sir, I'd like you to pray for me about this. Or the manager might come over and say, you know, when you visit our restaurant, we'd like you to not lift your hands and pray out loud.

1327
01:40:29,000 --> 01:40:40,000
At which point in time you can say, it's okay. If that's what you would like, I don't have to come back. But I'm practicing my freedom of religion as an American and my freedom of speech as an American.

1328
01:40:40,000 --> 01:40:51,000
See, that's the thing. We know men have died for our freedom of religion, but we're too cowardly to practice it. We know men have died for our freedom of speech, but we're too cowardly to practice what they died for.

1329
01:40:51,000 --> 01:40:59,000
Because we won't speak up about Jesus. We won't speak out in prayer and lift our hands in public and actually step up and talk about what's really important.

1330
01:40:59,000 --> 01:41:08,000
The people that died and went to heaven, they're ashamed of how little we talk about Jesus.

1331
01:41:08,000 --> 01:41:13,000
We need God's blessing.

1332
01:41:13,000 --> 01:41:17,000
We are not worthy of God's blessing.

1333
01:41:17,000 --> 01:41:22,000
We are not going to get his blessing because we somehow become worthy of God's blessing.

1334
01:41:22,000 --> 01:41:27,000
You could take my advice and begin to pray from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed.

1335
01:41:27,000 --> 01:41:31,000
And you could begin to praise God from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed.

1336
01:41:31,000 --> 01:41:35,000
And none of that will make you worthy of his blessing.

1337
01:41:35,000 --> 01:41:40,000
God's blessings are delivered by his grace. They're delivered because he loves us.

1338
01:41:40,000 --> 01:41:56,000
They're delivered because he has storehouses, look it up, in heaven, filled with blessings that he's waiting to pour out on people who will just believe and receive by his grace.

1339
01:41:56,000 --> 01:42:03,000
And those blessings are still in the storehouses because cowards like us will not live.

1340
01:42:03,000 --> 01:42:06,000
You say, no, I'm not a coward. You chafe against the word.

1341
01:42:06,000 --> 01:42:13,000
When's the last time you asked somebody to accept Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior other than Sunday school, BBS or in church?

1342
01:42:13,000 --> 01:42:19,000
This is where we get amped up and filled up by God so we can go out there and live for God.

1343
01:42:19,000 --> 01:42:27,000
If you walk out of here and say, I work for God, I serve God, trying to lead my family in the right direction, whatever, but I'm not witnessing.

1344
01:42:27,000 --> 01:42:32,000
Oh, well, there's no oh, well.

1345
01:42:32,000 --> 01:42:40,000
God has called us to speak on his behalf to the Ministry of Reconciliation, given us the Great Commission.

1346
01:42:40,000 --> 01:42:41,000
There's no oh, well.

1347
01:42:41,000 --> 01:42:42,000
Bless him.

1348
01:42:42,000 --> 01:42:43,000
Bless him with your prayers.

1349
01:42:43,000 --> 01:42:45,000
Bless him with your praises.

1350
01:42:45,000 --> 01:42:50,000
Listen to the psalmist and live according to what we know makes sense.

1351
01:42:50,000 --> 01:42:55,000
And that is that God literally has everything at his disposal.

1352
01:42:55,000 --> 01:42:56,000
He created it all.

1353
01:42:56,000 --> 01:43:06,000
If God needed to create an entire another universe and an entire another human race and a billion more plants to bless you, he could do it like that.

1354
01:43:06,000 --> 01:43:16,000
If God needed to create a 40 billion dollar stimulus package for you specifically, nothing to God.

1355
01:43:16,000 --> 01:43:18,000
It's nothing.

1356
01:43:18,000 --> 01:43:32,000
And yet instead of praying to God and raising our hands, praising God, lifting up holy hands and his hands dedicated to his work, hands with him at the center, hands with him is the most important.

1357
01:43:32,000 --> 01:43:38,000
Instead of lifting up holy hands to God in prayer and praise, we're.

1358
01:43:38,000 --> 01:43:50,000
Mild mannered versions of the supermen and women that God has created us to be.

1359
01:43:50,000 --> 01:43:57,000
We need God's blessing.

1360
01:43:57,000 --> 01:44:03,000
That brings us to the conclusion.

1361
01:44:03,000 --> 01:44:09,000
The prayers, the praises, the need for God's blessing, they have this in common.

1362
01:44:09,000 --> 01:44:11,000
Day and night.

1363
01:44:11,000 --> 01:44:13,000
Good and bad.

1364
01:44:13,000 --> 01:44:18,000
The day after you win the lottery, which probably most of you won't and I won't because we don't play the lottery.

1365
01:44:18,000 --> 01:44:24,000
But the day after you a ticket blows up on your foot and you pick it up and turn it in for a million dollars, you will need God's help.

1366
01:44:24,000 --> 01:44:29,000
The day after more than you needed the day before.

1367
01:44:29,000 --> 01:44:35,000
The day after you're diagnosed with cancer, the day of.

1368
01:44:35,000 --> 01:44:43,000
The day your child tells you that they don't want to listen to you anymore.

1369
01:44:43,000 --> 01:44:49,000
Or that they're going to live a way that you don't approve of.

1370
01:44:49,000 --> 01:45:02,000
Or the day that you say something stupid to your significant other that you never should have said and probably can never take back.

1371
01:45:02,000 --> 01:45:06,000
The day the semi goes left the center.

1372
01:45:06,000 --> 01:45:09,000
And in those seconds, you're just about to head on.

1373
01:45:09,000 --> 01:45:19,000
In every one of those moments, you should be praising God, you should be praying to God, and you need his blessing.

1374
01:45:19,000 --> 01:45:21,000
We bless the Lord with our praises.

1375
01:45:21,000 --> 01:45:23,000
We bless the Lord with our prayer.

1376
01:45:23,000 --> 01:45:28,000
We do it with our uplifted, holy hands, day and night, whatever we're going through.

1377
01:45:28,000 --> 01:45:30,000
And we need his blessing.

1378
01:45:30,000 --> 01:45:34,000
As RJ said and beautifully put, we cannot do anything.

1379
01:45:34,000 --> 01:45:37,000
We literally are nothing without God.

1380
01:45:37,000 --> 01:45:42,000
God is pouring into you and you are using it for what?

1381
01:45:42,000 --> 01:45:44,000
Are you using it to praise him day and night?

1382
01:45:44,000 --> 01:45:46,000
Are you using it to pray to him day and night?

1383
01:45:46,000 --> 01:45:49,000
Are you using it to lift up holy hands?

1384
01:45:49,000 --> 01:45:52,000
Are you using it to be blessed in the moment?

1385
01:45:52,000 --> 01:46:03,000
Not receiving truly the blessing that God has in store, but just feeling like you're OK right now because you got this good thing that solves that problem that you foresaw.

1386
01:46:03,000 --> 01:46:07,000
Day and night, that's what all of this has in common.

1387
01:46:07,000 --> 01:46:13,000
Notice it's interesting, and this one will kind of like trip your fancy if you think about it.

1388
01:46:13,000 --> 01:46:24,000
Those who were the singers in the temple, they were freed from other service so that they could be singing, praising God, day and night.

1389
01:46:24,000 --> 01:46:26,000
So hang on.

1390
01:46:26,000 --> 01:46:36,000
If you will commit yourself, if you could commit yourself to praise God from the moment you awake to the moment you go to sleep and every time you wake up in the middle of the night not sleeping very well.

1391
01:46:36,000 --> 01:46:45,000
If you would commit yourself to praise God from that, then God doesn't need you or want you even to do anything else.

1392
01:46:45,000 --> 01:46:46,000
You don't have to clock in.

1393
01:46:46,000 --> 01:46:47,000
You don't have to pay a bill.

1394
01:46:47,000 --> 01:46:49,000
You wouldn't even have to witness.

1395
01:46:49,000 --> 01:47:01,000
In fact, if you were singing praises to God every time you went into the restaurant and while you were sitting at the table and you and your family are softly singing praises, then when you lift your hands like this to pray over your meal, no one's going to think that's odd.

1396
01:47:01,000 --> 01:47:11,000
You might not see anybody sitting within two tables of you, but it's all going to be OK because you're praising God.

1397
01:47:11,000 --> 01:47:12,000
But we're not.

1398
01:47:12,000 --> 01:47:14,000
Our cells are because they're amazing.

1399
01:47:14,000 --> 01:47:17,000
Our DNA is because no one can fathom it.

1400
01:47:17,000 --> 01:47:21,000
It's an incredible written language that controls the creation of everything.

1401
01:47:21,000 --> 01:47:27,000
Every carbon-based life form has DNA at its cellular level and it's amazing language of God and no one can quite fathom it.

1402
01:47:27,000 --> 01:47:31,000
They can manipulate it a little bit, but they can't really understand it because it's the language of God.

1403
01:47:31,000 --> 01:47:33,000
Our DNA is praising God.

1404
01:47:33,000 --> 01:47:34,000
Our cells are praising God.

1405
01:47:34,000 --> 01:47:42,000
Your hair is praising God, but your mouth is strangely silent.

1406
01:47:42,000 --> 01:47:53,000
And if we weren't, we could be freed from other service.

1407
01:47:53,000 --> 01:47:57,000
We are to be doing this without ceasing, good or bad.

1408
01:47:57,000 --> 01:48:00,000
That's what 2 Thessalonians says, pray without ceasing.

1409
01:48:00,000 --> 01:48:04,000
And I submit to you that it is also praise without ceasing.

1410
01:48:04,000 --> 01:48:06,000
Two references and then we're through.

1411
01:48:06,000 --> 01:48:09,000
The first one's in John chapter 4.

1412
01:48:09,000 --> 01:48:11,000
And you might go, oh, John 4, that sounds familiar.

1413
01:48:11,000 --> 01:48:15,000
It is familiar to many of us anyway.

1414
01:48:15,000 --> 01:48:19,000
John 4, it's the story of the woman at the well.

1415
01:48:19,000 --> 01:48:20,000
Does that sound familiar?

1416
01:48:20,000 --> 01:48:21,000
Maybe not.

1417
01:48:21,000 --> 01:48:22,000
It's okay.

1418
01:48:22,000 --> 01:48:23,000
We're going to read it.

1419
01:48:23,000 --> 01:48:25,000
John 4, beginning of verse 21.

1420
01:48:25,000 --> 01:48:31,000
Now, I'm not reading the full story because we don't need the full story to tie in with what we're talking about.

1421
01:48:31,000 --> 01:48:37,000
But I'm going to read to you what Jesus said to the woman after she's talking about the contrast between

1422
01:48:37,000 --> 01:48:43,000
where the Samaritans believe you should worship God and the Jews believe you should worship God.

1423
01:48:43,000 --> 01:48:44,000
And this is what Jesus said.

1424
01:48:44,000 --> 01:48:53,000
Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father.

1425
01:48:53,000 --> 01:48:55,000
You worship that which you do not know.

1426
01:48:55,000 --> 01:48:56,000
We worship that which we know.

1427
01:48:56,000 --> 01:48:58,000
For salvation is from the Jews.

1428
01:48:58,000 --> 01:49:05,000
But an hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth.

1429
01:49:05,000 --> 01:49:08,000
For such people the Father seeks to be his worshipers.

1430
01:49:08,000 --> 01:49:13,000
God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

1431
01:49:13,000 --> 01:49:15,000
The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming.

1432
01:49:15,000 --> 01:49:19,000
He who is called Christ and when that one comes, he will declare all things to us.

1433
01:49:19,000 --> 01:49:24,000
And Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he.

1434
01:49:24,000 --> 01:49:28,000
Has the Lord himself, Jesus Christ, come into your life and affected your heart?

1435
01:49:28,000 --> 01:49:36,000
If so, this is what he would say to you, that the God of heaven is seeking worshipers in spirit and in truth.

1436
01:49:36,000 --> 01:49:45,000
If you think you're getting away with something, the very best you could possibly be doing is interfering with your worship of God.

1437
01:49:45,000 --> 01:49:49,000
Your secret thing, the best it could do is interfere with your worship.

1438
01:49:49,000 --> 01:49:57,000
But the worst it does is summon evil spirits, summon demons into your life, destroy your witness, have ramifications.

1439
01:49:57,000 --> 01:50:06,000
And God will to your face challenge you.

1440
01:50:06,000 --> 01:50:11,000
Revelation 19, last reference of the day.

1441
01:50:11,000 --> 01:50:13,000
And it's a goodie.

1442
01:50:13,000 --> 01:50:17,000
All the way to the right, last book of the Bible, Revelation 19.

1443
01:50:17,000 --> 01:50:19,000
Beginning in verse 1.

1444
01:50:19,000 --> 01:50:32,000
19, 1, after these things I heard as it were a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, wait for it.

1445
01:50:32,000 --> 01:50:35,000
Hallelujah, which means praise the Lord.

1446
01:50:35,000 --> 01:50:38,000
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God.

1447
01:50:38,000 --> 01:50:43,000
If salvation and glory and power belong to our God, then praise the Lord basically, right?

1448
01:50:43,000 --> 01:50:51,000
Because his judgments are true and righteous, for he has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality.

1449
01:50:51,000 --> 01:50:55,000
And he has avenged the blood of his bond servant on her.

1450
01:50:55,000 --> 01:50:58,000
And a second time they said, hallelujah.

1451
01:50:58,000 --> 01:51:01,000
Her smoke rises up forever and ever.

1452
01:51:01,000 --> 01:51:08,000
And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne saying, amen.

1453
01:51:08,000 --> 01:51:09,000
Which means so let it be.

1454
01:51:09,000 --> 01:51:15,000
Hallelujah, which means praise the Lord, and a voice came from the throne saying, give praise to our God.

1455
01:51:15,000 --> 01:51:24,000
All you his bond servants, you who fear him, the small and the great.

1456
01:51:24,000 --> 01:51:27,000
Give praise to our God.

1457
01:51:27,000 --> 01:51:35,000
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude and as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty peals of thunder saying,

1458
01:51:35,000 --> 01:51:40,000
hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns.

1459
01:51:40,000 --> 01:51:45,000
Praise him, because when we get there, we will praise him.

1460
01:51:45,000 --> 01:51:49,000
Praise him, because we need the blessings that he delivers.

1461
01:51:49,000 --> 01:51:51,000
And we can bless him.

1462
01:51:51,000 --> 01:51:53,000
And if you've ever been blessed by him, bless him.

1463
01:51:53,000 --> 01:51:55,000
Praise him.

1464
01:51:55,000 --> 01:51:58,000
Pray to him in the good times and in the bad.

1465
01:51:58,000 --> 01:52:01,000
Day and night, nonstop.

1466
01:52:01,000 --> 01:52:02,000
Praise him.

1467
01:52:02,000 --> 01:52:04,000
Get holy hands.

1468
01:52:04,000 --> 01:52:05,000
How do you get that?

1469
01:52:05,000 --> 01:52:06,000
Ask God for it.

1470
01:52:06,000 --> 01:52:08,000
And then follow what he tells you to do.

1471
01:52:08,000 --> 01:52:14,000
Get holy hands and then lift up your holy hands to the Lord.

1472
01:52:14,000 --> 01:52:16,000
This idea of prayer, you know where this comes from?

1473
01:52:16,000 --> 01:52:20,000
It comes from feudal England.

1474
01:52:20,000 --> 01:52:25,000
1500 plus years after Jesus died on the cross, this was invented.

1475
01:52:25,000 --> 01:52:27,000
You know why?

1476
01:52:27,000 --> 01:52:33,000
Because what would happen was the king was going to be commissioning a knight or a feudal lord or something.

1477
01:52:33,000 --> 01:52:38,000
And he would come and he would get down on his knees in front of the king and he would put his hands up like this.

1478
01:52:38,000 --> 01:52:40,000
Here's my hands.

1479
01:52:40,000 --> 01:52:45,000
And the king would reach down and he would put his hand on the knight's or the lord's hands.

1480
01:52:45,000 --> 01:52:47,000
And he would commission him.

1481
01:52:47,000 --> 01:52:51,000
And so from there we began to do this in front of our Lord, in front of our God.

1482
01:52:51,000 --> 01:52:54,000
That from prayer we would get up and be commissioned by our God to do what it is.

1483
01:52:54,000 --> 01:52:56,000
This is not even biblical.

1484
01:52:56,000 --> 01:52:58,000
This is not lifting your hands.

1485
01:52:58,000 --> 01:52:59,000
I'm not saying you can't do it.

1486
01:52:59,000 --> 01:53:03,000
It makes a statement about I'm commissioned by God to do what I'm asked to do.

1487
01:53:03,000 --> 01:53:06,000
Which, by the way, is not whatever you think it is.

1488
01:53:06,000 --> 01:53:13,000
It is praising Him and praying to Him and needing a blessing from Him all day long.

1489
01:53:13,000 --> 01:53:17,000
That's what we're commissioned to.

1490
01:53:17,000 --> 01:53:23,000
Then the great commission says go and teach them all the things that I taught you.

1491
01:53:23,000 --> 01:53:26,000
Go and make disciples of them, which means plug them into God.

1492
01:53:26,000 --> 01:53:30,000
So they will have lifted holy hands that they too can lift.

1493
01:53:30,000 --> 01:53:34,000
And honor to our God.

1494
01:53:34,000 --> 01:53:37,000
Where did it go?

1495
01:53:37,000 --> 01:53:39,000
This is the truth of the Bible.

1496
01:53:39,000 --> 01:53:42,000
And we've had access to it since Jesus was born.

1497
01:53:42,000 --> 01:53:44,000
Jesus had access to it.

1498
01:53:44,000 --> 01:53:49,000
It's been around that song for going on 3,000 years.

1499
01:53:49,000 --> 01:53:54,000
Where did it go that we should courageously lift holy hands in prayer and praise

1500
01:53:54,000 --> 01:54:01,000
all day long, every day, and honor the Lord as maybe the most important thing we'll ever do?

1501
01:54:01,000 --> 01:54:05,000
Because we need His blessings? We can bless Him.

1502
01:54:05,000 --> 01:54:07,000
Where did it go?

1503
01:54:07,000 --> 01:54:09,000
Well, I'll tell you where it went.

1504
01:54:09,000 --> 01:54:11,000
It was lost.

1505
01:54:11,000 --> 01:54:13,000
Lost in memory.

1506
01:54:13,000 --> 01:54:16,000
Lost in history, even though it was in the covers of our Bible.

1507
01:54:16,000 --> 01:54:18,000
It was lost to us.

1508
01:54:18,000 --> 01:54:22,000
I told you when I began my sermon and I'm concluding with this illustration.

1509
01:54:22,000 --> 01:54:28,000
You remember I said I would like to come up here and show you some pictures from that hiking trip.

1510
01:54:28,000 --> 01:54:30,000
So right now I'm going to do that.

1511
01:54:30,000 --> 01:54:33,000
Here they are.

1512
01:54:33,000 --> 01:54:41,000
They're on this portable hard drive amongst 20,000 other pictures that I have taken in the last 20 years.

1513
01:54:41,000 --> 01:54:44,000
For me to find them, I would have to go searching for them.

1514
01:54:44,000 --> 01:54:46,000
I would have to go looking for them.

1515
01:54:46,000 --> 01:54:48,000
Now the beauty of it is I labeled some of them.

1516
01:54:48,000 --> 01:54:50,000
I know I did after that trip.

1517
01:54:50,000 --> 01:54:53,000
So I could find them faster than I could find something else that I didn't label.

1518
01:54:53,000 --> 01:54:56,000
It's just got a date.

1519
01:54:56,000 --> 01:54:59,000
The Psalm is labeled.

1520
01:54:59,000 --> 01:55:01,000
The Psalm is in our Bibles.

1521
01:55:01,000 --> 01:55:03,000
It's right here.

1522
01:55:03,000 --> 01:55:06,000
It was with us all the while.

1523
01:55:06,000 --> 01:55:10,000
If you want to know what God wants you to do daily,

1524
01:55:10,000 --> 01:55:12,000
He wants you to praise Him.

1525
01:55:12,000 --> 01:55:16,000
He wants you to pray to Him and in that prayer He will expose certain things to you.

1526
01:55:16,000 --> 01:55:18,000
He'll say, well, now I want you to do this. Now I want you to do that.

1527
01:55:18,000 --> 01:55:21,000
I want you to put this away. Get this out of your life and get this into your life.

1528
01:55:21,000 --> 01:55:23,000
And so He'll teach you through prayer.

1529
01:55:23,000 --> 01:55:28,000
We become His disciples. He teaches us and then we teach others what He teaches us.

1530
01:55:28,000 --> 01:55:30,000
Where is the church?

1531
01:55:30,000 --> 01:55:34,000
Where is the church that goes out and tells people that what God deserves

1532
01:55:34,000 --> 01:55:39,000
and now you can see demands all day long every day is our prayer and our praises?

1533
01:55:39,000 --> 01:55:41,000
Where is the church that goes out and tells people,

1534
01:55:41,000 --> 01:55:45,000
look, the suffering that you're going through, what you really need is a blessing from God.

1535
01:55:45,000 --> 01:55:49,000
Why do you 50 bucks so I can fill my gas tank? OK, I'll give you the 50 bucks.

1536
01:55:49,000 --> 01:55:54,000
But we don't bother telling them about the blessing they really need from God.

1537
01:55:54,000 --> 01:56:00,000
No. It's time that we were the church that we praise Him and pray to Him all day long every day

1538
01:56:00,000 --> 01:56:03,000
and realize we need His grace. We are no better than anyone else.

1539
01:56:03,000 --> 01:56:06,000
We need His grace again today.

1540
01:56:06,000 --> 01:56:09,000
And then we go out and let them see us praising Him.

1541
01:56:09,000 --> 01:56:14,000
And we go out and let them see us praying to Him and go out and let them see

1542
01:56:14,000 --> 01:56:16,000
that we know we need a blessing from God.

1543
01:56:16,000 --> 01:56:20,000
Just because we go to church, that doesn't mean we don't need a blessing from God.

1544
01:56:20,000 --> 01:56:23,000
And we also know they need a blessing from God.

1545
01:56:23,000 --> 01:56:28,000
They're struggling, not knowing the language of their own soul.

1546
01:56:28,000 --> 01:56:31,000
They use the cuss words instead of the hallelujahs

1547
01:56:31,000 --> 01:56:34,000
because they don't know what their soul was created for.

1548
01:56:34,000 --> 01:56:36,000
And our job is to go out and show them.

1549
01:56:36,000 --> 01:56:39,000
But somehow we lost that in our memories.

1550
01:56:39,000 --> 01:56:42,000
And today God brought it back to us.

1551
01:56:42,000 --> 01:56:45,000
If you're here today and you're a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, I'd like you to commit.

1552
01:56:45,000 --> 01:56:49,000
As best you can, as best the Lord will help you, as best He's strong in you,

1553
01:56:49,000 --> 01:56:58,000
to praise Him and to pray to Him every day, all day, when it's good and when it's bad,

1554
01:56:58,000 --> 01:57:02,000
when you're tired and when you're not.

1555
01:57:02,000 --> 01:57:07,000
Because He deserves it and because you were created able to bless Him.

1556
01:57:07,000 --> 01:57:12,000
And that will bless Him. That's something that will bless Him.

1557
01:57:12,000 --> 01:57:14,000
So let's do that.

1558
01:57:14,000 --> 01:57:17,000
If you're here today and you're not a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ,

1559
01:57:17,000 --> 01:57:20,000
I just don't know, I don't think I have this kind of relationship with God,

1560
01:57:20,000 --> 01:57:23,000
but you're willing to in Jesus Christ.

1561
01:57:23,000 --> 01:57:25,000
And just right now just say, okay God, take the rest of my life

1562
01:57:25,000 --> 01:57:28,000
and make of it what you will in Jesus Christ.

1563
01:57:28,000 --> 01:57:35,000
And be saved. And get holy hands. And start lifting them up to the Lord.

1564
01:57:35,000 --> 01:57:38,000
If you're a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ and He's been speaking to you

1565
01:57:38,000 --> 01:57:40,000
while you've been here today about something completely different,

1566
01:57:40,000 --> 01:57:42,000
it has nothing to do with what I've been talking about,

1567
01:57:42,000 --> 01:57:46,000
but you know it's been God working in your heart, then submit to Him, whatever that is.

1568
01:57:46,000 --> 01:57:51,000
If it's make this your church home or be baptized or start a ministry

1569
01:57:51,000 --> 01:57:58,000
or serve in a certain capacity, whatever it might be,

1570
01:57:58,000 --> 01:58:04,000
submit yourself to the Lord, for He's God. He made all this.

1571
01:58:04,000 --> 01:58:12,000
He's in charge of all of this. And for you to think otherwise is just foolishness.

1572
01:58:12,000 --> 01:58:15,000
I ask the praise team to come forward at this time.

1573
01:58:15,000 --> 01:58:18,000
We're going to have a hymn of invitations, also our closing hymn to our service.

1574
01:58:18,000 --> 01:58:22,000
When we sing together, we're going to praise God together as a group.

1575
01:58:22,000 --> 01:58:24,000
You'll go out there later today and you'll praise God everywhere you go,

1576
01:58:24,000 --> 01:58:26,000
which you take that very seriously.

1577
01:58:26,000 --> 01:58:29,000
But right now is your opportunity to praise together as a group.

1578
01:58:29,000 --> 01:58:33,000
And then at the same time, we're committing ourselves to whatever it is God is calling us to.

1579
01:58:33,000 --> 01:58:37,000
So if you have a response and you need to make that response public,

1580
01:58:37,000 --> 01:58:41,000
and you say, OK, I think God wants me to do X, then you do that now.

1581
01:58:41,000 --> 01:58:47,000
Whether you're getting saved or being baptized or going to church or ministry or some sin,

1582
01:58:47,000 --> 01:58:49,000
God's convicted you of some sin that you need to let go.

1583
01:58:49,000 --> 01:58:54,000
You publicly let that go. We all need a blessing from the Lord.

1584
01:58:54,000 --> 01:58:57,000
Would you stand with me then and let's sing this song together,

1585
01:58:57,000 --> 01:58:59,000
this is closing out our service today.

1586
01:58:59,000 --> 01:59:07,000
Let the Lord work in your heart, do what He's calling you to, wherever that is.

1587
01:59:07,000 --> 01:59:36,000
I have decided to follow Jesus.

1588
01:59:36,000 --> 01:59:43,000
No turning back, no turning back.

1589
01:59:43,000 --> 01:59:50,000
No number with me I still will follow.

1590
01:59:50,000 --> 01:59:57,000
No number with me I still will follow.

1591
01:59:57,000 --> 02:00:04,000
No number with me I still will follow.

1592
02:00:04,000 --> 02:00:11,000
No turning back, no turning back.

1593
02:00:11,000 --> 02:00:18,000
My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus.

1594
02:00:18,000 --> 02:00:25,000
My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus.

1595
02:00:25,000 --> 02:00:32,000
My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus.

1596
02:00:32,000 --> 02:00:38,000
No turning back, no turning back.

1597
02:00:38,000 --> 02:00:41,000
OK, let's sing this last one together, this is our closing prayer.

1598
02:00:41,000 --> 02:01:04,000
No turning back, no turning back.