Psalms 122 The Joy of Assembly

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Don Filcek, The Psalms of Ascent; Psalms 122 Psalms 122 The Joy of Assembly

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan where we are growing in faith community and service
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This is a sermon series on the Psalms of Ascent by Pastor Don Filsack. Let's listen in Welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsack I'm the lead pastor here and we're going to go ahead and get started So if you can find your way in and find your seats, that would be great
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I hope that you have some sense of joy gathering together as God's people this morning We're going to be covering
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Psalm 122 Which is a psalm about joy gathering together as God's people So I hope that that's literally your experience to some degree this morning
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And as we dig in that text, we're going to be talking through that and explaining what that's about But before we jump in, be sure to fill out the connection card you received when you walked in Hopefully you got one of those
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Otherwise, there's some available back there on the welcome table But if you fill that in and it's your first time with us
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You turn those in in the black box back there and then there's a free coffee mug for you If you haven't taken one of those before, you can take one of those
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Just our way of saying thanks for coming and joining with us this morning We're glad that you're here and we recognize that it can be a little bit
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Scary visiting someplace for the first time and it's a little bit for many of us That's stretching us outside of our comfort zone.
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So just welcome glad that you're here There is coffee, juice, donuts available
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Up there for you, table over here as well And then any offerings you would choose to give, an envelope's been provided We don't pass an offering plate here
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We want your giving to be between you and God and ultimately an act of worship to him And so we don't want anybody to feel that pressure of a plate going by like oh
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I guess i'm supposed to give something That's between you and God But there is that same black box where you turn in the connection cards is the same place where you would give if you choose to Otherwise, we ask that you do us a favor and recycle that envelope
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If you're not going to use it this morning Then we can just reuse it again and and insert that in another bulletin next week
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And so that saves us on some printing and and costs there So we recognize that not everybody gives every week and so just recycle that there and then remember that any any gifts on the envelope or On the check memo line that are marked expansion fund goes towards our our desire to eventually build a building
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On the property that we purchase we own 12 acres just a little bit east of here and a nice rural area there
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Um that uh, we hope to eventually build a building there, so Anything marked expansion fund goes into a specific fund dedicated towards that end
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With that with all that out of the out of the way. Um, we kind of consider jumping into psalm 122
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I want to introduce this message uh read the text, uh before the worship band comes and Uh, I I think some people like they think that worship is setting your heart ready for Um hearing the word right but sometimes
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I think we need the word to set our heart ready for worship sometimes it's as we Really ultimately as we know god better and we come in contact with him that we're able to worship him
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More accurately as he truly is Some of us have a lot of fuzzy notions about who god is and we must continually come back to the word of god
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To see who he is and how he works and how he rolls and how he desires for us to interact with him as well
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And growing in community is an essential part of the christian life And ultimately gathering together with god's people is an essential part of the christian life
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Throughout scripture. It's very very clear that god has created us for community and the notion
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It's really only been um Maybe within the last hundred years or so that there's been the notion that you could be a christian detached from church
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How many of you have met somebody who said i'm a spiritual person? But I don't really have a whole lot of I don't really have a lot of need for the church
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I think a lot of us have met somebody like that Maybe at some point in our history we can look back and we can say i've been that person before i've been like, you know
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A little bit burned I think i'm not going to ask you to raise your hand But i'm sure that many of us have been burned to some degree by a church
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In the past and so we look at that and we go. Hey, um, you know if i've been bitten once maybe
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I won't Stick my hand close to that again And so we have a tendency to pull back and withdraw but god desires us to be engaged in community
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And we've been following a series through the psalms of ascent starting for from psalm 120 and we're going on to 134
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Those 15 songs were sung by pilgrims on the way to jerusalem They were on their way to make sacrifices at annual festivals and annual celebrations in the temple of god and so this was like a collection
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I mentioned last week like you have a collection of maybe you have a Playlist of christmas songs on your iphone or on your devices or whatever
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How many of you have something like that you have a playlist of christmas songs You don't really play them in june. You don't really play them around the year
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But there's a certain time where you pull those songs out and you sing them That's the way that these songs were used in ancient israel.
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These were the traveling songs These were the pilgrimage songs you're going up to jerusalem You pull out these songs and you listen to this playlist on the road trip to jerusalem
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That's what these songs were for these 15 specifically labeled in the original as far as the most ancient manuscripts that we have
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These all have the heading in hebrew psalms of ascent the psalms of the stairs the psalms of the steps up to the place of god
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And as much as much as we might think about our own journey as an individual thing
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We think of a pilgrim as a solitary individual. We think of a road trip. Sometimes it's just you know me in the car on the way we speak in terms in our spiritual journey of a personal salvation we talk about The road god has for each one of us we think in terms of my work my ministry
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My personal quiet time with god my own growth my calling my my my
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But the pilgrim arrives with joy And he celebrates the gathering of god's people
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He's not like i'm here so the party can get started Or finally i've arrived
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And it's been a long trip, but finally i'm here But instead everything in this psalm this morning that we're going to look at psalm 122 drips of community
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The pilgrim hasn't been called alone to a solitary journey alone to the solitary place of arrival alone
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But he has been called together in community He has been called to journey with others
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And he arrives to a city alive with celebration he arrives to community he arrives to accountability
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And he recognizes his role in maintaining the peace of that community
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Shalom is a word about society. The word peace is a word about society.
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Certainly we often Internalize that in our individualistic western society. We talk about inner peace
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We talk about personal peace But the word shalom is not about your heart
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The word shalom is about your relationship with other people It's about your relationship to society and ultimately your relationship to god and correctly ordered life.
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That's the word shalom That's the word that appears all throughout these 15 songs of pilgrimage and journey and it's a relational word
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And this psalm is full of joy and exuberance speaking of the shalom of the people
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The tone of this is a celebration of arrival into community together
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So let's open our bibles If you haven't already, you know where we're going psalm 122 if you don't have a bible on your lap or a device to navigate over to psalm 122 if you could just do me a favor and raise your hand somebody will bring you by a bible
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We've got some guys back here who will bring you a bible But we want everybody to have a copy of the word of god You can see that that's where this is coming from and then have that open and available
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As we are going to dig in a little bit later as well So having a bible will be helpful and consider as I read the tone the the celebratory nature of this psalm
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Which is god's very word to us here recast church. This is what god desires for us to know this morning psalm 122 a song of ascents
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I Was glad when they said to me. Let us go to the house of the lord
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Our feet have been standing within your gates. Oh jerusalem jerusalem built as a city that is bound firmly together
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To which the tribes go up the tribes of the lord As was decreed for israel to give thanks to the name of the lord
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There thrones for judgment were set the thrones of the house of david Pray for the peace of jerusalem
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May they be secure who love you Peace be within your walls and security within your towers for my brothers
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And companions sake I will say Peace be within you
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For the sake of the house of the lord our god. I will seek your good
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Let's pray Father, I pray that you would move in our midst this morning
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I recognize that we've had all different kinds of weeks all different kinds of mornings Some of us woke up with a song in our hearts and a swing in our steps some of us barely rolled out of bed and kind of Grumbled our whole way here and it's been a struggle and a wrestling match with kids to get ready and all different kinds of things have gone on and For some of us it hasn't looked like a lot of gladness and joy and delight together together in this place
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And then we read this psalm about a man who was just enthusiastic and delighted and beside himself with the notion
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That he had the opportunity to come into your presence and to gather with your people Father, I pray that you would be transforming us and changing us by the reality of this example that we have
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And father even as we have an opportunity to lift up our voices It is a great thing that you've called us into community
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We can certainly sing songs in our car sing songs in our shower sing songs on our on our own
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But father to gather together with your people and let our voices be combined To raise up to you as an awesome
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Sacrifice of praise before you father. I pray that you would be Delighted with our hearts and that our hearts would be delighted in you this morning as we sing these songs
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So much more than an exercise of our mouths and our vocal cords, but an exercise of our hearts
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On our knees before the almighty and it's in jesus name that I pray. Amen Thanks a lot to the band for leading us this morning
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I'm, very grateful for the time and energy they put in every week and It is it is my desire I mean it's my prayer every week that god would change us as a result of coming in contact with his word and I Want it to be an inside out kind of change.
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I don't want you to walk out of here with a list of dues a checklist of things to accomplish without your heart engaged in it without a
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A hunger and a desire to know god more and driven out of a passion for him And so I love that song just it's been one of my favorites all down through the years and since we started the church
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I want to encourage you though since it is our desire and our belief that Getting in contact with god's word is what's going to change us from the inside out that we want to keep our focus as much
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As possible on the word of god and if that means that you need more donuts or you need more coffee or juice At any time during the message those are there to serve the purpose of keeping you comfortable and hearing the word
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Obviously if you get uncomfortable here I want to be because the word has made you uncomfortable Not because you're setting that means if you need to get up and stretch out if the chair makes you uncomfortable
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You can get up stretch out restrooms are out the hall And down this way women's downstairs men's upstairs and take advantage of those if you need them
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Starting off this week thinking about community. Um Dietrich bonhoeffer Was a pastor during the rise of the third reich in germany during the rise of nazism
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During that time and actually he was assassinated just or killed just Weeks before the liberation of the camp in which he was being held a christian pastor had worked in england and anglican churches
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Um a man of god who loved him who also was involved in a plot to assassinate hitler
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And that's why he in turn was killed himself But he wrote prolifically some amazing things by the way
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An awesome book that I read this past year called. Um, it's just called bonhoeffer by a man named eric metaxas
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It's a really thick Commitment to read and well worth every page and every dollar spent
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It is an awesome awesome book if you're looking for a book to pick up over the summer and read I would highly recommend it another book by him.
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However, um his classic book called life together. He says this about community Let him who cannot be alone beware of community
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Let him who is not in community beware of being alone Each by itself has profound perils and pitfalls
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One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings
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And the one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity self -infatuation and despair
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Now he talks about two sides Of the table to fall off of how many of you've noticed that most issues have two separate cliffs
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And the the balance of the christian life is often walking in some kind of a balance in this case between Alone time and together time right and how many of you know that it can be hard to strike that balance?
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And you know your own heart and i'm not sure which of those is more problematic for our society I haven't been able to diagnose one of those.
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I think it really kind of seems to run down the lines of personality and the tendency in our in our
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In our community and in our society is to think that it runs down the lines of extroverts and introverts are those who charge their batteries
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By being together with people that's extroverts and those who charge their batteries by alone time
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Extroverts love being with people and they they get anxious when they're alone more often than not and that's that's the case
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Uh for obviously i'm generalizing introverts get nervous in groups of people and feel less comfortable with alone time just generally
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But the reality of our need for community runs much deeper than these psychological distinctions
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We can be an extrovert And enjoy being with people and simultaneously be avoiding community
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How many of you know that you can do relationship in such a way that everything remains surfacy and you never get down to any?
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Depth whatsoever, but you just had a great time. You were at a party and had a lot of fun and boy It was just great
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But there was no substance there There's something more that's needed I believe that in america
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We have a fundamental issue in our hearts that scripture Addresses time and time again and it is a need for community.
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It is a need for depth in our relationships with one another scripture seeks to correct us where we
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Are wrong and I believe that each one of us is indeed wrong and off to some degree when it comes to the concept of community life together
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And in verse 1 the songwriter says Right off the bat. I was glad He was glad another way of saying this another translation of this depending on what bible you have sitting on your lap
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He says he rejoiced. I rejoiced when And whatever comes next has caused this songwriter's heart to lighten it has lifted his burden to some degree
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He's he's enthusiastic. He has a swing in his step And the reason that his heart has been lightened
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Is that some members from his community possibly friends possibly people who in his context he attended synagogue with or whatever?
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They suggested a road trip. He said let's get out. Let's let's do a road trip a spiritual road trip. Let's go to the house of the lord
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That's what his friends or someone in his community spoke this to him And the psalmist the songwriter has enthusiasm to the point at the point of even the suggestion
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That he joined together on this pilgrimage to The house of god to the temple to the to jerusalem for the festival that was going to be taking place
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And notice he doesn't merely respond with his intellect It's not just merely a transactional.
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Hey, would you like to go with us? Well, hold on a second Let me check my calendar and see if that fits in or What you're proposing is a significant undertaking of time energy and resources
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Let me weigh the pros and cons and i'll get back with you in a week Is that the way that the songwriter responds?
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He says I was glad I rejoiced instantly. They they suggested they said hey, let's go to the house of the lord He was like I was glad and I rejoiced at this notion of going with god's people to worship him
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His heart was glad Even the suggestion and in this song his emotions
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His feelings are engaged But notice the past tense nature of verse one
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Verse one says I was glad Well now is he not glad now or what? We're going to see that here in a second because verse two brings us up to the present
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He's looking back in verse one at before the trip, but verse two tells us he's already taken the trip.
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He's already arrived Verse one is the pilgrim remembering the suggestion of the journey by his friends but now
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They've arrived in verse two Like someone sitting on the beach in cancun in february.
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Yeah Don't want to distract you too much. Um, but someone sitting on the beach in cancun in february might look over at her husband and say
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I was so glad when you suggested this trip She's reminiscing and remembering just kind of the steps of how we got to where we're at right here sitting on this beach
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So glad when you suggested this trip our pilgrim steps into the city gates of jerusalem
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And is reflecting back before the journey even began And just as delightful or potentially delightful as the soft sand of mexico might feel to us in february
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The entrance to the gate of jerusalem brings an exclamation of delight to the songwriter
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And I would suggest to you that it's more than just Simply the presence of god in that place, but that there's an actual material blessing that he is glad to be there
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He's glad to be within the gates of the city of jerusalem and there's an actual physical Like gladness and delight and joy in the place and the location that he is now at Certainly, it is primarily focused on the presence of god primarily focused on community, but there is equally a delight
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Over these things we can tend to think. Oh, this guy is hyper spiritual. I know this kind of guy. He's just like oh
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Church, yeah sounds great and everything churchy and everything spiritual and everything, you know, and But this guy is just he's glad to be there
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And it's as if in verse 2 he says Can you believe it? Can you believe this?
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Our very feet have entered the gates of jerusalem. Can you believe this? We're here We've arrived
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We made it And he's there's exclamation points notice the exclamation points all throughout this text the english translators had to put exclamation points because the hebrew bears the enthusiasm and requires that we
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Put exclamation points at the end of most of these sentences because it's emphatic Language that the songwriter is using for his just sheer delight.
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Can you believe it? Our feet are here in the gathering of god's people. We made it We've arrived
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To the place of the worship of our great and holy god together He's excited to be there
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He goes on gushing about the experience of arriving at jerusalem for the festival He's in awe of the city that is bound.
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He takes in the city I don't know There's a graphic of the city up there if you can throw that up there on the screen He he gushes about the arrival of jerusalem and he talks about the architecture that he sees
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This is a rendering obviously an artistic rendering of the of jerusalem about the time that the pilgrims would be going in Um to the temple.
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This is kind of the city of david around that era obviously jerusalem has sprawled to 10 times the size of that hill that it's on right there
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But this is ancient jerusalem that we're talking about and he talks about how the city is a place of tight community
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Bound firmly together the text says he takes in the architecture and uses that as somewhat of a metaphor
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He's a songwriter scans the layout of the city and it's a word picture for community
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Relationship the words he uses in the text for bound firmly together are like relational bonds between friends
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Like the buildings are tightly organized so is the community of god's people
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And this city this city is busting at the seams The tribes go up which is the word for ascend.
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This is the place to which the tribes Ascend the word that reminds us that this is one of the songs of ascent
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This is uh, the tribes ascend to go up to walk up the steps to jerusalem
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A reminder that that's exactly what the song is a song of going up to jerusalem
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God's people the tribes of the lord who possesses the tribes according to the text the lord
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They are his people And they are ascending to jerusalem as was decreed
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Why why are they going there? Well think this through They are going out of obedience
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It's been decreed that they would do this trip that they would go and gather together as god's people that's been decreed
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But can they both be obeying And simultaneously have delight and joy in it
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I think sometimes we think of those as mutually exclusive things, right? We have a tendency to go obedience.
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That's work And then thankfulness is delight Verse four ties those things together that we don't readily tie
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Together the people are responding to the command of god to make this pilgrimage But equally they have another purpose an underlying purpose and that is to gather together to give the text says thanks to the lord
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So there's a dual motivation obedience and thankfulness And obedience sounds like work and thanks sounds like joy but the people of god gathered together as they were commanded to but equally
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The purpose is the giving of thanks as I said and rather than grumbling think this through Well, I mean my point in even stating any of this is that rather than grumbling?
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I have to do this because god told me to I have to get together with god's people I have to and we're going to talk about it here in just a second and make the parallels
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I have to go to church I had to get up this morning and go and god made me rather be sleeping rather be on the golf course
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But I had to so I guess i'll do it because god will love me more Imagine that kind of attitude versus thankfulness
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Talking about the heart Heart motive what's what's pulled us together and I recognize there's all different kinds of things sometimes
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Some mornings. I don't feel like did I just say that loud? um I I know what it's like I know that that there's all different kinds of motivations for what's brought you together and I would suggest to you that that you're here
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Is a great thing like that in itself in itself is half the battle Sometimes you come in grumbling and you walk out rejoicing.
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Have you ever had that happen? I can tell you that you won't come in, uh grumbling and walk out rejoicing if you never come in Like that can't happen, right?
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And so that you're gathered here is a great thing But I recognize that there's all different kinds of motivations that bring us together but the best motivation to be here the best reason to have your rear in a seat right now is
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Thankfulness to god for what he's done for you. That's the greatest motivation for you And then
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I mean obviously Well, he wants you to be here. You know that from his from his word do not forsake the assembling together a theology professor dr
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Whitmer up in grand rapids pointed this out in my last theology class that I took last semester and I I was just Really revolutionary in my mind.
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It's it's so simple and it's obvious But there's only one thing that you cannot do in your quiet time
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There's only one thing spiritually that you cannot do alone and that's assembled together with god's people
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You have to have other people to assemble together This is the only thing
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I mean without each other. You can't do this. Can you read your bible? Can you sing songs? Could you eat a cracker and drink some juice?
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You can do it you can do all of these things spiritually alone right
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But you can't gather together alone We need each other and that's something that the assembling together is the church this space
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We already know this is an elementary school cafeteria This space isn't the church.
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We're not hoping to build a church. God has already built a church look around you We are the church and wherever we gather together and assemble
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We're the church The glorious reality a glorious beautiful truth that it's the people
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It's not the place. I wish we had a different word in the english language for the building or a different word for the gathering so that we could
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Distinguish those two things because in our culture in our society everything gets wrapped up in building and bricks and mortar and architecture
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And that's a church Now the people are the church Some of that was not in my notes
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And I might take a second to rein that back in obedience and thanks and motivation that's where I started off on They here in this text this author
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Is offering thanks to the lord and the tribes are going up for that purpose decreed.
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Yes told to yes Giving thanks. Yes And the pilgrim was not called to this journey alone
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And he has not arrived alone But instead he has come to the gathering of the tribes of god
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And as the pilgrim stands within the city gates a prominent feature stands out to him In verse 5 something that might be strange to us in context.
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He's all delighted. He's all joyful He is all enthusiastic and then he talks about judgment. How many think that sounds like a wet blanket on the conversation?
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Talks about thrones and seats within the gates for judgment Well, he's standing there and we we already got the context where he's standing his feet are within the gates
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And he notices a prominent feature in the ancient city. The city gate was a large secured courtyard often overseen by towers
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So in other words to get this picture, right when you're coming into the city of jerusalem in this day and age
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You pass one set of gates from the outside of the city. You're out in the countryside You come to the city wall there's gates gates open you walk through those gates and now you're in an enclosed courtyard
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You know, maybe the size of this room So you've walked in the gates on one side and there's another set of gates on the other and you're still not in the city yet you're within the
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Gates, that's what this area is called in the gates And within the gates there would be thrones.
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This was the place. This was the courtyard Literally where court cases were heard
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This was the place of judgment the place where disagreements between two people would be resolved by judges that would come down at set times and sit there in the city gate and cast judgment and occasionally even the king himself
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Would come and hear civil suits and things like that and And give his give his decrees and judgments
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For the pilgrim here in this text. He's reminded How can he be enthusiastic about this?
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Why why any delight why any joy? He's driving towards shalom. He's driving towards peace.
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He's driving towards a rightly ordered society And so he's enthusiastic and excited because he has come to the place of accountability
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He recognizes that the need on a fallen planet with fallen humanity is a need for a place of justice to be meted out
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Any of you ever delighted over justice? Have any of you ever been glad that justice was served?
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a few times Few times very rarely do we think it needs to be meted out on us and I recognize that I mean
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It's very easy for us to squirm out from underneath what we justly deserve But at the same time we can recognize that sometimes man you're here in a court case
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It's pretty locked down and it's like man this needs to be Resolved this needs to be taken care of this needs to be handled
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And he recognizes that coming into jerusalem. This is a place of accountability in the city gates
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It's a place where the peace and the correct order of society and community is maintained
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For many pilgrims who would only maybe annually make it up to jerusalem This would be a time for setting wrongs
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Right. This would be a time for them to oversee property boundaries and this guy keeps moving his letting his cattle come over onto my property and graze and take all the good all the good
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Pasturage from my flock and so that would be adjudicated there and then this time of the year It'd be very busy for the judges there in the gates of jerusalem main point
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He has not just come to community But he has come to god's community And god's community has order god's community has structure
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God's community has accountability God's community is not like mishak and qadar
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Those of you who were here a couple of weeks ago from psalm 120 the place that this pilgrim is coming from He declares to us he tells us i'm coming from a warring tribe warring type people all the way up in the north or like those all the way in the south from a barbaric people who love war and hate shalom they hate peaceful society and they're they are they have lying lips and deceitful tongues and But he says that's not god's community god's community is a place where shalom is supposed to reign correctly ordered society
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Peace is supposed to be the reality in jerusalem the city of peace
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Of course, we know that in this fallen world things are rarely the way they're supposed to be So we know that the city of peace has been anything but historically
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A city of peace Jerusalem lived up to its name not yet There's a day coming when there's going to be a new jerusalem where it will indeed be finally the city of shalom the city of correct ordering where jesus christ himself is over all and his king on the throne of that city
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Of course, we know that in a fallen world. They're not the way they're supposed to be So so children are supposed to grow up to be adults
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Parents are supposed to love their kids Leaders are not supposed to abuse their authority
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Husbands are supposed to sacrifice for the cause of their wives And so the plea in verse six is extremely realistic
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Look at verse six pray for the peace of jerusalem
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Without this plea we may be left thinking that the songwriter is just an optimistic idealist Oh goody i've arrived in jerusalem.
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Now. Everything is going to be excellent Now i've arrived at the place of shalom. Now i've arrived at the place of peace, man
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I'm, never going to leave this place because it's so awesome and everything is great and there's never any murder There's never any lying.
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There's never any cheating. There's never any problems because this is jerusalem He says no pray for the peace of the city of peace
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Pray for the city of jerusalem He recognized that it even amongst the gathering of the pilgrims who love god and are called by his name
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Even amongst god's people there is a need to pray for shalom for true peace
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And rather than just plead with others to pray for peace, which he does he encourages us all to pray for peace
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But he in turn offers a prayer as well. He doesn't just leave it at that Well, why don't you guys pray? He shows himself willing to pray
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Hisself and he says may they be secure who love you jerusalem may they
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Be secure who love the city the place of true shalom
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The songwriter prays for security for all who love the place of god's presence He wants everyone who loves the city of peace to be secure and kept safe He has appealed to the internal peace that is found through justice in the law and the community
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Outside in verse five, but he also refers to the peace that is found in protection from external enemies as well in verse seven
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Shalom is within the walls of jerusalem and within her towers You know that a corrected correctly ordered society requires that we are protected from ourselves
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And protected from without as well That's a correctly and a healthy society is one that's protected from outside of us
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And one that's protected from within us as well because sin is everywhere sin. Isn't those guys out there?
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Sin isn't here It's in there right So we need god's movement and we need to pray for peace even here in our midst praying for peace
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He continues to get he continues to be enthusiastic And he begins to share some reasons and some rationale for why he longs for peace for this place
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He says for the sake of his brothers and his friends. He calls for peace within the city
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Again, his emphasis is not on his own blessing not on his own benefit as a solitary pilgrim
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But his mind is for the benefit of others For the sake of his brothers and friends. He wants there to be a properly ordered society not just for me
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But for us For my brothers and for my friends
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But even beyond this cry for peace He's moved to action This is not a man who just gives lip service.
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This is not a guy who's just just strictly speaking these words But he says
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I will seek the blessing of the city of peace because it is the place of god
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Look how he ends for the sake of the house of the lord our god verse 9 I will seek your good which your is the city your is jerusalem
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There's two motivations here that tie together in his enthusiasm for the city He wants a safe and secure place for his brothers and friends, but he also recognizes that this is the place of almighty god
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His temple is within this city Why does the pilgrim seek the peace of the city why does he seek its good
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Ultimately because it's the place of god's presence with his people So we encounter a guy enthusiastic about a journey to god
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He's invited by community Upon arrival. He's excited to be there with a huge community
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Of the tribe of the lord that have the tribes of the lord that have gathered to that place He acknowledges that this is the place of social accountability
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With the the the the view of the the thrones and the judgment that's taking place there in the city
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He prays for protection And a correctly ordered safe society
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And for the sake of his family and friends he wants peace for this place and he pledges to seek the good
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Of that place because god's presence is there And I can't help but see a crazy significant parallel between the city
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This pilgrimage to the city and obviously the church I see the I saw the parallel and I started to formulate that as I was studying this week and it started to kind of Snap into focus long before I made it.
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It became clear to me that it's explicitly stated this connection between zion between Jerusalem between god's holy hill and and the church is explicitly stated in hebrews 12 22 through 23 and you can throw that uh verse up there
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There's an explicit connection between the city of jerusalem and the church When the writer of hebrews says but you have come to mount zion and to the city of the living god the heavenly jerusalem and to innumerable angels and festal gatherings and to the
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Assembly the word assembly there ecclesia straightforward means church and to the assembly of the firstborn.
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Who's the firstborn? jesus christ Who is the assembly of the church born?
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us god's people the church To the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to god the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect That's us
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Whoa And so what is the call to us this morning? You think about this and we can go back through and that's what my intentions are
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So draw some applications going back through this briefly and thinking about how it applies to the church today
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How does it apply to us here at recast? Let's consider it by uh, looking at seven applications.
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Don't worry. Not everyone. Not everyone's going to be 20 minutes long. Um We're going to go through seven applications real quick the first Number one we ought to be glad to gather
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Glad to gather together with god's people We ought to be glad We ought to be glad when somebody says to us.
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Let's go to the house of the lord That should cause us to rejoice and the question is do we rejoice and I would say that probably not all of us do
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I I but I want to clarify though. I don't imagine this as a giddy childish kind of gladness
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But as the psalm develops, it's clear that the songwriter has a gladness that is informed by A couple of things he recognizes he needs he says
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I need community. I need accountability and I need god's presence It's a gladness.
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He says I have all of those attainable to me. All of those are available in my church He's not excited he doesn't notice notice an absent statement about the rock and worship
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He's not commending the power of the preacher in the preaching He is not primarily enthusiastic about the architecture boy, i'm glad that's not a standard in there because look around you
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Okay, but um, I want to point out that it does get an honorable mention in the text He does mention the the city of jerusalem tightly fit together like the bricks on the wall tightly fit together community
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But it is first and foremost a motivation first and foremost of gladness and a joy and an enthusiasm
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For community I get to gather together with god's people And I get to come into the presence of god
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Now I recognize that not everyone at every stage in life is all rah -rah about the church So what if you're less than enthusiastic about your church and what if you're here and you're not enthusiastic about what's going on here?
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Well, first of all, i'd love to sit down and talk with you Maybe we can work through some of these things and I would welcome those conversations
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And i'm not going to be offended by that. I have i've had these kind of conversations in the past I expect them in the present and I anticipate them to move forward into the future
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There's going to be constantly we are not a church for every individual. I recognize that But I would suggest that after making sure that your church
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Or anybody that you're counseling and working through this with After making sure that your church is sound in doctrine and sound in practice
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And isn't a cult That you then consider that the lack of zeal could potentially maybe be a hard issue on your part.
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It's possible Maybe And then the rest of these applications
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I think have the potential to ignite and reignite your passion for the local church for the gathering of god's people
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We should be glad to gather together Should and if you don't
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And this isn't meant to beat you up Maybe we should have a conversation about that and work through that and talk about it but the second application
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The church is the decreed gathering of thankful Tribes that are bound tightly together by the blood of jesus
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He doesn't declare what what the what the bonds are there. He just says, you know, there's bonds
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Between those in community there, but we know that the thing that is our bond is the blood of jesus
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And so we ascend to the gathering of god's people with the purpose of giving him. Thanks again
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I hope that's what you've gathered together for this morning The fundamental purpose of our church is to express thankfulness in community together
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Do you give him? Thanks? Do you take the time during communion each week to be grateful for the cross?
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I fear that often and particularly those of us who were raised in maybe more conservative churches where um the uh,
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Few the yeah, the funeral the communion was more like a funeral, right? It was very somber you play like like minor keys on a pipe organ and it's like, okay
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This is just and everybody, you know, if you smile, you're probably not taking it communion, right? You know i'm talking about some of you have been in that context and you know exactly what
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I mean And so the severity has often launched us into a sense of internal introspection.
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Have I sinned? Have I done wrong? Have I done this? Have I done that? Have I done that? And and we never move to the point The point of communion being thanks for covering my sins
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Thanks for going to the cross thanks for dying for me Thank you for covering that and instead we can get so caught up in the nitpicking of our lives that we forget the grace
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That is being expressed in the table He loved you enough To shed his blood for you
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He loved you enough to let his body be the substitute where you deserved punishment where you and I deserve to be whipped and lashed
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And abused He took that for me he took that for you
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But what can our hearts do at that point except say Thank you
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Thank you. Thank you We are we're to be a community of thanks and gratitude
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That's what he desires of us I'm not gathering to gather. Well, I guess Sunday and I gotta go
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Well, we well my parents were good parents were good parents made me go to church and something good there.
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So we'll go To give thanks gratitude is the mark ought to be the mark of the gathering of god's people
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Third Do you recognize the importance of accountability and judgment within the church? It's a tough one.
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That's not easy to say. It's not Some some points preach really well others don't
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There is a point of accountability and judgment within the city of god We are such a don't judge society that any sense of church discipline often to our ears sounds archaic and medieval
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But you and I know we all know any gathering of fallen humanity this side of the perfect shalom of the new earth
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Requires a system of accountability and judgment Have you placed yourself under the authority of the local church?
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through membership Membership is the primary way that you express that formal
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Accountable relationship with your local church. I don't pressure anybody I don't i'm not i'm not up here to pressure you into grabbing an application and joining the church
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Um, but but it's something to consider have you entered into a formal relationship whereby you say
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I I want you to pursue me I want you to I want to be engaged here in such a way that um, if I leave you'll
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You'll come and talk with me come and have that conversation or if I go off the deep end and Go to go right to the edge of shipwrecking my life with Adultery or pornography or whatever and you'll pursue me you come and come and help drag me back from the clutches of evil
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That's what accountability in the church looks like not for the cause of punishing for the cause of restoring
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How many of you would acknowledge that man there my heart is prone to wander Prone to wander lord.
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I feel prone to leave the god. I love I need help. I need community.
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I need others around me keeping me close keeping a short account on my sins
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Keeping me walking with god fourth thing Maybe for some of you god would literally be calling you you're just sitting there and you're saying what does god want me to do?
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With this and maybe for you it is just pray for the peace of the church just pray maybe that's maybe that's the step and it's not just pray it's like That would be awesome.
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If that's if that's what god calls you to do. That would be fabulous I believe all of us should be doing that pray for the peace of the church
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I would suggest to you that we've experienced I mean from my vantage point and and and as the pastor here
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The planter who helped get this started. We we've experienced an awesome sense of unity here over the past six years
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Many of you have grown to love this gathering Over the years as I have And at the risk of sounding self -serving let me say please pray for the ongoing peace of recast church
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Continue to pray that god holds us close That we have things ordered correctly and in this time of Transition we are going through some transitions.
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I've been meeting with a church consultant We've been as you know, we've already made an announcement to add more to the board We have developed a uh an advisory team that's meeting once a month to kind of help out
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And particularly as zach is on his way to the mission field continue to pray for him But you know that as he steps out he leaves a pretty big gap here and so um, we've been uh working through and prayerfully considering some individuals to to add and to join in the elders and you know that this leaves
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Two as it stands right now me zach and rob and with zach gone do the math know the names
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And so we need we need some help and we need some assistance So as just be praying for us as we continue to go through and shuffle and work through things
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God is blessing us. God is continuing to bring people and we're grateful for that but pray For peace as we continue to make adjustments
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Fifth come to the church for peace come here with a mindset of peace
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It's it's not just some of you might think it's semantics or mind games to go Okay, i'm going to come here and i'm going to think peace when
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I come here That's a that's what I want. I mean, that's what I think that's a great thing I think that's what god desires of you to let this be a place where we lay down the weapons outside I mean certainly as we learn to lay down the weapons here
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It would be nice to just not pick them up again on the way out the door, right? But let this be a place where we where we where we set those things aside
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And what do I mean by using that as a figure of speech? Obviously, you're not Talking about your you know, if you've got a concealed weapons permit
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I think you have to have permission to be in here. Anyways, i'm not talking about literal weapons um It's ultimately
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To let conflict Let it go Rather than talking about people behind their back
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Go to the source of the conflict keep conflict with somebody else go to them as jesus tells us and set it, right?
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Nothing is more damaging to the peace of community than divisiveness quarreling gossip backbiting
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So much damage happens within a body of believers within the community of god that I'm out
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Almost always starts here and so pledging and committing
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To going and reconciling when you've wronged somebody Or when somebody's wronged you go to them and say hey this didn't feel very good
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And i'm rather than go to my friends and and tell them how angry I am at you I just decided to come to you and just say hey, can we figure this out together?
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Let the church As far as you're concerned As far as it's up to you be a place of peace
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The sixth thing is again a mental exercise a way of thinking about the church, but consider the value of this church for others
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In verse 8 the songwriter speaks peace to the church for the sake of others. He says for my brothers and my companions.
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I I offer a prayer of peace for this place The health of this church doesn't just benefit you doesn't just benefit me but it benefits all of us and it benefits our community
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So a commitment to the to the peace and the health of our church is a genuine community service
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Think about it that way And lastly pledge to do good to your church
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This is indeed a place of god working He is working here
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Of course he's working in other places and and you know, I would never say that god is only working at recast
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I've always been quick to point out that god meets me while i'm shoveling my driveway where i'm out for a run Occasionally once in a while.
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He even meets me while i'm listening to christian radio The gathering of god's people
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Is a temple of the holy spirit Peter told us a few months ago as we were marching through the letter of first peter
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He told us you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house
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To be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to god through jesus christ
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And for the sake of the presence of god with us We ought to all seek the good of the gathering of god's people
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Now just on this last point of doing good for your church. I blogged about that one point.
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I didn't want to Um, I didn't want to have uh, 15 different or you know, uh, actually it would have been 13 different 12
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Whatever my math Don't ask me to do your math. Um I blog about five ways that you can do good for your church
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And so if you uh are interested in that Um, there's five specific things that are a little bit more detailed that I blogged about that If you check that out on the web page, the blog is available there recastchurch .com
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But let me clearly say that all of these applications Can only ever sound nonsensical to someone who has not first come into the family of god through jesus christ
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This wouldn't make sense I imagine that commitment to church and enthusiasm for church must sound like a mandatory commitment to a lame organization
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Really ultimately to those who are not in with jesus christ To stand up here and ask you to pray for the peace of the church to suggest that you work at doing good
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For the community of god's people to suggest that you delight in the accountability of the church
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They sound very self -serving from for me to be saying it Without the central reality that the church is the beloved bride of jesus christ our lord
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When you have that perspective and you're in the kingdom and you're recognizing that then this begins to snap into focus that this is what
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God is doing here We're a gathering of people that jesus christ died for And I delight in gathering together with those who are bound firmly together by the blood of jesus christ
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And we take communion each week as a reminder that jesus died to cover our sins
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If you've asked jesus christ to save you from from your sins and you've invited him to be your king and master
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And feel free to come to the table and come with deep gratitude Come with thankfulness
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Come with a celebratory heart Can you believe it? We get to remember
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That jesus christ died for our sins He loved us that much And not only have you received freedom if you're in with christ, but he has brought you into community
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So consider as we take communion. Do you rejoice that your feet have been standing within his gates? Have you come to give thanks to?
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The name of the lord this morning. Let's pray Father I do.
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Thank you I am so grateful What an awesome privilege it is to be together with your people
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Father, I confess that we we can get on each other's nerves a lot down here. We uh, We say stupid things say insensitive things we um
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Sometimes even just lash out and do things that are not kind to one another So father I pray for the peace of this church
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Pray for the peace of your gathering here and I I thank you for the cross that has reconciled us and Most importantly reconciled us with you, but then equally brought us together in community father these people who would not otherwise know each other
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Many of us were not in relationship with others here in this room before You brought us together in community as the assembly of your people and father
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I pray that you would ignite rejoicing and gratitude even this morning father that as we Step to the table and remember the blood of jesus christ shed for us.
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We take that cracker to remember the Broken body of our lord and savior father that it would move us
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Certainly indeed to take in the gravity and the significance and the seriousness of our sin But to not let it rest strictly there but to come back to you and recognize your glory your majesty your forgiveness