Gods Revelation of Himself

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Would you turn with me please to Psalm 19, that is Psalm 19, would you please turn there with me?
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And I would like to read where we're going to be this morning, that's Psalm 19, verse 7 through 14.
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Hear the word of the Lord. The law of Yahweh is perfect, reviving the soul.
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The testimony of Yahweh is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart.
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The commandment of Yahweh is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever.
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The rules of Yahweh are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold.
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Sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover by them your servant is warned, in keeping them there is great reward.
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Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.
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Let them not have dominion over me. Then I will be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh
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Yahweh, my rock and my redeemer. Let's pray. God, as we open your word, help us to hear your word, listen to your word, apply your word and obey your word.
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It's in your name we pray, amen. This passage of scripture is about the
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Bible. It is a passage in the Bible about the Bible. And here
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David writes and is encouraging his readers to understand what the Bible is.
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The first six verses of this chapter talk about what's called natural revelation.
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That is how God has revealed himself in nature. The heavens declare the glory of God and the skies his handiwork.
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I've had the opportunity a couple times this year to go hunting. I've had no luck.
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But those of you who hunt often know that that's actually not the best part of hunting, is it?
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When you get out in the woods and it's still kind of dark, right? And then the sun just barely starts to rise, yes?
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And the only way I know to describe it is you see the forest wake up. You know what I mean? You see the woods wake up.
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And you're just awestruck with wonder in that some of my most intimate praise of God has been had.
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And I'm probably not alone in that, yes? But even that, and all the splendor of all creation, of all this planet and every other planet in this galaxy, and the hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe.
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Even at that, even at that, David stops in verse 6 with natural revelation and then speaks of the word of God.
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And in light of nature revealing how incredible, how amazing, how powerful, how all -inspiring
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God is, David transitions in verse 7 and says this, The law of Yahweh is perfect.
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Those of you who sat under my teaching for long know this, but maybe if it's new to some of you, if your
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Bible in English has LORD in all caps, big L, big O, big R, big D, that is telling you that the proper name of God that is
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Yahweh, maybe you've heard it pronounced Jehovah, is being used. And I think it probably should still remain there in English, but that's fine either way.
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So when you hear me say Yahweh, that is when it's LORD in all caps, 6 ,800 times in the
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Old Testament that word is used. Okay? In Brother Jeff's sermon last week, when in Revelation John says,
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Hallelujah, that is short for Yahweh, praise Yahweh. David is not saying that any
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God will do. He's not just saying the law of any God is perfect. He is specifically talking about the triune
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God revealed in Scripture, that God. His law is perfect.
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His creation reveals some things about Him. Yes, the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies
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His handiwork, but His law, His word perfectly reveals that which
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He wants us to know about Him. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.
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Not just regenerating the spirit of salvation, but reviving the soul, the inner you, who you are, is revived not from nature, from the word of God.
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This may shock some of you. I actually don't worship the Bible. The Bible is a book with black ink on white paper.
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I worship the author of the Bible. Well, these are His words.
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This is how He's chosen to reveal Himself. He reveals Himself partially in nature, but perfectly, verse 7, in His word.
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I worship God. And this is how He decided to reveal
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Himself to us. This is how I find out about God. What He loves, what
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He hates, what He desires, what He commands. This is how I learn about that God.
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And He says that His law is perfect for revealing that which He commands me to know about Him.
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And what does it do? We think of a law as oppressive. And in some sense, it is.
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In some sense, it is. The last time I had the privilege of preaching here, a couple months ago, we read out of Romans 3, and I hope this was seared in your brain, where it says that the law came about so that every mouth may be shut in front of a holy and righteous
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God. You remember this. Romans chapter 3 says, in judgment, there is no excuse.
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Because God has revealed Himself in His word, every mouth is shut before Him. If when you are confronted with sin, you think of ways you are justified, your mouth is still flapping and is not shut before a holy
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God. He revealed His word so that every mouth will be shut before Him. And it is in that backdrop that you recognize what mercy really is.
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We'll get to that in a minute. But the law does do that. But for the believer, it does something else, something more.
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It doesn't just condemn us in sin. What does it say? It is perfect. Verse 7, it revives the soul.
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Revives the soul. The testimony of Yahweh is sure, making wise the simple.
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What is a testimony? It is a witness about somebody. The Bible is
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God's testimony, His witness to Himself. It is His words written to Himself.
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This is how God decided to reveal Himself. And aren't you glad? Aren't you glad He didn't reveal it one way to Tracy, and another way to Lee, and another way to Gary, so then we wouldn't really know whose image of God is correct.
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You ever notice that all other would -be religions, I can tell you how every one of them start. One man claims to have a vision from God that no one else can see or interpret except him, and you just have to take his word for it.
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It's not about right. Joseph Smith, Charles Russell, Muhammad, Buddha, we could go down the line.
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It's one man's word from a vision that only he can interpret, and we all have to take his word for it. God chose not to reveal
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Himself that way. He chose to write a book using 40 different men in four different languages, two main and two minor, on three different continents over 1 ,500 years, and it all screams the testimony of who
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He is. The testimony, how God decided to reveal Himself, is plain for all to see.
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It doesn't matter about Michelle's view, or Patty's view, or James' view. It's what the Bible says.
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And it is, what's the Bible say? It is sure, making wise the simple.
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How does the Bible make foolish people wise? How does the
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Bible make the simple seem wise? I wrote down just three ways here, but before I go over these three ways, a reminder of what it means that this is how
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God revealed Himself. Parents of older children, if you write down chores for your kid to do and put them on the fridge, and the child reads those and chooses not to do them, did the child disobey the list or disobey you?
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We need to recognize when we disobey God's Word, you are disobeying God. He is the author of it.
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And notice the analogy there works, because if you have multiple children, he didn't just call one of them, you didn't just call one of them and tell them to pass the word along to the other, or else the other one could say, then it passed on the message correctly, pops.
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I didn't know I was supposed to do that. No, you wrote it plainly, for all to see, to refer back to. You can't use the excuse of,
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I forgot, it's written in plain English. You can't use the excuse of, no one told me, it's written for all to see, yes? There is no excuse before that.
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There is an accountability to that. In light of that, how does the
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Bible make the simple, make the foolish, make the stupid wise? Well, by holding up a mirror to us so that we can see our sin.
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By holding up a mirror to us so that we can see it. We can see how in desperate need of Jesus we are.
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But also, in maturing us, in giving us a confidence to share that wisdom with others.
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Think about that for a minute. The Bible chooses to make foolish people wise, and then use those transformed people to share that wisdom with other people.
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It makes wise the simple. You heard Brother Richard a minute ago. I could not be prouder of Brother Richard.
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Brother Richard came up here and said, I'm just now starting to read the Bible. Brother Richard told me that the first time when he was 68 years old.
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And Brother Richard had two options. He said, Josiah, I can think about this as if I've wasted most of my life, not obeying
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God, not studying God, not focusing on God. Or I can use it as God has given me breath to live a few more years, to obey
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Him the way He's told me to. There is somebody in this room who is in their 60s.
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And for the first time in their life, last week, they prayed out loud with somebody else in this room.
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Now, first time in their life, prayed out loud with somebody else in this room. Now, I told her the same thing.
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She was down about that. I said, how could you be down about that?
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You are living proof that God can revive the soul, can transform people no matter what stage of life they're in.
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Moses did not begin to obey God until he was 80. And the
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Bible ends with calling him a man of God. It makes wise the simple by giving us the ability to share newfound wisdom with other people.
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A reminder that you are not really at church to learn about God. You are at church to serve others.
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I've got an analogy here, and some of my counselees are probably upset right now.
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This has become kind of a thing of dread for some of them, since some of them are laughing now.
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But it's an analogy that I'd like to use. So when we take this here, these are the little gifts Pastor Omar gave us in Puerto Rico.
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What we see is that all three cups, roughly, forget about it, I just spilled some of it, all three cups have the same amount of water in them.
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Yes, can we agree with that? But this one is overflowing. This one has a little bit at the bottom, like that part of the
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Coke can you can never drink all of. And this one looks like there's nothing in it. Now if the water represents the problems and the stresses of life, they all three have the same amount in them.
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It's just the vessel here is built to contain more of them, whereas the one here is overwhelmed and can't handle anymore.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the Bible is not here to lessen the amount of problems you have.
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The Bible is here to mature you, to make wise the simple so that you can deal with it more, where it doesn't even feel like it's even there anymore.
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Does that make sense? That's what the Bible is about. Guys, when Jesus preached, the last words he said on the
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Sermon on the Mount, he said what? The wise man built his house on a rock.
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The fool on the sand. If you go back and read that Matthew 7, 25 -29, the same wind, the same rain, the same storm comes on both houses.
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One of them is not even phased by it, the other crumbles. The Bible makes the wise simple and maturing us to a point where we can handle whatever this world brings and not fold up.
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Now if you're not there yet, I'm not chiding you. I'm showing you what you need to mature to that.
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It's not a different childhood. It's not a different set of parents. It's the Word of God. That's what you need, and that is all you need, so that what used to overwhelm you will now barely feel like a drop in the bucket.
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That is what making wise the simple means. I applaud the one
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I mentioned earlier. I applaud Brother Richard because they recognize that in God making the simple wise, that's every one of us, and instead of being ashamed about that, they share that with other people.
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That's the message of the Bible. That's the message of the Bible, making the wise, making simple, excuse me, making the simple wise.
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What's it say? Verse 8. I love this. The precepts of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart.
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Rejoicing the heart. I was talking to someone earlier this week, and he was telling me,
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I said, how are you doing? He goes, I probably should get a couple readings in this week to just make sure my spiritual life is in check and I can go about my life.
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As if it was the same as taking medicine for a migraine. When David wrote these words, only a handful of books of the
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Bible had been written. Job, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
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Let's see, probably Ruth and Judges, maybe Joshua, maybe part of Samuel.
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That's probably about it. A couple others maybe. It's not reading a story that rejoices the heart.
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The law of the Lord, the precepts, you do not see. It is submission and obedience to that which
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God has revealed that rejoices the heart. The Bible is not meant to be read like a nighttime storybook.
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It's meant to be obeyed. Because remember, it's not separated from God.
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This is God's Word. This is God's Word. This is how He decided to reveal
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Himself. This is His testimony. And it says, the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
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Rejoicing the heart. If you are a Christian in this room, if you are a
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Christian in this room, and you struggle with that, a heart full of joy,
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I'd like you to start, just start here. Start with this question.
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How much am I obeying the precepts of the Lord? How much am I obeying the commandment of the
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Lord? The law of the Lord? Because so far of what we read, that is what revives the soul and rejoices the heart.
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Amen? It says, the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
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Ava and Medea. I'm glad I wrote that down so I didn't forget. Like I said, a few weeks ago,
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I had the opportunity of going hunting with Artie. That was an adventure. And I left the house at like 8 o 'clock.
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And at 8 .05, Ava calls me. P .M.,
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we're going there the night before. And 8 .05, Ava calls me and says, Daddy, have you killed the deer yet?
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We haven't even made it out of Memphis yet. Have you killed the deer yet? Now, if you don't know my daughter, this may seem crude to you, but this is just who my daughter is.
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I said, no, baby, I haven't. She said, okay. Daddy, are you going to shoot it?
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Here I am thinking, okay, we're about to have a serious father -daughter talk. I've got to talk to her about life and death.
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So I prep myself and say, yes, I will, sweetheart. Yes, I will. And I'm doing that because Daddy, can
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I have the tail? Sure, sweetheart.
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Daddy, is it going to be a boy deer or a girl deer? I'm not sure. A boy deer would be great.
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Daddy, if it's a boy deer, are you going to cut off its Ava? I said, wait, stop, stop. Hold on. Listen.
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I'm not making this up. All right, I'll tell you what, Ava. You go to bed, and she's like,
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Daddy, will you bring it here? Will you bring it here when we're done so that we can play with it before we eat it?
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And she goes, I know it will be dead, Daddy, but it would be good to get to play with it before we eat it. And I said, sure,
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Ava, no problem. And Daddy, you'll give me the tail, right? Yes, Ava, yes,
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I will give you the tail. I'm FaceTiming her. Her eyes just light up with wonder.
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I'm serious, just with wonder. I says, okay, Daddy, that sounds good. I'm going to go to bed now.
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I can't wait to see you in the morning with the deer tail. It made her eyes light up.
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That is the verbiage used here in this verse. Look what it says. The commandment of the
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Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes, making the eyes light up with wonder and awe.
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Have you ever felt that way about the Word of God? How long has it been? How long has it been, guys?
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Not the storybook of the Lord enlightens the eyes. Not the intellectual knowledge of who
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God is enlightens the eyes. The commandment of Yahweh lights the eyes up.
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For believers in this room, the reviving of the soul, the rejoicing of the heart, the making the simple wise, the lighting up of the eyes is done through obeying
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God. And God has revealed Himself in His Word so that obeying the
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Bible is obeying God because this is His rulebook. This is
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His book, but it's not just a rulebook. It is a love letter to His children.
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And it makes the eyes light up of His children who obey and love
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His Word. The fear of the
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Lord. Now, let me stop for a moment. If you have not ever felt that way, or it's been a long time,
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I want you to notice how the rest of this chapter goes. The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever.
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Not so much a name for the Bible, but an attitude for which we should have when we read it.
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The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the decrees of Yahweh are true and righteous altogether.
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These are His decrees, His righteous judgments, His rules. The Bible says they are true and righteous altogether.
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You know what that means? They are good. They are good. I would ask you just for one moment, we're going to come back to Psalm 19, just turn with me please for a moment to Revelation 15.
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One of my favorite verses in all the Bible. Obviously, we've taken a break from eschatology this
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Sunday, but I do want to point out that what we're about to read, what we're about to read is the saints of God singing
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His praises while the judgments of His wrath are being poured out on the earth, some of which
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Pastor Jeff read a couple of weeks ago. Revelation chapter 15, verse 3 and 4.
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And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of a lamb, saying, Great and amazing are your deeds,
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O Lord God, the Almighty. Just and true are your ways,
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O King of the nations. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name?
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For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.
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One day, God's good, righteous acts will be revealed, and all the universe will scream that it was the just and true thing to do.
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Your job, O Christian, is not to recognize now how all of His ways are good and true and just and merciful and loving, but to trust they are, even when you can't see that, because He will reveal it in His time, not yours.
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In His time, not yours. And all of the earth, all of the earth will scream that all of His actions were good, just, true, righteous, merciful altogether, even when they couldn't see it in the time.
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Even when they couldn't see it in the time. Let us not be so bold or arrogant that in our small view of a small puff of air of life, in one part of one nation, of one city, of one suburb, that we see our little dot of life, and then judge the
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Almighty God, the Eternal God, for what is right and wrong. Rather, let us recognize that He is
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God, and we are not. His ways are higher, and He promises that they are good and true and just, even when we can't see it.
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Back to Psalms. In Psalm 19, it says this. Verse 10.
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More to be desired of ailing gold, even much fine gold, sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.
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Now, I ask you, is that true of your life? Verse 10. Can you say verse 10 about your life?
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That you desire God's Word and His commandments more than gold, more than material gain.
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Is that true in your life? If not, you cannot expect, you cannot expect the blessings of the reviving of the soul, of the enlightening of the eyes, of the rejoicing of the heart, if that is not kept.
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And it says, more to be desired of ailing gold, even much fine gold, sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.
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Verse 11. Moreover, by them your servant is warned, in keeping them there is great reward.
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The irony here is that those who go for the temporal reward, here pictured as gold, miss out on the eternal award that God has, both here and in the future for His children.
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In obeying God, there is great reward. You know why? Because God rewards obedience. He rewards,
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He does not just punish the ungodly. He rewards obedience. He rewards obedience.
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If a father tells me that he is providing for his family, but if by that he only means physical provisions, how much applause should you get?
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The United States government did that for 59 million people last year. What we need to provide them is a desire for the word of God that they see lived out in your life.
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And ladies and gentlemen, what I've been trying to say, take Richard's example.
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Take the other person's example I followed. If you haven't done that to this point, today is the day.
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More to be desired of a than gold, even fine gold. Sweeter than honey, by them your servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward.
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Verse 12, who can discern his errors? That is a rhetorical question, meaning nobody.
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How often have you not even recognized you were doing something wrong until someone brought it to your attention?
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David experiences the same thing. He says in verse 12, who can discern his errors? Who? That's why we need each other.
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But then David says this, in verse 12 and 13, declare me innocent from hidden faults, those which
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I don't know I'm committing, and from presumptuous sins, that which I know I'm committing in arrogance.
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God, forgive me of both. Keep me back from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me, and then
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I will be blameless and innocent of great transgression.
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Brother Paul, have you seen your name on the notes yet? Here we go. All right, raise your hand, please.
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Where are my over -thinkers in the room? Yes, and some of you are over -thinking whether or not to raise your hand right now.
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Keep them up, keep them up, keep them up. Yes. Okay, my over -thinkers. Thank you, thank you, hands down.
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Now, you are the ones who type out a text message and then proofread it for 30 minutes.
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What took you 30 seconds to write the message, yes? You proofread it. You decide where to place commas. Oh, that's too many exclamation points.
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They will read that the wrong way, yes? Is that you, yes? My over -thinkers in the room,
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I am one of you, though I've come a long way, but I am one of you, and it really stinks when you mess up as an over -thinker, when you do somebody wrong.
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Let me tell you, it is a problem. Years ago, this would be the part of a sermon
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I did not want to tell. Years ago, we were in here in the worship center, and I said something incredibly rude, inappropriate, and out of place to Paul Lewis.
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Graciously, only Paul heard it. I'm laughing now, I promise you
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I didn't then. And Paul chided me pretty hard. Has Paul Lewis ever been mad at you?
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Raise your hand if he's ever been mad at you. Just me and Cindy? Okay, yes, a few of us, yes. It was not a comfortable feeling.
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I knew the moment those words left my mouth, I wished
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I could have grabbed them back, yes? But I couldn't. I wish I could have plugged his eardrums.
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I apologized so profusely, and he was gracious, but that did not aid in my guilt.
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And for the next few days, weeks, I dwelt on it, and then, overthinkers,
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I managed to do an amazing thing. I managed to forget about it. How great is that, right?
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I managed to forget about it. Now, this was years ago. This is probably six or seven years ago. I'm bebopping my way through life, and then about three years ago,
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I am watching a rugby game on my iPad in my bed. It is at nighttime, and I remember.
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And nothing came about to make me remember that. It just entered my mind again, and I said, oh
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God, not this again. Now, when
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I am in error, I don't keep that to myself.
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I try to always repent to that person. This is one that I had already done that, but it came back to my mind, and I grabbed my phone to call
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Paul, and then I realized it was 11 .30 at night. And then I said, okay, well this really needs to be done in person, but it's
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Thursday, so I have to dwell about this for the next three days until Sunday. So, I put my phone down, and I tried to go back to sleep.
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And it was eating me up, man. I mean, it was eating me up. And then the next day happened, and the day after that, and the day after that, and those seemed to be 1 ,000 hour days of waiting for Sunday.
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The moment Sunday gets here, I walk up to Paul Lewis immediately, and I'm kind of kicking my feet.
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I said, hey Paul, do you remember when I said this? He goes, oh yeah, I remember that perfectly.
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Thanks, Paul. Well, brother, I am so sorry.
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I cannot believe I did that. And he puts his hand on my shoulder.
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He goes, isn't forgiveness great, brother? When the
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Bible says that we will be blameless and innocent, it is not that God forgets our wrongdoing, our sin.
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That's not really forgiveness. That's just sweeping under the rug. It's that He remembers and treats us as if we had never wronged
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Him. That's what that means. Blameless and innocent.
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This is the doctrine of imputation. That Christ gets the credit for my sin, and I get the credit for His perfect life.
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That is what the great transition, the great exchange is. That the credit for Christ perfectly obeying and loving the law of God is credited to my account, and my sin and every idle word and idle thought
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I've had is transferred to His account. Okay? Transferred to His account.
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I get the reward. He gets the punishment. There has never been anyone on planet
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Earth who's ever been wronged by God. There has never been, never been
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God punishing an innocent person. But if there was ever someone that was close, it would be Jesus.
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But even He was not innocent, because He took on Josiah's guilt and the guilt of all his children.
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He took on and bore that sin, and I got His perfect life in that exchange.
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Blameless and innocent. If you notice, if you notice, you read
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Genesis 17, it calls Abraham a righteous man. And then you read
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Abraham's life and go, God, he's kind of a scumbag. Why? Because it's not a matter of how he's worked out his life on his own.
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He has been bought by Jesus. When we are blameless and innocent, when we are blameless and innocent, it's that those sins have already been charged to Jesus' account.
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And ladies and gentlemen, just a quick reminder and a warning to some of you. The Father, you hear people say, well,
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God loves the sin. I'm sorry. God hates the sin and loves the sinner.
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The problem with that is He doesn't throw sin in the hell. He throws sinners in the hell. The Bible says
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He is angry with the wicked every day. And that the wrath is piling up,
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Romans 1 and 2. The wrath is being stored up. It is heaping up for the day of judgment. Heaping up.
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In the destruction of that sin, the Father didn't even spare His own Son, but slaughtered
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Him. Hear the words of Romans 8, 31. He didn't even spare
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His own Son. Without the blood of Jesus, how do I fare in that?
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You understand? Without the blood of Jesus, there is no forgiveness. The blood of Jesus is obtained by one way and one way only.
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Grace through faith. Faith is how that's obtained. So then
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David ends his psalm with this. God, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.
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Oh Yahweh, my rock and my redeemer. If you've done any
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Bible studying whatsoever, you'll notice that every list of sin, every list of evildoers, always culminates, always includes what comes out of your mouth.
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The tongue is a restless evil, James says, full of deadly poison. Who can tame it?
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David prays that the words of his mouth, but even more, the meditation of his heart, be acceptable to you.
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I point to you to one more scripture. It's Luke 6, 45. Luke 6, 45.
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We're almost done here. And Jesus says something that I really want us all to walk away with here.
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And Jesus says this, starting in verse 43. For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit.
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For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorn bushes or grapes picked from bramble bushes.
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The good person, out of the good treasure of his heart, produces good. The evil person, out of the evil treasure, produces evil.
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For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Again, out of the overflow, the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
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One more time, listen. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.
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Like a cup being filled with water. Whatever that heart is being filled with will come out.
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Whatever that heart is being filled with will come out. If you disagree with that, you disagree with Jesus.
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Jesus says, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. Too often, we are focused, and we'll say things like this.
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I just have no filter between my brain and my mouth. Jesus is more interested in the filter from the heart to the mouth.
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Because whatever that heart is being filled with won't possibly, will come out in our mouths, in our hands, in our feet.
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So then the question becomes, what are we filling that heart with? Because whatever we're filling it up with, it can only hold so much, it will overflow into our actions and our words, yes?
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What are we filling that heart with? That's the question. So David's prayer is, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, what
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I dwell on, be acceptable like a sacrifice. Be acceptable and pleasing in your sight,
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Yahweh. So I ask you, as the music people come up, what are you filling that heart with?
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Because whatever you are filling it with will come out in your words, in your actions, in your deeds.
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It says if you fill it with good things, good will be produced. If you fill it with evil things, evil will be produced.
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It's that simple. Let Witten be a place where the hearts of the people here are filled with the
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Word of God. A love for God's commandment. A desire to please
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God more than anything and anyone else. Sometimes when
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I pray for my children, I pray that they come to know the
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Lord at a young age. I pray for their future spouses. That's an interesting prayer to have with Ava, by the way.
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But that's another. But sometimes, especially while they're asleep,
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I will put my hand on their head and I pray this, God, never allow me to love the child more than you.
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Never have your way with this child because they are yours before they are mine.
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And that's the truth. And that is the safest place that child could ever be. I cannot protect them the way
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God can. And if I try to take that from God, I bear the consequences.
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I want the meditation of my heart to be an acceptable sacrifice to Yahweh.
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And He has laid out for me here and for all of us, that is found in obedience to His Word.
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It's not complicated. It is not complicated. It revives the soul.
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It makes the stupid like me wise. It rejoices the heart.
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It makes the heart glad. It lights up the eyes. It endures forever.
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And in obeying it, there is great reward. If you don't know what that feels like or you do and you long for that,
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I beg you, the only way it's found is submission and obedience to His Word.
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Submission and obedience to His Word. And if you need help with that, you're not alone.
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So is David. Verse 12, who can discern his own errors? Nobody. You need somebody else to show them to you.
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And that's why God in the New Covenant created this thing that He calls the church because you cannot discern your own errors.
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You can't. That's why He made the church. And a quick side note, if that makes you uncomfortable, that is one of the commands of His Word.
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Yes? Let wit and collectively and individually, let the words of our mouth but the meditations of our heart be acceptable to the sovereign of the universe.
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And how is it acceptable? How is it acceptable? By obedience to His Word and a longing to love the things that God loves and hate the things that God hates.
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And if you need help with that right now would be the time to do that. And here's what I want you to do. Stand up, please.
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Here's what I'd like you to do. Like the one I'm so proud of that I wish I could say their name right now who last week for the first time in their 60 -year -old life prayed with someone out loud.
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Let me tell you something. That's humbling. Why not give it a try? If that makes you uncomfortable, well, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable on your side, oh
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God. Push past what makes you comfortable and obey God. Right now, right now, there are people in this room because I've called so many of you on the phone this week who need a little bit of encouragement, who need a little bit of help.
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So right now, serve somebody that you didn't see in the mirror this morning.
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And in that, guys, God is more honored than you reading three Psalms and two
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Proverbs in the morning. In that, God is more honored than anything else. Yes? Right now, if you're not sure where you're at with God, find somebody and make that right.
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But if you are a believer, and you really are, and you are not in submission to God's word, test
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Him in this way, that it won't rejoice the heart and make the eyes light up if you obey that which
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He has laid out for you. Yes? I would ask you now to pray with one another, to do whatever you've got to do in your heart to make it right before God.