FBC Sunday Evening Service

Faith Baptist Church

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All right, good evening. Good to see some dads back this evening. Hope you had a good Father's Day.

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And we're able to connect with kids, maybe grandkids, too. Sing to you today. Let's begin this evening with number 34 in your blue books, the supplement book, the song,

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How Can I Keep From Singing. And we'll stand together and sing this hymn together by Robert Lowry back in the mid -1800s.

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He composed the music, too. So this has been sung in places other than church, interestingly enough, with a few word changes, but nevertheless.

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So it's a good song to encourage your spirits. Let's stand together as we sing, shall we?

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Number 34 in your supplement, How Can I Keep From Singing. Life flows on in endless song above earth's lamentation.

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I catch the sweet though far off hymn that hails a new creation.

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Storm can shake my inmost calm while to that refuge clinging.

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Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can

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I keep from singing? Through all the tumult and the strife,

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I hear that music ringing. It finds an echo in my soul.

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How can I keep from singing? No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that refuge clinging.

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Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can

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I keep from singing? What though my joys and comforts die, the

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Lord my Savior liveth. What though the darkness gather round, songs in the night

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He giveth. No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that refuge clinging.

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Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can

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I keep from singing? The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart, a fountain ever springing.

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All things are mine since I am His. How can

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I keep from singing? No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that refuge clinging.

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Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can

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I keep from singing? All right, let's open in prayer.

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Jim, would you please lead us tonight? Amen. Thank you.

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You may be seated. So I hope from that song, it reminded you of the psalm that talks about songs in the night and waking in the middle of the night and having the words of Scripture come to your mind.

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So one of the reasons I have wanted to engage more and more with the psalms and especially with the psalms set to music is for that very reason.

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So that when you have one of those sleepless nights where you wake up in the middle of the night and your mind starts racing about something going on in life, that maybe the words of Scripture can come to mind and some of these tunes perhaps.

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So tonight we want to look at Psalm 101 and then we'll sing it from the

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Psalter. Psalm 101. My Bible has a caption under it or a little title for the psalm entitled

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Promised Faithfulness to the Lord. Promised Faithfulness to the Lord.

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It's a psalm of David. It reads as follows. David writes, I will sing of mercy and justice.

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To you, O Lord, I will sing praises. I will behave wisely in a perfect way.

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Oh, when will you come to me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set nothing wicked before my eyes.

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I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not cling to me. A perverse heart shall depart from me.

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I will not know wickedness. Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him will

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I destroy. The one who has a haughty look and a proud heart, him will I not endure. My eyes shall be on the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me.

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He who walks in a perfect way, he shall serve me. He who works deceit shall not dwell within my house.

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He who tells lies shall not continue in my presence. Early I will destroy all the wicked of the land, that I may cut off all the evildoers from the city of the

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Lord. So says the king of Israel, who anticipates the king of kings, the

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Lord of lords, who, as David says, he will cut off all evildoers from the city of the

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Lord. Well let's sing this, number 215, in your Psalter book, your red book.

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Number 215, we'll sing this together and then as we do on Sunday nights, give opportunity to share a word of testimony, praise, thanksgiving, how the

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Lord is working in your life. So 215, I will sing of love and justice.

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And this is a tune you know, it's familiar to you. So we'll just get an introduction and get right into it, sing right into it.

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But it's not really a

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Christmas song. All right, let's sing it together. I will sing of love and justice

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Unto you, O Lord, I sing Let my way be pure and blameless

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When, Lord, shall you come to me As I walk within my dwelling

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Let me true and faithful be Set no worthless thing before me

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Keep corruption from my eye All the ways of the ungodly

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By your grace shall pass me by That my heart may know no evil

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Let the wicked now depart Men of slander bring destruction

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Arrogance shall not endure I uphold the firm and faithful Dwell with joy among the pure Those who walk their way with honor

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They shall minister to me None shall live within my dwelling

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Who walks in the way of lies Those who practice their deception

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Shall be cast far from my eyes See the wicked in the morning

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All right, very good.

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Now, remember, Wednesday night, we're meeting for a supper, a light supper at six o 'clock.

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If you'd like to participate in that supper time, there's a sign -up sheet on the four -year bulletin board.

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Then at seven o 'clock, we'll assemble here. There'll be some games and stuff for kids outside, you know, after they eat some supper.

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And then we'll assemble here in the auditorium and see this next Torchlighter episode.

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This one's on Eric Little, and that's an encouraging story and a really good story to encourage us to be faithful to our convictions and what we are convinced the

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Lord would have us to do. So I hope you'll be able to make that Wednesday night. As you pray, as you think to pray for Jodi and her situation,

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Rebecca sent an update the other day. I think it was just a general Facebook update, and she mentioned that her mom has made a bunch of improvements in this past week, but she said that her insurance runs out,

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I think it's tomorrow, and that if something like if she doesn't continue to make improvements, then they will have to move her to a skilled nursing facility, and I suppose it would have to be like a

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Medicaid kind of thing. I don't want to speak out of turn there. I don't know what that would be about, but anyhow, they'd have to move her to an assisted, to a skilled nursing facility, so they were asking us to pray two things.

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One, that she does continue to improve so she can stay where she is, and two, if they have to move her, that she could get into a skilled nursing facility close by.

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It wouldn't be far for Bob to get to and so forth. So still a lot to pray for regarding Jodi, and let's just also continue to pray for Bob, that the

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Lord would encourage him. He's obviously under a lot of emotional duress during these days, so we'll pray for them.

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All right, some words of testimony tonight. Anybody?

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All right then. I'm not going to put the squeeze on you. We'll only wait about 10 more minutes.

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No, I kid you. Okay, she took the hint. Good. Yes, Roger?

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1830s, 1880s. And it just encourages you to see that probably the society doesn't produce the churches and the method of God, the preachers, into itself in other ways.

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And if you ever, it's worth the time, a few volumes. It doesn't make sense.

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It's not a story that I have such, if you want to look it up.

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Okay, a biography of George Whitefield. Good. And that reminds me, Whitefield also had come on several trips to America.

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And so the awakening that occurred in Great Britain came also to the

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Arshores in the United States. And he was primarily, he preached primarily in the northern states, but the revival, the awakening, also affected some of the southern states.

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I'm thinking particularly of Virginia. And you're reading Whitefield. I'm reading Samuel Davies. And Samuel Davies was contemporary at that time, lived at that time.

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And he was, went to Virginia, but he went to Virginia when the state church was the

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Anglican church, the Church of England. And nobody else could, no other churches were allowed in Virginia other than the

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Anglican church. And so until an act of toleration allowed for some dissenters, they called them, to have their meetings since they dissented from the church.

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And so Samuel Davies ended up going to Virginia and holding, having a dissenter's congregation and a few other, he ministered to a few dissenting congregations.

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But anyway, the thing, the connection there with Whitefield is that the

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Church of England, clergy in Virginia, violently opposed, strongly opposed the efforts of the revival, of the awakening, of the new lights, as they were called,

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Samuel Davies and others like him tried to keep them out as much as they could. And it's like Roger said, when the churches that are established won't do the work, won't preach the word, won't be faithful to the word, that he'll raise up others and in other ways to make that happen.

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Of course, eventually that influence caused the state church -ism to topple and you have religious freedom for all kinds of churches, good and bad.

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Anybody else? Yes, Jean. Okay.

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Dovetail with your reading. Good, good, praise the Lord. Several, about a month ago,

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I guess it was, on the Wednesday night thing we did, last time we had a lunch, a supper, shared some ideas about how to get the most out of preaching and one of them was that very idea, although you didn't necessarily do it deliberately, but it was to anticipate the next

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Sunday's sermon text and to read it ahead of time, to think about it, to mull over it, ask yourself, how in the world is he going to deal with this?

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That kind of questioning. It's like today we were in Judges 2, verses 6 through 15 and if you look at, if you read that section, you realize that passage doesn't end with verse 15.

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I cut it off right in the middle of that whole passage so it goes on to actually chapter 3, verse 6, so that kind of gives you an idea of where we're going, at least next

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Sunday. Sunday after that, Ron Burnett will be here, I have no idea what he's going to be preaching on, but anyway.

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Anybody else? Yes, Kelly. Good. I'm glad you said that because when

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I previewed that episode and I thought, oh my goodness, is this going to be too much for the little kids?

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This is awful. Here are these believers, they're getting eaten by tigers and all that stuff.

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You didn't see it that graphically. If you weren't here, you're not going to catch that. But anyway, I thought, it's going to be too tough, but it was, that's good.

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Thank you for that. Did I see another hand? Yes. Good, yeah.

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A lot of times we come to a place in our Christian life where we realize, you know what, it is a lot more joyful not to be angry at what

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God is trying to mold us into. All right, good. Let's take our hymnals again one more time.

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Turn to 371. 371, Song of Passion for Thee.

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Let's stand together as we sing. 371. Set my heart,

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O dear Father, on Thee and Thee only.

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Give me a thirst for Thy presence divine.

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Lord, keep my focus on loving Thee wholly.

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Purge me from earth, turn my heart after Thee. A passion for Thee, O Lord, set a fire in my soul and a thirst for my

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God just to serve, but to love

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Thee with all of my heart. Father, fill with Thy spirit and fit me for service.

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Let love for Christ every motive inspire.

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Teach me to follow in selfless submission.

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Be Thou my joy and my soul's one desire.

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A passion for Thee, O Lord, set a fire in my soul and a thirst for my

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God just to serve, but to love

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Thee. You may be seated.

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I'm going to go out on a limb and risk not ignoring my wife's advice, but just kind of saying, yeah,

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I hear your advice. I'm going to set it aside for a moment. She said, don't make a big deal about Denny and Kathy being here.

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You know, that just would embarrass them. You don't want to embarrass them, and I do not want to embarrass them, but I do want to thank the

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Lord for his answers to prayer. We've been praying for you guys for a year over, and weekly, weekly on the prayer bulletin and in our personal prayers and so forth, and it's just a delight to see those prayers being answered.

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So we thank the Lord for that. All right, I want to turn to Mark 1 and read our text for tonight.

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Mark 1, verses 35 to 39. It starts off, it says,

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Now in the morning, now if you were here last Sunday night, you saw the sermon from last Sunday night. Last Sunday night, we saw a day in the life of Jesus, and so the previous text, verses 21 to 34, are the day before, and verse 32 through 34, the night before, what we're reading about here.

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It says, Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, he, Jesus, went out and departed to a solitary place, and there he prayed.

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And Simon and those who were with him searched for him. When they found him, they said to him, Everyone is looking for you.

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But he said to them, Let us go into the next towns that I may preach there also, because for this purpose

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I have come forth. And he was preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee and casting out demons.

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Just a quick prayer. Father, I pray that from this passage tonight, you would help us to get a better handle on purposes that should or should not drive our lives.

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We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I'm sure you've probably somewhere along the way heard the story about the men who were being interviewed by a journalist while they were doing their job, while they were doing their work.

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And so the guy comes up to one of the men, the interviewer. He approached him and he says, What are you doing?

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What's your job? What are you doing? And he said, Oh, somewhat lethargic reply.

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He said, I'm just mixing up a bunch of mortar. Okay. So he goes on to a second worker, the interviewer does, and he asked him the same question.

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He says, Well, what are you doing? And the guy says, Well, he says,

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I'm building this here wall. Okay. So he goes to yet another worker, and the interviewer, a visitor, asks this third man, said,

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What are you doing, my friend? What are you doing here? And the guy says, Mister, he says,

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I'm building a church building for the glory of God. And all he was doing was laying one brick on top of another.

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Not a whole lot different from any of the other guys. But obviously, those interviews reflect differences of attitude and perhaps also a different sense of purpose.

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Why are you here? What are you doing here? What's your purpose in what you're doing? Mixing up some mortar.

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Building a wall. Building a cathedral to the glory of God. A church to the glory of God.

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I suspect that, and I think you know this, that your sense of purpose has a great deal of influence on your attitude about what you do.

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It also affects exactly what it is you do. Now this principle that your purpose will affect your behavior is brought out in this passage that we just read in Mark chapter 1.

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There's a series of events that happen in this passage that show us some purposes that we should avoid that shouldn't be the purposes that drive our behavior.

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And then a couple things that ought to. So let's look at this passage and jump right in and see first of all some of what our life purposes should not be.

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What our life purposes should not be. Now obviously I have to speak in some generalities because to get into the specifics of your particular unique calling and vocation in life,

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I obviously can't do that, but there are some general purposes that are true for, should be true for every believer regardless of your specific vocation.

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So first of all, some purposes in life that should not be yours. One of them is it should not be your purpose in life to be comfortable.

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To be comfortable. If that were Jesus' purpose in life, you wouldn't read verse 35.

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It wouldn't be part of the scripture. But it says that in the morning, before it was daylight,

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Jesus got up and went out to a solitary place. Now there's a little bit of a hint or indication of when that was, before daylight.

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That's talking about the hour of the night watch that is just before dawn.

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So this would have been sometime between 3 a .m. and 6 a .m. that Jesus got up, got out, and went to a solitary place.

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Does that happen to you, by the way, when you're awakened at 4 a .m.

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and you can't get back to sleep? Or maybe you're awakened at that hour in the morning and you say, there's no point in going back to sleep now.

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I might as well just get up and get at it. That happens to me sometimes. And I'm awful tired later on in the middle of the day, but just get up and get at it.

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Well, this is what happened to Jesus. His purpose is not to be comfortable because when you read what happened the night before, he was up late.

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The evening before, verse 32 says, when the sun had set, after sunset, they brought to him all these people who were sick and demon -possessed.

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The whole city was gathered together at the door. This is after sunset. So this was at the end of a Sabbath day.

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And at sunset, Sabbath is over. So it's like anything goes then. You don't have to abide by all the

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Sabbath rules and regulations. So all these people came to Jesus. The whole city was gathered together to the door.

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And he healed many who were sick, verse 34 says, with various diseases. He cast out many demons. He didn't allow the demons to speak.

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So in other words, he took care of every situation that was presented to him the evening before, the night before.

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So he had a very busy day prior to this and a very busy evening prior to this.

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And undoubtedly, it was a late night. Nevertheless, Jesus got up the next morning before daybreak.

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He could have slept in. I mean, after all, this was an unusual time. Normally, you wouldn't have to be up so late, but you could argue, well,

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I didn't intend to be up this late, and so I'm going to sleep in in the morning. It reminds me of a story I read of a biographical account of Zig Ziglar.

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Some of you may know that name. But he says when he was a young guy in sales, he was having a hard time being profitable.

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So he made some decisions about his life, what he would do. One of the decisions was he was going to make a certain number of calls every day.

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Another decision was that he was going to get up every morning at 5 .30 and go out, go for a run.

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He was just going to do this, no matter what. And the night before, he tells us, the night before one morning, he was up extremely late.

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He got in very late from a sales call in another town. I mean, it was after midnight that he got in, got to sleep, and before he went to sleep, he was tempted not to set the alarm.

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He didn't have any other appointments in the morning, so he was very tempted not to set the alarm. But he said, no,

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I've made a commitment. My purpose is to get physically fit.

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So he set the alarm for 5 .30, and when the alarm went off, four and a half hours later, he got up and he went out and he ran.

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Why? Because his purpose in life was not to be comfortable. Jesus' purpose in life was not to be comfortable.

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If your purpose in life is to be comfortable, it will cause you to do a lot of things you should not do, and it will cause you to avoid a bunch of things that you should do.

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Some people, for the sake of being comfortable, they will neglect church.

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It's just too hard. I'd rather sleep in on Sundays. One of the things that the

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COVID lockdown with the live streaming capability and so forth, even as we're doing that right now, has allowed some people to do is to respond by saying, this is pretty comfortable.

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I can sit here on my couch with my cup of coffee and my bagel and cream cheese, and I can be watching the guy on TV.

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If I need to get up, I can pause him and come back. It's all very comfortable.

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But that's not church, and that's not how we're called to do church. Comfort can keep us from some of those things.

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I have known in my pastoral ministry, I've known of people who because of their desire for certain kinds of comfort felt like they couldn't give to the church.

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I'm not one that browbeats giving. You know that if you've been here for any length of time. Very, very, very, very few times do

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I say anything about, you need to give and support the church. I think believers who have a good sense of understanding of what happens in the local church and how it happens, they just understand we've got to support this work.

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But I've known some people, some believers through the years who've had the attitude, well, you know,

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I can't afford to give. I just don't have the money to give. But they've got the money for their cable

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TV or their satellite TV. They've got the money for their smartphones. They've got the money for all these creature comforts of life, but they can't give to the church.

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Something's wrong there. No, listen, it's not our purpose to be comfortable. And if that's my purpose, to be comfortable, then

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I'll avoid any kind of sacrificial service for the

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Lord. And again, that doesn't mean when I talk about serving the Lord, it doesn't necessarily mean an official titled function in the local church.

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But, you know, you serve one another. The church is to serve one another. And that involves some sacrifice if we're going to do that.

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Well, if I'm living to be comfortable, my purpose in life is to be comfortable, I'll not do that because sacrifice is hard.

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Sacrifice is uncomfortable. You know that. So your purpose is not to be comfortable. Jesus got up early in the morning and he went out to pray.

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Our purpose in life also is not to be, in spite of what we're almost kind of indoctrinated in our

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American culture, it's not to be independent. It's not to be independent as if I'm to be a self -made man or a self -made woman where I don't need anybody else.

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Now, Jesus models the opposite, doesn't he? Jesus is God in the flesh, and yet what he examples for us here is the

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God man who is still dependent upon his father.

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He needs this time alone as a fully, as fully man.

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He needs this time of spiritual refreshment where he needs to get alone with the father.

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He needs to take a break from the demands of life and the demands of other people, and he needs this time of spiritual refreshment.

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He needs this time of divine enablement where he can go to the father and appeal to the father for wisdom, for guidance, for insight, for direction and empowerment.

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He needs this time of divine enablement. He needs fellowship with God, and so do you, and so do

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I. We, it is not our, God did not create us and he didn't save us to be independent mavericks that can just go on the

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Christian life without needing anybody else. It's not our purpose in life.

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It's also not our purpose to be controlled by the crowd, to be controlled by the crowd.

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This comes out in verses 36 and 37. It says Simon, Peter, and those who were with Jesus searched for Jesus, and when they found him they said to him, everyone is looking for you.

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I find it interesting that Mark singles out Simon. You wonder why he did that.

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Simon and those who were with Jesus, why didn't he just say those who were with Jesus?

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I mean, because Simon was with Jesus. Why did he single them out? One of the commentators suggests that he did so because Mark got a lot of his information from firsthand communication with Peter, perhaps.

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Also, it's perhaps because of Simon's greater role in the group of the 12 and how that's all going to play out in time to come.

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But nevertheless, Simon and those who were with Jesus, they come to Jesus and everyone is looking for you.

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Now turn to Luke's gospel of this same account, his account of the same situation,

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Luke 4, and look at verse 42, because Luke gives us a little bit of further detail regarding this crowd.

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Luke 4, verse 42 says, Now when it was day, Jesus departed and went into a deserted place, and the crowd sought him and came to him.

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Now look at this. And they tried to keep him from leaving them. I'm reading out of the

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New King James. The King James says, I think, they stayed him. They tried to keep him from leaving.

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They tried to keep him from leaving. So here's the crowd. The crowd has their agenda, what they want to see

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Jesus do. If Jesus is controlled by the crowd, then he's going to say,

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Okay, what do you want? Okay, I'll do it. And he's going to continually be at the mercy of the crowd's whim, the crowd's desire, desires.

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The crowd, even the crowd around you, the crowd wants to hold on to you.

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They want to hold on to you. Now, they wanted to hold on to Jesus for the good that they could get from Jesus.

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The crowd may want to hold on to you for lesser reasons, but nevertheless, the crowd wants to hold on to you.

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They want you to be like them. They want you to do what they want done, what they want you to do.

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They want you to conform. They want you to go along. The crowd wants to hold on to you, and they want to hold on to you for their purposes, for the crowd's purposes.

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Now, this is true for Jesus. Why were they trying to hold on to Jesus? Why were they wanting to keep him there? How easy it would be, given what they've just experienced the night before, the day before, how easy it would be to see

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Jesus, and I want to say this advisedly and respectfully, but how easy it would be to see

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Jesus as kind of a genie in the bottle, right? I mean, I got up this morning,

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I'm sick. Well, let's get Jesus. He'll make you better. I got this relative that's coming for a visit, and he's got to be carried on a mat because he can't walk.

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Well, let's get him to Jesus. Rub the bottle, and he'll be able to walk, and so on and so forth.

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It's like any need, the night before, any need that anybody had regarding a physical need or demon possession or whatever, they came, brought him to Jesus.

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Boom, Jesus took care of the need. How easy it would be to look at Jesus in this way and think,

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Jesus can make my life so much easier. Let's just hold on to him. Well, if Jesus' purpose was to go along with the crowd, again, he would have just said, okay, what do you want me to do now?

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What do you want me to do now? What do you want me to do now? And the crowd, another reason why you can't let the crowd be, you can't be driven by the crowd is that the crowd will be annoyed if you don't cooperate.

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It always works that way. Have you ever noticed? I'm sure you've noticed that. You know, if you were, remember as talking to a mostly older crowd, did you have the struggles when you were, you know,

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Aaron and Diana's age and younger, of the crowd wanting to have you shaped into their mold?

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We call that peer pressure. And did you buck it? Did you fight against it?

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Did you say, I'm not going to go that way. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to be like that. How were you treated?

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What kind of, yeah, did you get? You know,

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I just read this article this afternoon in this regard. West Point Academy, you know,

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Military Academy, has 4 ,500 cadets in the academy.

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And there's a big push at the academy to get for all of the cadets to be vaccinated against COVID.

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I don't care what you think about the vaccination. That's not the point. But here's the thing. Here's the point. 4 ,500 cadets, all but 175 of them have gone along and been vaccinated.

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The other 175, for whatever reason, and, you know, from the article that I read, the arguments that those who said they were not going to get vaccinated, they weren't like paranoid kind of people who just, you know, they were reasoned arguments for not being vaccinated.

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And they're getting all kinds of grief from their peers and from those, you know, and higher up authority over them and so forth.

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So, for example, they're being pressured by things like, if you haven't had the vaccination, then you're going to have to come back after break seven days earlier than everybody else so that you can quarantine before everybody else gets here.

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I'm sure if you do a little thinking on that, you might scratch your head about that and say, well, why would they have to quarantine?

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But anyway, so there's all that pressure. There's all that pressure being put upon them by the crowd.

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This is the way the crowd works. This is why you cannot be driven by the crowd.

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Your purpose cannot be to please the crowd. Your purpose also can't be to be famous.

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To be famous. In verses 37 and 38, when Jesus is told, everyone is looking for you, if his purpose in life, purpose in coming to this earth was to be famous, then he'd say, okay, now's my chance.

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Now's when things can really break out and, you know, I can really become popular and everybody can know my name and all the rest of that kind of thing.

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But instead, what did he do? He turned his back on it all. Turned his back on it.

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I think, for example, Robert E. Lee, the general of the southern states of the

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Confederate Army, he was, are you aware of this? If you've read his biography or heard his story, you probably are, but he was offered a position as the highest commander in the

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U .S. Army prior to the Civil War breaking out.

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So it was like just when states were starting to secede and Virginia was seceding,

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President Lincoln offered Robert E. Lee the highest command in the

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U .S. Army and Robert E. Lee turned it down.

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He said, no, I can't do that. I can't do that and turned my back on my country, on Virginia, my state.

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And so he didn't. And again, it's not to say anything about right or wrong on that position, but my point is, my point is that if Robert E.

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Lee was driven by, his purpose was to be famous and he ended up becoming famous in other ways, but if his purpose at that point, when this offer is made to him, you will have the highest command in the

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U .S. Army. Oh, okay. No, see, he was driven by a higher purpose, a different purpose.

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So he wasn't going to go that route and it's also not your purpose to be in that similar regard to be self -aggrandizing and opportunistic.

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Verse 38, Jesus said, let's go to the other towns that I may preach there. I may preach there.

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He disregarded any self -interest in all of this.

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Again, he did not have a what's -in -it -for -me mentality. Here's this offer.

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Everybody's looking for you. Everybody wants you. Do what everybody wants and all that kind of thing. And somebody who is self -aggrandizing would look at this as an opportunity to make himself liked or all the more popular and so forth.

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He dismissed that. Instead, what he did was chose relative obscurity.

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He's in Capernaum. This is a city. I don't know off the top of my head how large of a city it is, but in terms of the geography of that time, there weren't that many big cities.

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You had Jerusalem. That was a big, important city. You had Capernaum. That was a big, important city. Capernaum, a city on the seashore.

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Big, important city. I mean, a lot of people. Everybody could know who

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Jesus is if he would just do what the crowd wants him to do. But that's not what he did. He left that.

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He left that place of possible popularity and acclaim and name recognition and all that kind of thing, and he went to the towns, the little villages.

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He went to the obscure places. So Jesus is telling us, in his own example, it's not your purpose in life to be self -aggrandizing and opportunistic.

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Well, what is your purpose? What should be your purpose in life? Jesus helps us out with this as well.

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Your ultimate purpose in life, your ultimate purpose in life is to further the kingdom of God, to further the kingdom of God.

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Now, I turn back to Luke's account in Luke 4, verse 43, because we have a fuller record of what

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Jesus said. Luke shows us, Luke records that Jesus said to them,

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I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose

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I have been sent. My purpose is to further the kingdom of God.

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And that's your purpose as well. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6? Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

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So that's why I said earlier, I'm not concerned so much about your specific, individualized purpose in life regarding your vocation.

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But whatever that is, it falls under the umbrella of this larger purpose. You're to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

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It's important to do so because that overarching purpose, that ultimate purpose in life, gives you a passion, like we just sang about earlier, right?

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Passion for thee. It gives you a passion. Jesus says, I must go to these other cities.

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I must go. It gives you a passion and it affects your plan.

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What are you going to do? So think about this with your vocation, wherever you are in your career life.

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Some of you are retired. That's okay. What do you do now, right? What do you do now?

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Isn't that one of the big questions when you approach those retirement years? I was talking to my older brother yesterday, and he's a couple years older than I.

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He turns 65 at the end of July. He's starting to collect his

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Social Security next Wednesday, and he's retiring. He's got the day figured out when he's going to tell his employer,

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I'm done. Because as you who are on Social Security well know, you can only make X number of dollars a year or your

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Social Security benefits get dinged. He's got that figured out so his benefits don't get dinged.

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Anyway, he's going to retire. I said, okay, so now what are you going to do? What are you going to do now?

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I don't know. One thing I'm going to do is when we get up in the morning I'm going to go for a walk.

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Okay, good. What are you going to do? Go get some breakfast somewhere. Okay, all right.

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Having this ultimate purpose in mind that you're to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, what is that going to do for your life?

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It's going to give you a sense of direction. It's going to give you a plan. It's going to help you to determine a plan.

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Does this direction, does this opportunity, does this objective, does this help further the

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Kingdom of God and His righteousness? It's the ultimate purpose. Now this has some daily implications or regular implications on your life.

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It will encourage you, number one, to seek fellowship with God as Jesus does in verse 35.

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Why is He going out in the morning before anybody else gets up, before it's daylight or whatever?

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Why is He out there seeking fellowship with God? Because of His ultimate purpose. I want to proclaim the

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Kingdom of God. I want to further the Kingdom of God. If I'm going to further the Kingdom of God, then

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I need to have a sense of how to do that and what I should do and what

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I personally should do. I'll seek fellowship with God. And seeking fellowship with God is going to, and sometimes it's going to require some sacrifices.

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He had to sacrifice His comfort that particular morning. It's going to require some privacy perhaps.

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He went to a solitary place and it's going to involve some prayer. And again,

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I'm not prescribing a set method in that. I'm not suggesting that in order for you to seek fellowship with God, you've got to get up at four o 'clock in the morning and you've got to go outside somewhere where it's dark and nobody else is around and you need to spend two hours in prayer.

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The details are not my point. The point is that if your purpose is to seek first the

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Kingdom of God and His righteousness, then one of the implications of that purpose is that you will want to seek fellowship with God so you may know how to do that.

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It will also, another implication is, if you're going to seek, if that's your purpose, seek first the

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Kingdom of God and His righteousness, you'll want to proclaim God's truth. Jesus says, I've been sent forth to preach.

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Luke tells us to preach the gospel of the Kingdom. And here's the thing, the Father sent the

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Son and the Son sent you. He told the disciples in Mark 16, even as the

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Father has sent me, so send I you to preach, to proclaim God's truth.

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Another implication is that you'll obey God's directives. If you're going to seek the Kingdom of God, if that's your purpose, you'll obey

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God's directives. Verse 39, what was his purpose? I've been sent forth to preach the

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Kingdom of God. So what's he doing in verse 39? He was preaching in their synagogues throughout

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Galilee. He was obeying God's directives. What's God's directives for you under that umbrella purpose of seeking first the

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Kingdom of God and His righteousness? How's that affect your work, your job, your home?

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What are his objectives? What are his directives, I should say, for you personally? Well, if you have that overarching purpose, you'll want to obey those directives.

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And then another implication if your overarching purpose is to seek first the

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Kingdom of God, another implication of that is that you will be able to say no to that which is less than God's best or intention for you.

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Opportunity comes along, great opportunity. It might mean some kind of advancement.

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It might mean some kind of, you know, financial remuneration that would be well enjoyed and preferred.

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But if it's taking you off mission, what do you do? If it's somehow going to hinder you from furthering the

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Kingdom of God and His righteousness, what do you do? What do you say? You say, no,

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I'm sorry. I can't do that. I can't do that. Why not? It's contrary to my purpose in life.

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Oh, okay. People understand that. The overall impact of your life if you follow that purpose of seeking first the

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Kingdom of God and His righteousness, it comes out at the end of verse 39. He was preaching in their synagogues throughout all

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Galilee and casting out demons, casting out demons. The overall impact of your life pursuing that purpose is that the forces of Satan are going to be defeated.

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You'll experience some measure of victory over the forces of Satan. I'm not suggesting you're going to become an exorcist.

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No. But what's going on here? The demonic activity that was going on in the time of Jesus here on earth was at a peak to oppose

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His work, to oppose His ministry. And Jesus, pursuing and fulfilling the purpose that was given to Him to pursue, was able to overthrow them, overcome them.

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You'll experience some, as an overall impact of your life, some defeat of Satanic forces.

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He will not accomplish against you what He wishes to accomplish. And in the end, the will of God is victorious.

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What would have happened if Christ had stayed in Capernaum? If He had followed the crowd?

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If He just said, okay, you know, I just kind of hang out here and just enjoy and bask in the popularity and if somebody comes along and needs something healed, okay,

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I'll heal them. Think of all the individuals whose lives would not have been impacted by Jesus as He went to all these little villages and towns throughout

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Galilee and preached the gospel of the kingdom. Well, God's will is victorious as an overall impact of your life when you fulfill that purpose that God has for you.

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As a general rule, God's purpose for you, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

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So Father in Heaven, I pray that understanding that general purpose, you would give us the, us who are

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Christ, you would give us the sense and the sensitivity to pursue it and to let that purpose impact our lives on a daily basis, on a very practical level.

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We pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, let's close tonight in our hymnals with number 399.

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399, Jesus, I, my cross have taken.

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Kind of help to settle that thought in our mind of pursuing

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God's purpose for our lives. Let's stand, shall we, as we sing. Let's sing the first and the last.

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Jesus, I, my cross have taken All to leave and follow

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Thee Destined to despise, forsaken

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Thou from hence my all shall be Perish every fond ambition

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All I've sought and hoped and known Yet how wretched is my condition

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God and Heaven are still my own

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Hasten on from grace to glory Armed by faith and wisdom

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Eternal days before me God's own hand shall guide me there

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Soon shall close my earthly mission Swift shall pass my pilgrim days

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Hope shall change to glad fruition Faith to sight and prayer to praise

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I trust the Lord will give you a good week pursuing your divinely given purpose in life.

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Father, bless us as we go from here tonight. And I pray that as we endeavor to walk with you, to live for you, to live with you, you would shape our lives, you would guide our steps, and may we fulfill the purpose that you've given us in this life.