Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "God Himself" by Hiram Kemp

Transcript

"God Himself" by Hiram Kemp · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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I guess you could say the prime time in our country and in the professional
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world for secretarial work was between the 1950s and the 1980s.
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It's true, we still have secretaries today in many businesses and, of course,
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also in the church, and Neil and I couldn't do our work without them.
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Kai and Ashley and Linda who have served before and many of you others who
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have done that work, but there was a time when this job was taken a
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lot more seriously than it is today out in the corporate world. Those that would
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serve as secretaries would sometimes go to secretarial schools or to
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what was sometimes called business colleges to learn how to record
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and to take care of things so that in so doing they could manage the
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office. When computers first emerged on the scene, many business executives
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couldn't type themselves, and so just like maybe you've seen in a movie before,
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they would pace in the office and they would dictate verbally the things
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that they needed to be typed in, and a secretary would record
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that information and do that work for them. She was allowed to go into these
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meetings and receive top security information. The word
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secretary comes from a Latin word, secretarius, which basically means
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secret keeper. They couldn't do their jobs without these individuals coming
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alongside them and helping them. And you think about the song that Jeremy just led
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us in, think about the angels. Hebrews 1:14 says, they're ministering spirits
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sent out by God to aid those of us that will be heirs of salvation.
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In Psalm 103:20-21, the psalmist says that angels
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are his ministers and they go out and do his will. Revelation 5:11,
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John says that there are myriads upon myriads of angels and thousands upon
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thousands, and God dispatches them not because he's incapable
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or incompetent, but because he's omnipotent and oversees everything and
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sends them out to do his bidding as he desires. The Bible even calls you
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and me servants as we carry out our will— out his will and our task
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as human beings. Isaiah 43:7, God created man
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for his own glory, and to that degree, we're his servants.
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But there are some things that the Bible explicitly says that
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God is going to do himself. There are some things in the Bible
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that God's not going to send an angel to do or a human being to
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do. God has taken ownership, and in these categories and concerning these topics,
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these things mean so much to God that he won't let anybody else
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do it for him. He's decided He's going to get his own hands dirty and
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he's going to do this himself. And maybe you could think of a long list
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of things that fall into this God himself category, but I just want to give
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you 3 briefly tonight to send us out into our week to hopefully encourage us,
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strengthen us, and embolden us as we go out to live for a God
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who cares enough about us to get involved in our business himself.
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Number 1, if you have your Bible, go to 1 Thessalonians 5. This is the
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first one. God will himself purify you. The first one
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is God will purify you. Dave read a moment ago from 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24.
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There Paul says, and I pray that the God of peace himself
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will sanctify your whole body, soul, and spirit, and that it'll be preserved
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blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he who calls
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you, who also will do it. The first thing God's going to do himself is
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God will purify himself. Paul gives a long list
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of imperatives starting really in verse 11 down through verse 25 in this chapter,
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but near the end in verses 23 23 through 24, he says God himself
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is going to do this. He'll sanctify your whole body, soul, and spirit
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and keep you blameless. And then in verse 24,
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he doubles down on it. Faithful is he who calls you, who also
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will do it. This is a task, this is a job that God
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delights in doing, purifying us and sanctifying us, and he won't delegate it to
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anybody else. He's going to do this one himself. If you think about
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your laundry and your clothes, If you want to keep your clothes clean, you really
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have 3 options. Option number 1 is to be flawlessly perfect.
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Never get any stains or spills on your shirt, but also no
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body odor or anything like that. If you do that, you'll never have to do
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laundry. You won't have to worry about it. Option number 2 is, in the event
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that you're not perfect and something does happen to your clothes, you can wash them
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yourself to the best of your ability. Or option number 3,
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if you do get stains and things on your clothes and you don't desire to
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or incapable of washing them, You can take them to the cleaners and have somebody
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else to wash them for you, and the human soul works the same way.
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We only have 3 options as it relates to getting our souls cleansed.
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Option number 1 is to be sinlessly perfect, and if you never make a mistake,
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you don't need anybody to clean you up. But the Bible says in Romans 3:23,
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all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Option number 2 is
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you could try to clean yourself up through human grit and effort and tenacity,
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but our righteousness separated from God, it's like filthy rags, Isaiah 64:6.
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So, the third option is to have someone else do it for us, and God
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delights in doing this. Paul says, oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver
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me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord
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that He delivers me. Romans 7:24-25.
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God is going to do this Himself, and this revolutionizes how
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we read the passages in the Bible that command us to be holy.
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1 Peter 1:15-16, as He has called you as holy,
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so be ye holy. And all of these commands about a holy and sanctified
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life. This passage in 1 Thessalonians reminds us there are at least
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2 of us working. As you're doing your best to live a holy life,
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God says, I myself will come alongside you and I'll
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sanctify you. 1 Peter 1:2. Sanctification begins at baptism,
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but it ends at the throne of God. 1 Corinthians 6:11,
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you are called and sanctified and justified in the name of
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the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. God himself will
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purify you. But here's the second one. It's in 1 Peter chapter 5.
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The second thing that God himself will do is put you back together.
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1 Peter is a book about suffering, and Peter talks a lot about this.
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1 Peter 4:12, if any man— you're going through a fiery
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trial. 1 Peter 4:16, he says, if any man suffers as a Christian, let him
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not be ashamed, but glorify God in this name. This is a book about
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hardship and suffering, but he ends this book talking about glory and
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heavenly aid and help. And 1 Peter 5:10,
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Peter writes these words: And after you have suffered a little while,
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the God of all grace, who has called you into his eternal glory in Christ
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Jesus— underline this phrase— will himself— he'll confirm and
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establish and strengthen and he'll settle you. See,
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Peter says God's not going to delegate this out to anybody else. After you've
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suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who's called you into his eternal
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glory in Christ, he's going to do this himself. The second thing God will do
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for us himself is he'll put us back together after suffering, after hardship,
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and after difficulty. I don't know if anybody's ever told
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you this before, or maybe you've said this to somebody or about somebody else before,
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you're a lot. Anybody ever said that to you before? You said that about somebody?
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You're a lot. Well, what that normally means is, it means a host of things.
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Sometimes it means like you're high energy, or sometimes you're
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an emotional, you know, yeah, there's a lot, right?
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That means that you're just a lot to deal with. And sometimes we say this
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about people in a positive way, big personality, a lot of emotion,
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But at the heart of it, sometimes we say, I got to get geared up
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to deal with this person. They've got a lot going on. When God looks down
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at us, God never says, you're a lot. He actually says,
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no, you're my lot, and I'm going to stick with you to the end.
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Notice what Peter says in 1 Peter 5:10, 4 different
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ways. After you suffered a little while, the God of all grace will himself— what
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is he going to do? He'll restore. Joel 2:25, the prophet Joel
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says, what the locusts have eaten, God promises to restore.
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He'll confirm you're my people. 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 18,
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you'll be my people, I'll be your God. He'll settle you and strengthen
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you. Ephesians 3 and verse 17, Ephesians 6 and verse 10.
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The God of all grace is going to put us back together himself.
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Sometimes you might go to the store and you go to purchase something, and on
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the box on the outside it'll have these words: Easy assemble.
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And what that normally means is just about anybody can do this. If you've got
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minor tools and a little bit of competence, easy assemble. You can put this one
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together yourself. It's not going to be a really in-depth process. And maybe you think
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about your life, think about my life, and our lives sometimes through hardship,
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suffering, our own failings seem to be shattered into a million different
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pieces. And as we look at our lives, we say, who's going to put all
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this back together again? I mean, who can put this back together again? And we've
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got options. Sometimes when our lives are shattered, we say to ourselves,
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I know how to put this back together again. What I need is a vacation.
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And you go on vacation and you come home and your problems are waiting for
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you. Nope, it's not vacation. It's this job. It's where
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I work. And if I could just get a new job— and all of a
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sudden the problems from your old job, they follow you to your new job.
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If I could make more money. If I had more money, then I wouldn't have
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these problems. I could fix it and put the pieces back together if I simply
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had more income. But you know about money, more money,
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typically more problems. And throughout your life, there are all sorts
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of ways, and God comes along and he says, I look at your life,
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I see it shattered in a million pieces, and this is easy assembly
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work for me. God's not sending an angel to patch us up after
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we've been beat up in this life. The God of all grace will himself
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put us back together, and he delights in doing so. Isaiah 1:18,
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though your sins be as scarlet, He'll make them white as snow. Though I
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was angry with you for a moment, in my compassion I will restore
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you again, Isaiah 54:7-8. What will God do himself?
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Purify you, put you back together. And here's the third one,
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and this is at the very end of the Bible, Revelation 21:1-5.
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God himself, he will be present with you, and at
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the end, he will permanently remove all hardship and difficulty. He'll be present with
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us and permanently fix everything. In Revelation
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21, John says he saw a new heaven and a new earth, and coming down
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from heaven there's this holy city. And in Revelation 21 and verse 3, John says,
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I saw this holy tabernacle, and the dwelling place of God is with men.
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God himself will be their God. And then in verse 4,
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God will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there'll be no more death,
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no more mourning, no more crying, for the former things have passed away. And then
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in verse 5, God says, I am making everything new.
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See this in Revelation 21:3-5. God himself will
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be present with us. That's verse 3. And then God promises to
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permanently fix absolutely everything. John says
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this is going to happen at the end of time. And as we look at
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what John's saying to us about the way that God plans to be involved in
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our lives, we can't help but be encouraged. We look at our lives, and again,
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there are a lot of hardships and difficulties we face, but John reminds us
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God cares. I don't know if we realize how personal this
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is in Revelation 21 and verse 4. Think about your life. How many people's tears
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in this life have you, have you personally wiped away yourself? A lot
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of people probably have cried in front of you, but have you ever taken it
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upon yourself to literally wipe somebody's tears away? You're probably saying to yourself,
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if I've ever done this before, maybe a spouse, maybe a child,
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maybe a grandchild, but we don't just go around wiping people's tears away.
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God himself will do this. Psalm 56:8 says,
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he keeps count of all of our tossings, and our tears are in his
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book. This means that God one day won't just
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mend our suffering, he's going to redeem it and fix it. And all of our
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scars, all of our hardships, all of our difficulties, they'll become trophies
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of triumph for us. Maybe there are some things in your life you just have
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accepted. Some things are just going to always be— they're unending.
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Laundry is unending. It just never ends.
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Marvel movie series, unending. They never end.
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Road construction, at least somewhere, it's just always going
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on. And maybe in your life there are things you've cried so
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many times and cried so long about, it's just become a part of you.
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This is just how it is. Maybe you've always been scared,
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always been scarred, always been anxious, and in your mind this is
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just going to go on forever. John says one day it's going to come to
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an end. But more than that, It's going to come to an end because God
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himself is going to fix it.
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When you think about the judgment, maybe we only think— and in cartoons and
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in movies and in picture books, you only think about the judgment— there's this long
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line of people and there's this big book and there's God on the throne
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and there's a trillion names in this book and people come before the throne of
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God to hear whether they're in or whether they're out. And the Bible teaches there's
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going to be a judgment and a separation, and that's a part of it.
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But we sell ourselves short if we don't get to the end of the Bible
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and also see at the end of the Bible John saying, one day you're
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going to stand before God. And he doesn't just say there won't be any tears
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in heaven, he says God himself— see God coming to you in
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delight with desire to remove all hardship
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and difficulty. There won't be any tears in heaven because God will be
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himself personally wiping them away from everybody who's ever suffered, ever gone
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through hardship, ever gone through difficulty. He won't send Michael.
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He won't send the archangels. He won't send the heavenly creatures.
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The Bible says God's going to take this personal and he's going to
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do it himself because we serve a God, though he has myriads and myriads and
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thousands of angels, he's not aloof or disengaged. He says, I want you holy,
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and I'm not just going to command it. I'm going to cooperate with you and
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come alongside you, and we're going to do it together. He says, I know you're
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broken, but I'll take it upon myself after you've suffered a little while. I'll put
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you back together again. And then he says, if you're faithful to me throughout the
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entirety of your life, when you finally stand before me, I myself will be
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forever present with you, and I will fix absolutely everything that's
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gone wrong in the world. So tonight, as we conclude our singing
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service and this devotional, just think about the God who will himself
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do this and so many other things for us. It's the same God who,
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when humanity was in her greatest trouble, he didn't send an angel to die for
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our sins, but instead he says, they're in trouble, I've got to fix it.
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And God the Son says, I'll go myself. The Word became flesh and
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dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of
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the Father, full of grace and truth. Everything we said tonight,
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God wants to do for you, and he wants to do for me, but we've
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got to let him. We've got to allow him to, by submitting to his grace
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and his will, turning from sin, and if we haven't, been immersed in water for
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the forgiveness of our sins, Acts chapter 2 and verse 38. If you've
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done that, and you need the prayers of the church, we'd be happy to assist
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you. If we can do anything as God's earthly servants to help you, let us
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know how we can do so tonight as together we stand and as we sing.