Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "Faithful Unto Death: Understanding God's Faithfulness" by Bill Dayton

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"Faithful Unto Death: Understanding God's Faithfulness" by Bill Dayton · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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death. Appreciated Charles' lesson last week to help us
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understand that there's plenty of others out there who we
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can look to and to help us in our faith.
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But tonight we're going kind of in a different direction.
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When I think of faithfulness,
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well, you define that. How would you define
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what it means to be faithful? Give me some answers.
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You know this, come on.
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What does it mean to be faithful? Okay, obedience.
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Okay, anybody else?
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Okay, walking in the light.
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Becoming more and more obviously like our Savior,
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who is obviously faithful.
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Tonight we're looking at a concept that
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I think is very important for us when we think of our faithfulness,
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and that deals with the faithfulness of God.
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He is the foundation of our faith.
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If you can imagine being without him in the world,
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not having him as your Father, not having Jesus as
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your Savior, what kind of faith
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would you have? There'd be nothing,
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wouldn't there? I mean, you can have faith knowing maybe your car is going to
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start in the morning and deal with all those superficial things in life,
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but when it comes down to what life really is The
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life God gives us. We need
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to have that faith.
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1 Corinthians 1:4-9,
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follow along with me if you would. Paul here
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is writing to the church at Corinth, and he says, I thank my God
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always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ
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Jesus. That you were enriched in everything by
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Him, and in all utterance and all knowledge,
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even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you,
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so that you— so that you come short in no
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gift, eagerly awaiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus
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Christ, who will also confirm you to the end,
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that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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And look at verse 9, God is
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faithful. God is faithful, by whom you
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were called into the fellowship of His Son,
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Jesus Christ our Lord.
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So when you think of where we're headed,
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I've kind of put this together as 5 different pillars,
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5 different ways we can focus.
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On the faithfulness of God. And you can add to this list, and I hope
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that you do. I just kind of thought of, of what it might look
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like as far as God is concerned.
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You know, you can look at faithfulness as
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commitment, loyalty,
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perseverance, sacrifice,
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discipline. There's so many different words to describe
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the ability to follow with something to the end, and that's what we're looking
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at in this series— being faithful until
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death. When we're given new opportunities,
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we, we are so excited about that, aren't we?
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We were so excited. We have enthusiasm,
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new relationships. So many things can happen.
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But as we talked about even in our devotional, when life gets tough,
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when life is not going the way we want to,
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overwhelming obstacles come our way,
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the Bible speaks of God's faithfulness,
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and that's where we need to anchor.
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It's interesting to me that the Bible speaks
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of God's faithfulness well before it does ours.
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And I'm thankful for that. Our faithfulness
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is a response to the faithfulness God consistently
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shows towards His people. Psalm 31:23
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says, the Lord preserves the faithful. 1 John 1:9,
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He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and
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to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Revelation 2:10,
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which is really the the anchor of what we're looking at,
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remaining faithful until death to receive the crown. Remember that
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verse because we're going to end with that. And in
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19:11 of Revelation, it says that our,
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um, Jesus is called faithful and true.
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So there's going to be times in our life— we'll get to this in a
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moment— there are going to be times in our life when Our
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faith is going to be tested. There's no doubt about that.
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I don't know if you've ever asked this question,
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and I'm guilty of it: where is God?
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Where is he? There have been times,
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I suppose, in all of our life— lives that
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we've asked that question. Maybe you haven't. I wasn't raised in
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the church. Tomorrow I celebrate my 46th rebirthday
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of being in the Lord. I spent a lot of years
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outside of the Lord, and a lot of times I asked that question,
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if there's a God, where is he?
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A couple had 2 little boys.
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Ages 8 and 10, so you can imagine where this is going. They were
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very mischievous. There was nothing they
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could do without getting in trouble. If anything
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was ever stolen, the parents knew exactly what
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happened. Well, they heard of this preacher who
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had quite a successful way of dealing
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with children like this. And so they took the
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children to— well, they took one child and they were going to take
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the other one to the preacher to see what he could do.
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And he was a big guy, a huge man, and he had a very
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booming voice. So the 8-year-old comes in
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first and he sits him down and
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he asks him a question, where is God?
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Where is God? The boy didn't have any
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idea what to do. He just kind of sat there and his jaw hit
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the ground and his eyes were wide open, but he didn't respond to
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that. And so the preacher repeated the question with
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a sterner tone, where is God?
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Again, the boy made no attempt to answer. Well,
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the preacher one more time, you know, 3 times and you're out, right? He asked
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him one more time, even a louder voice,
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where is God?
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The boy bolted from the room, ran directly
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home, and flew into a closet. He slammed
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the door behind him. And when his older brother found him in the
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closet, he looked at him and said, what in the world is
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going on? Well, the younger brother
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just kind of looked at him gasping for breath, and he says,
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brother, we're in big trouble this time. God is missing,
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and we think he thinks we did it.
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Okay, enough of the stories, right?
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5 pillars. If you could add to this list
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What would you add? We can see the ever-presence of God and ever-knowing
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of God and ever-powerful of God, his honesty,
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his absoluteness, which kind of goes along with
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honesty, truthfulness. What would you add to that list?
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Anything?
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Steadfastness. That's a good one. I wish I would have put that one down.
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But put— please do. Steadfastness. Any others?
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Loving. That's a good one.
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Love. Mercy.
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I'm waiting for another one. Faithful.
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Unchanging. Compassionate.
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He is a God of— begins with a G— grace.
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I love that one. Without that, we'd all be in trouble.
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A God of grace.
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Omnipresent, omnipotent,
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omni— excuse me, omniscient, omnipotent,
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omnipresent, honest, and absolute. And again, you can add
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to that. Let's look at the
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first one here. I hope I got this right now. Okay. The 5 pillars of
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God's faithfulness. Omniscient— he is ever-knowing. Hebrews 4:13
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says nothing in all creation is hidden from
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God's sight. Kind of goes along with Hebrews, doesn't it?
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Nothing is hidden. So there's honesty here.
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There's no pretending to
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God or trying to hide from him. David tried
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it. He couldn't do it. He couldn't do it.
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There is decisions that are made when we think of his all-knowing.
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Does it reflect the kind of person you want to be rather
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than only what other people see?
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Think about that. Then there's comfort.
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When you're confused or worried, believe that God knows
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the whole situation, and that ought to give
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us reassurance.
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And then you come to his ever-powerful being
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that he is, omnipotent.
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Ephesians 3:20 says, to him who is able to do exceedingly
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and abundantly more than I could ever dream or imagine.
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That has been my favorite verse for 40 years of my
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tenure of preaching. Even before that,
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I love that verse. It really says it all about God.
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He's able— just the first few words.
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I'm not, especially when it comes to remaining
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faithful until death without him. It's not going
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to happen. So, so we want to invite God
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into our ordinary decisions. We want to
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invite him into our relationships, into our struggles,
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difficult moments. He wants to hear about those
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things, not just the good times.
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Well, how do we deal with that? How about praying,
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asking God for wisdom? Strength, patience, and guidance,
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trusting Him in all difficulties instead of
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carrying your burdens. What's the Bible tell us to do?
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Give them to Him. Matthew 11:28-30, and there's
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so many other different passages that help us to understand about that.
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How about practicing love and forgiveness,
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showing kindness and patience and compassion,
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those things that you would already express in grace
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to others. Omnipresent,
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He's ever-present. Psalm 139:7-10,
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David says, where can I escape Your Spirit?
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Where can I go? Where can I flee from Your presence?
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If I go to heaven— finish it.
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You're there. If I make my bed in Sheol,
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You are there.
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It's a good thing to begin your day with God, is it not?
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It's also a good thing to end your day with Him,
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and then everywhere in between. You know, before we
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check our phone and get on social media and starting our activities,
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It's so important for us to take a moment and pray,
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thanking God for the day, thanking him for the breath that you have that
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morning, guiding your thoughts, guiding your words and
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your actions. And we might ask, are those consistent with
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what God teaches me about love and
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honesty and forgiveness and doing what is right?
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And then you come to the 4th pillar, being honest.
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He is ever truthful. Hebrews 6:18,
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God gave a promise and an oath for 2 unchangeable
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things that cannot change. Number one, God— or
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because God cannot lie, and giving strong
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encouragement to people who run to him for
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safety. There's times in our life when we
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think of this pillar, this honesty that
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surrounds God for who he is, it ought to
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relieve us of the burden of overthinking.
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Have you ever done that? Have you thought yourself right out
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of a situation? I remember a movie one time
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where the actor said, whatever you're thinking, rethink it.
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That might be a good motto for us. Maybe there's
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times we need to rethink it to figure out what everything is going on,
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and more than that, to trust him for his answers.
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Freedom to be completely honest.
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You can't not be honest with God.
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You can do that with others, you can try,
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but you can't do it with him. You've got to be honest.
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He knows, he knows what's going on in your
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life. He still offers truth and love.
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And then of course, a solid anchor in times of difficulty and crisis
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when situations feel like we read in the parable
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of the of building our house on the rock or the sinking sand,
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the promise of God remains as solid.
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And then the last one,
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absolute, never ever
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changing. Malachi 3:6,
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God's character stays constant.
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And that is why I pray that we find safety.
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Trusting him during change.
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Relationships have a way of changing.
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Circumstances and situations that we go through have a
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way of changing, but God's character,
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who he is, remains constant.
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Rely on his promises instead of basing your faith
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on how you feel. What's the problem with
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that one? I should maybe be asking more questions here, but what's
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the problem with that one, basing your faith on how you feel?
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Is there a problem with that? Yeah,
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it's going to change. You feel the same thing or
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have the same mind every day? It's kind
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of like, uh, Groundhog Day, isn't it? You wake up and
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the alarm clock goes off and here you go again.
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It's a cool movie, it's a good movie. Being consistent.
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God is faithful and dependable. All he
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asks of us is to be ourself.
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That's all he asks. Just be yourself. You're a
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child of God. We are to change the world.
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We have the good news. We've got the best news,
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and that's what they need. And then of course,
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finding peace when life is uncertain.
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What will happen? God's nature,
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his goodness and faithfulness never
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change. Never change.
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So we need to focus on
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the everlasting faithfulness of
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God. I put some other ones down here that I didn't put,
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but all you've got to do is go through the book of Psalms and you'll
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find plenty, plenty of verses. Deuteronomy 7:9,
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Know that the Lord your God is God,
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the faithful God who keeps His gracious
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covenant for 1,000 generations.
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How far is that? How long is that?
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And for those who love Him and keep His commands.
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Psalm 12:1, I know there's some up there, but I've also got some Psalms.
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Faithfulness has diminished among people,
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but that contrasts the very character of God. Psalm 33:4,
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all His work is done, everything that He does is
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done in faithfulness. Psalm 36:5,
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God's faithfulness reaches to the
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heavens. Psalm 89:1-2,
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In other verses in that Psalm, His faithfulness is proclaimed
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throughout generations, and it is praised among heavenly
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beings. Who would that be? Even His
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angels do that. He's surrounded.
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He is surrounded by faithfulness. Psalm 92:2,
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His faithfulness is proclaimed by night.
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Psalm 105, his faithfulness endures to
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all generations.
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Lamentations 3:23,
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great is your faithfulness. We have a song, I believe, a hymn that we sing
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that expresses that. 1 Thessalonians 5:24,
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the one who calls you is faithful.
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And he will do it. 2 Timothy 2:13,
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if we are faithless, he remains faithful,
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for he cannot deny himself. 1 Peter 4:19,
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so then those who suffer according to God's
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will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator
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and continue to do good.
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How, or why, I suppose we should ask,
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why can we rest in God's faithfulness?
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Someone want to answer that? How can we do that?
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I don't want this to be a full lecture because I'll probably run
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out of time. How can we do that? Why, why can
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we rest in God's faithfulness? Just— okay, He can't lie.
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He's not going to lie. He can't do it. It goes against His nature.
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Okay, He always does what He says. Are there times that we're
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not going to perhaps like that when
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He kind of interrupts our life the way we want to
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live? We have our own definition, do we not,
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of faithfulness? What we think is faithful and what
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he thinks.
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Anything else? There was a lady back
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in California and she'd say to me, oh, Sister Laura,
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she'd say, you don't want to get a whooping from the Lord.
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There you go. What she said was saying was that there are times when the
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Lord Yes.
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Okay, good.
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That's all good. Why does God—
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Psalm 31, just get— by the way, Psalm 31:23,
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it It says, the Lord preserves the faithful.
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Why? Why does He preserve the faithful
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versus perhaps the unfaithful?
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For His name's sake? They trust Him?
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Has your trust in Him ever waned?
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Have there been times when your faith wasn't as strong? As it
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should have been? If you can, if you
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can answer that in the affirmative, please see me after class.
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Or not affirmative, I guess, if you've never had that problem,
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because it's a problem, brother.
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Very good. That's a good
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one. Good.
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Yeah, someone once counted— I don't know who it was— someone once counted
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in the Bible how many times it says fear not or don't be afraid.
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They said 365 times. Isn't that interesting?
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Isn't that interesting? Every day,
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every day we can find a verse that helps
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us understand that.
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Isaiah 25:1 that's on the screen is amazing.
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O Lord, You are my God. I will exalt
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You. I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things.
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Your counsels of old are faithfulness and
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Psalm— or excuse me, Matthew 25:33,
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Jesus says, well done, good and faithful servant.
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You've been faithful over little. Enter into the
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joy of the Lord. If there's any words
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I want to hear, on Judgment Day are
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those. Enter into the joy of the
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Lord. I don't want to hear, and I don't want you to hear,
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or you don't want anybody else to hear, depart from me,
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I never knew you. That would be horrible.
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Enter in. That's what we're all looking for.
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We want to be with him. And the faithful have gone on.
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John 16:33, again, in this life you will have trials and
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tribulations, but be of good cheer because I've
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overcome it. Anything we go through in life,
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anything, you've got to understand that Jesus
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went through. Because if he didn't, he couldn't be
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our high priest. He knows.
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1 Corinthians 1:9, as we read, God is faithful.
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1 Corinthians 10:13 says, no temptation
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has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But here it is again,
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God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're
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able, but with the temptation, with the
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temptation will also make the way of escape that you're
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able to bear.
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It. I don't know about you, but when I'm tempted— and I've had that problem—
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I just want it gone. Don't you? Just get it out of my life.
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But God says, no, I'm going to use that temptation to
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teach you something. You're going to be stronger
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in your faith. And that's an important situation.
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2 Timothy, we're going to use this towards the end
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too, but we'll read it now. 2 Timothy 4,
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you know these verses, 6 through 8. Paul is ready to
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give it up. He knows he's going to die.
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He knows where he's going. And he says, for I'm already being
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poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure
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is at hand. I've fought the good fight,
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I've finished the race, and here it comes.
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I've kept the faith. How many times have you heard that slogan
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said? Keep the faith. Keep the faith. All is
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well. It's easy to say.
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It's easy to say.
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Finally, there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness,
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which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day,
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but not to me only. But all those who
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love His appearing. Do you love the appearing of
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the Lord? Are you waiting for Him to come back and take us home?
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Hebrews 3:2, Jesus was faithful.
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1 John 1:9, as we said, I think, He's faithful and just
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to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from
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all unrighteousness. 1 John 5:13,
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these things are written that you may know— there's a present future
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tense there, by the way— that you may know that you have eternal life.
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We're looking forward to being with him, but John says you've
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got it now. That's in your possession.
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And that's what a way to look at it. And then of course
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Revelation 2:10, be faithful until death, and Jesus
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called faithful and true.
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You can add to this list because it has
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to be one that we could never find enough.
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Hebrews 11 is filled with people,
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but people throughout the Bible, Old Testament,
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New Testament, We think of Job,
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examples of those whose faith was shaken
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by difficult circumstances. His faith was
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tested. What happened to Job? Not only his faith was
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tested, what else happened to him in the first couple
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chapters? Okay, his children
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are gone. His health is gone.
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Was he pretty rich? Did he have a lot of wealth? What happened
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to that? Gone. Was he a man of integrity?
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A blameless man before God? Isn't that what it says in the first
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couple verses? What happened to that?
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He didn't see it. That was gone in
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a very short period. And one thing Job did that
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perhaps we all do at times, we ask God why instead
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of who.
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Why? We've got to remember who God
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is. And when you get to the end of the book and
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everything is restored to him double-fold, He says
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these words in verse 5 of chapter 42,
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now my eyes have seen you.
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I've heard, but now my eyes see you.
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Noah, he trusted God despite having
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no visible evidence of the coming flood. It didn't even
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rain on the earth.
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He built the ark because God commanded to, to the exact dimensions
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that he gave him. Genesis 6.
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Abraham. Abraham is known as
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who? The father of our faith.
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The father of our faith. Did he have his moments?
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Did he have his fears that led him to
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say Sarah was his sister? Rather than trusting God's
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protection, in Genesis 12 he lied to Pharaoh.
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In Genesis 20 he lied to Abimelech.
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He did it twice.
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Twice. Sarah struggled
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to believe that God would give her a child, and what did she
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do? She laughed. Thought that was
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Funny. Moses, overwhelmed by his calling,
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what did he do? When God told him to do what
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he needed to do, what did Moses do? I can't speak.
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All right, here comes the excuses, right?
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Excuses, excuses, you hear them every day.
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Reasons. How did God deal with that? He finally told
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him to what? Get going.
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The Israelites, God's people,
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repeatedly dealt with fear and hardship,
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caused them to doubt God, despising— or despite
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witnessing his power. How many times did they witness his power?
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The Red Sea crossing was just one of them.
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Giving them food and clothing that didn't
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wear out for 40 years,
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and they still didn't believe.
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David, many of his Psalms, as we've already looked
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at, express the periods of fear and doubt and loneliness
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and questioning. Yet he was a man,
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what? After God's own heart. It's interesting,
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Acts tells us that instead of a psalm,
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but he trusted in God.
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Elijah, a great
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spiritual victory that he had. What happened after that victory?
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Did he, did he just rest on that victory,
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or was he— did he become discouraged for any reason?
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Jezebel, they're gonna kill me.
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And he hides in a cave. And what's God tell him to do?
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Get going. He's gonna tell us the same thing
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because again, his faithfulness is
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the foundation of ours.
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It's got to be that way. Peter,
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The impetuous one, putting his sandal
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in his mouth all the time, or foot.
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When he got out of the boat and said
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he would come to Jesus, the only time he sank was when
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what? When he took his eyes off
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the Lord. The storms of life will handle you,
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will hand you that. Because there's going
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to be times in our life when the storms come and we take
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our eyes and our focus off of the only one who can calm the
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storm, and that's Christ.
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What about Thomas? We, you know, I, I don't know about you, but I think
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sometimes we're kind of rough on Thomas. We call him the Doubting
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Thomas. Did you ever read more about his life?
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About what happened. You know, just because he didn't realize
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who Jesus was or what was going on, or that He came back from the
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dead until he touched Him,
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the scars, the holes,
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he wanted evidence. You know, Hebrews 6:12,
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the Christian Standard Version says, we don't want
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you to become lazy. But to imitate
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those who through faith and patience inherit
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what has been promised. When you read through the book of Hebrews, you see all
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the heroes of faith who trusted God, who had faith in God.
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Did they receive the promise? Not then.
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Moses, all of them didn't receive the promise right
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away. It was something that was afar off.
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And for us, it's the same way. We have the promise, but it's,
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it's not here yet. And when we're all with the Lord in
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heaven and with one another, we will truly understand
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that. Having your
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faith shaken doesn't
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mean your story is over.
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Please remember that your story is
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not over. All of these people,
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all of us sitting here tonight, others that we know
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in our communities struggle,
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but God continues to
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work in our life because he faithful.
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The stories of those we looked at tonight, plus so many others,
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shows us the importance of turning our attention
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back to God, especially when
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the storms of life are overwhelming.
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So God's faithfulness is the foundation of
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of ours.
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Faithfulness is never going to be easy. Why? Because Satan and sin
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make a daily struggle for us. But do
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you have the ability to fulfill God's plan for your life?
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Yes, we do. How do you do that?
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Draw near to God, resist the devil,
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and he'll flee from you. Study the Bible.
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Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
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by the Word of God. We know
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that verse, don't we? Surround yourself
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with God's people. Surround yourself.
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When we couple discernment with counting the
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cost of commitments, You can be sure that those things
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we commit are truly God's
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will for us. And because God is faithful,
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he will provide us with the necessary strength, time,
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and resources to echo,
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to resemble his faithfulness.
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2 Timothy 4. 6 through 8 one more time.
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Paul fought the good fight, he finished the
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race, and he kept the faith.
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What was waiting for him was the crown of righteousness
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that was reserved for him,
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but not only to him, but to all who
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love his appearing. You couple that verse with
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Revelation 2:10. What's it say?
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Be faithful unto death to what? To receive
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the crown of righteousness.
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We all want that. We want that
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crown. And I believe every day we're hopefully putting
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gems in that crown. Maybe perhaps God gives us gems
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that are so valuable because
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of his faithfulness, you can't put
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a price on them. His love, his compassion,
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his mercy, his grace, the way he
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puts up with us at times, the way he disciplines us
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at times because he loves us. You know,
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we can look at discipline in a kind of a negative way, but discipline,
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all it means is training, educating.
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That's really what it means. We think of discipline as,
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you know, taking that child over our knee and give
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them a little paddywhack or whatever we might want to do. But I don't know,
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today you can get in trouble for doing that, but You know,
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about spare the rod, spoil the child.
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Um, I've talked a lot tonight and I probably shouldn't have, but any, any comments,
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anything? You know, I, all I wanted to do was get across the
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faithfulness of God versus ours. But we've got
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so many, as Charles brought out last week, so many in our life
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perhaps we can look for that, but there's so many in the Bible
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that definitely we can relate to.
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They were just like us. They're people, common people
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dealing with life,
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and it can hand you a mess,
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but God's already cleaned it up. The blood of
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Christ has cleansed us and continues to do so.
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Saved by the bell. Let's have a quick prayer.
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Father God, as we approach you tonight, we're so thankful for your faithfulness because
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it truly is the foundation of our lives. Help us
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always to live faithful lives, Father, knowing that the reward
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that we have is being with you,
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being with your Son, being with all those that we
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looked at tonight and so many others that have been faithful
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till death. Help us to understand that it might even cause
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that for us to be faithful, as it did our brothers
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and sisters in the book of Revelation. But we know
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that you're with us. It's in Jesus' name we
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pray. Amen. Thank you.