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How to Be Loyal to God’s Words | Joshua 23 · Saint City Chapel

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OK, in light of the technical difficulties we've had already,
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I just want to take a moment to pray against any others and get
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our hearts ready for the Word. Would you join me one more time
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as we pray? Lord, we are grateful to worship
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you. We are grateful to be here and
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we just ask for all distractions, everything that
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could pull our attention and our eyes and our hearts away from
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hearing what you have to say to us in your word.
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I pray God that you would shield us from it and that God wherever
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wherever we find ourselves in our journey with Jesus today
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here God that we would be able to listen to what you have said
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in a book we call the Bible a book you have given us a book
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that you wrote so that we could know who you are.
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It is yourself revelation to us so we could have hope, we could
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be covered, we could be changed. And I pray God, you would change
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us today. That you'd bring heat where
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hearts have grown cold, you'd bring light where minds have
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grown dark. God, would you speak to us today
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in Jesus name? Amen.
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Amen, Lord. Yes.
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Protect the screen, protect the microphone, and make sure no
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chairs get broken or nothing like that to God while you're at
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it, You know what I'm saying? Hey, we're going to be in Joshua
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chapter 23. That's page 197 of the Bibles in
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front of you. If you don't have a Bible,
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consider that your Bible. Now you can have a Bible.
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It's just on the one and the seat in front of you.
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Please generally take that and take that home with you.
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We'd love for you to have a copy of God's work.
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That's what we're talking about today is how to be loyal to
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God's words. We've been in this book of
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Joshua written by the title character Joshua, describing
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what happened for as the Israelites left Egypt and
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wandered the desert, how they crossed the Jordan River and
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took hold of the promised land known as Canaan.
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And for 23 chapters, we have been all around this theme of
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land and victory and conquest. That's what the book of Joshua's
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about. It's in your Bible with the
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theme of land. But the book has an aim point.
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It actually has a target that it wants to hit in your heart, in
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my heart, in any heart. Who would read it?
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And it's not just about land and victory.
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The aim of Joshua is your loyalty, your allegiance, our
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commitment to God, that as we read about people and nations
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rising and falling in the Israelites marching forward, the
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response in the reader supposed to be, Oh my gosh, I need to be
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loyal to this God and to what he says because without it I am
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hopeless. Without it, I am a fool.
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Joshua's helping us see that our aim point needs to be loyalty,
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and we're good at loyalty. When I was growing up, my
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friend, his dad worked for Gatorade and he had like what I
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would call the coolest job in the world.
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Preston mentioned the salt director, which is a close
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second, but this is first. He worked for Gatorade in the
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90s and his job was to present the Gatorade High School Athlete
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of the Year. He would go and give them that
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award. So Gatorade would put him on a
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plane and he'd go and fly and he'd meet this young kid from
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Wilmette, Wilmington, NC, named Michael Jordan.
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Yeah, he, he met Michael Jordan in the 80s and 90s.
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Like, hey, why don't I give you this?
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In the 90s, he got to meet Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning.
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And this is my best friend's dad.
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And I see pictures on the wall. I'm like, who are you?
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Who are you? And and what what job is this
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that you get to go parade around with athletes?
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What would that meant, though, being a Gatorade worker, is that
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he had to be loyal to Gatorade. So at times we'd go to
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restaurants and he would go to go get a Powerade.
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Like somebody would go get it. He'd go absolutely not, not, not
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what I'm paying for dinner tonight.
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We are not having Powerade. You'd go to their basement
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fridge. Yeah.
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Basements are a thing in Illinois.
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You'd get there. And in their basement fridge,
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there'd be no such thing as any Coke products of any kind
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because Gatorade was owned by Pepsi.
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So there'd be copious amounts of Gatorade.
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No Coke, just Pepsi. I prayed for them on the on the
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soda department because Pepsi's definitely inferior.
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Sorry if you work for PepsiCo and you're here today, but the
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reality was, is that his allegiance was to Gatorade.
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His loyalty was to Gatorade. He was going to be committed to
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Gatorade even it meant he didn't get to have a refreshing energy
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drink at the at the gas station or at the ball field that their
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family adopted loyalty to a drink.
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Now, loyalty to a drink is one thing, but what God is asking of
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us, what He's inviting us to really today is loyalty to the
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living water of God's Word, the nourishment and the joy and the
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energy and the vitality that comes from drinking from God's
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words. Now, obviously, I'm speaking
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metaphorically, not literally here.
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There's no literal drinking of God's words.
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However, I believe that is our invitation that Joshua 23 is in
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our Bible so that we could see how to be loyal to God's words.
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We're in Joshua 23, verse one. I want to show it to you in
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three ways today, how to be loyal to God's words.
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It says this a long time afterward, meaning a long time
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after chapter 22, a long time after the half tribe of Manassas
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and the other two tribes east of the Jordan River, after that
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whole conflict thing where they're departed but united.
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After that whole thing happened that we learned about last week.
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After that happened, a long time afterward and indefinite time
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later, when the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their
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surrounding enemies, and Joshua was old and well advanced in
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years, Joshua summoned all of Israel, its elders and heads,
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its judges and officers. And he said to the leadership, I
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am now old and well advanced in years, and you have seen all of
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the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake.
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For it is the Lord your God who has fought for you.
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Behold, I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your
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tribes, those nations that remain, along with all the
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nations that I've already cut off from the Jordan to the great
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sea in the West, the Mediterranean.
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The Lord your God will push them back before you and drive them
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out of your sight, and you shall possess their land, just as the
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Lord your God promised you. Therefore, be strong to keep and
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to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses,
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turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left.
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How are we going to be loyal to God's words with these 6 verses?
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I want to summarize it like this in an application point saying
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it has defined loyalty as God does.
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How are you going to be loyal? Well, you have to at least
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understand you have to define loyalty as God defines loyalty
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because we might have misdefinitions of loyalty, we
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might misunderstand loyalty, and we might think we're being loyal
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to God's words, but God actually has a way that He describes
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loyalty to us right here in these 6 verses I think are
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really helpful. Jot down this definition.
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You'd like to take notes that loyalty is believing in God's
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words to the point of keeping all of his words.
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It's not just believing in them as a concept.
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It's not just saying like, hey, that's a good book, He was a
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good teacher. It's believing them to the point
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of keeping God's words or another word for that is obeying
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God's words. We believe in God's words to the
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point of keeping all of his words, keeping every single word
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that he has said. John 1415 says this, that if you
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love me, you will keep my commandments.
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Later in that same chapter John writes in verse 21, Whoever has
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my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.
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John 1510 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in
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my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide
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in His love. Keeping God's commands are a big
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deal because God keeps God's commands that there isn't a
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single promise he has overlooked.
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There's not a single command that is undone that everything
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that God says gets done. And Joshua, he is old in his age
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here. Look back at verse one and
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Joshua was old and well advanced in years.
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We learned in the next chapter he's about 110.
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Is that old? Yes.
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Say turn your neighbor and say real old.
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Yeah. I'm not trying to live to 111.
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If I'm 110, right, He's 110. He's like, hey, I'm going to
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tell you guys something obvious right now.
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I am really old and well advanced in years.
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And he's going to get all the leaders like, hey, I want to
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give you like, a deathbed speech right now.
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I want to tell you what I've learned over the course of my
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life. And these are his last words to
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the people of Israel after being their leader for a number of
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years. He's like, hey, here's something
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very important I need to leave you with.
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And so in this farewell speech, here's what he starts with.
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He says, and you have seen all of the Lord your God has done to
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all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who
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has fought for you. What's Joshua saying is that
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loyalty to God, that according to God, loyalty is doing what
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you said you would do, doing what is asked of you.
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Remember, Joshua's a war hero at this point.
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He actually has a good grid for what it looks like to have a
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command and to go obey a command.
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And so God has given him commands and he's done the
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commands. And guess what?
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He's watched God win. He's watched them God fight for
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them. He is basing our definition of
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loyalty off of who God is and how he is defined.
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Loyalty, it's doing. It's not just believing the
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words, it's doing and keeping the words you said The Lord our
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God is loyal to his words. Not even one has been
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overlooked. That every single command God
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gives, no matter how insignificant it might seem, is
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a significant one, no matter how much you might disagree with it,
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is a good one. So loyalty to His words has to
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start with understanding what loyalty is according to God.
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Loyalty to God is not like how many of us follow sports.
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Some of us follow sports, and this is OK in the realm of
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sports, but stick with me here. Loyalty for many of you to
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sports is what I would call a bandwagon sports fan.
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That is not the way I operate with sports.
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I just need you to know that there's no such thing as picking
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A-Team for like a year then jumping to another team like
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you. It's like a wife.
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You get one team per life per sport.
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OK? Like that's how I think about
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sports, that you don't just get to jump.
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There's no bandwagoning. There's a loyalty.
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You have to be in the suffering like when the Bears win the
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Super Bowl one day, hopefully next year when when that
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happens, guess what? I have suffered for the sake of
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the Chicago Bears. I have endured, I have cried.
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I've done all kinds of because that's what a die hard fan would
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do. And I think some of us were like
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here today and we're we're hearing people like talk about
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God and we're and we look at like religious people, like man,
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they are so intense about following Jesus.
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There's so intense about the Bible.
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What if I told you that's actually how it's supposed to
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look like that it's not meant to be a casual fanship.
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It's most meant to be a loyal followership.
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A die hard nature to giving your life to God.
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A fan fits the Bible into their life and a loyal follower gives
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their life to the Bible. If the Bible is just like, it
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just kind of fits into your life, you you might put it in a
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bio on a social media, you might have read it once or twice, but
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it is not the orientation of your life.
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Your life isn't arranged around God's words.
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Listen to me. You're missing the point of why
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it was given to you. It was given to you as a gift,
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so you could know what God has said, you could know who He is,
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you could know what He's done for you, and you could believe
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His promises, just as the Israelites did.
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We cannot treat God's commands as optional to obey.
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We give our life to his words because he's demonstrated that
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his words are good words. They're words for our good.
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They're words for our pleasure, our delight.
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They are good words for you. And so when he says to flee
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sexual immorality, to run from it, to flee from all that he
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calls sexually immoral, that's not overrated.
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When God says do not be drunk, it's not.
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The next time, I'll take it easy.
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Because we're loyal to his words, because we defined what
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his words mean. We define what loyalty means.
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It's keeping his words, what he's asked of us.
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When the Bible says, this one caught me this week.
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Do all things without grumbling and complaining.
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Ouch is right. Ouch is right.
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We define loyalty as God does. We see it as God sees it.
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And guess what? It gives us a heart to keep his
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words. And we won't do this perfectly.
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We will do this progressively. We'll never get to the point
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where we perfectly obey all God's words.
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Thanks be to God for Jesus, who kept every word God has given
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him so that we don't have to keep it perfectly.
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But guess what? We will do it increasingly.
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We will be increasingly loyal to God's words because we've
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defined it as God defines it. We will see like how Joshua did
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that. We could be like verse 6.
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We would be very strong to keep and to do all that is written.
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Now up until this point, the Canon of scripture, the the book
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itself was just Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and
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Deuteronomy. So he's saying, hey, go, go,
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obey all that God has written, but guess what?
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He's written a little bit more for us now and it's closed.
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This is this is the Canon that we have.
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This is what we're intended to follow.
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But maybe this week you would search, you would search and you
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would ask and you go, hey, what is God asking me to do?
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What's the next step of obedience he's asked me to take?
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And I think if you want to be like Jesus, you want to be
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conformed to the image of his Son.
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If you want to be like God in that way, guess what?
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You're going to be a person who's faithful, who's loyal in
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keeping what God has said to do. That's the first thing.
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The second thing, if we're going to be loyal, and this is the big
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point, this is where I think the text is really centering.
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It's the emphasis of what, chapter 23?
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It's this idea that we're going to cling to God's words like our
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life depends upon it. We're going to cling.
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We're not just going to keep and define God's word as God defines
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loyalty. We are going to cling to God's
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words like our very lives depend upon it.
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Like if I were to throw you into the Mission Impossible scenario
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where the clock is ticking and the bomb is going and one of the
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characters is talking you through how to defuse the bomb,
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how would you hang upon every syllable that they said in
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defusing the bomb? Cut the red wire or the green
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wire? Oh, the red wire.
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OK, double checking the red wire.
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Yes, the red wire. OK, we're gonna cut the red wire
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now. That's how serious clinging to
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God's words is. This word that we're going to
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find together in this section of the text.
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This word clinging, it's the idea of gluing your ear to the
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word of God. It's sticky.
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It's Velcro. It's binding.
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Look at what the Bible says in verse 7.
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We're turning aside from it, neither to the right hand or to
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the left, but that you may not mix with these nations,
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underline that. We're going to come back to that
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in a second, remaining among you, or make mention of the
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names of their gods, or swear by them, or serve them, or bow down
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to them. But you shall cling to the Lord
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your God, just as you have done to this day.
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One man of you puts to flight 1000, since it is the Lord your
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God who fights for you, just as he promised you.
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Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God.
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For if you turn back and cling to the remnants of these
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nations, there's that word again remaining among you and make
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marriage with them. So if you associate with them
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and they with, you know for certain that the Lord your God
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will no longer drive out these nations before you, that
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there'll be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides
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and thorns in your eyes until you perish from off this good
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ground that the Lord your God has given you.
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Do you see the situation here? The severity that, that right
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now they're, they are clinging to God.
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So God is fighting for them. But there will be a moment where
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if you are not clinging to God, He stopped fighting for you.
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That in pride you oppose the God of the universe himself.
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And so he's asking us. He's calling us to clinging to
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the very words of God. Clinging is interesting to me.
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It that word cling, It's the same word used in Genesis
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chapter 2 and it says a man shall leave his wife and mother
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and cling to his wife, that he should leave his father and
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mother. Excuse me, I said wife and
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mother. That's weird.
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Father and mother and cling to his wife that it's that same
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word. It's that level of covenant,
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that level of promise, that level of relationship that we're
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clinging to one another. We are clinging to God's words
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like in a marriage and clinging is for a party of 2, not for a
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party of three. We do not mix.
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Do you see that verb in your Bible there?
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Look back at verse 7 that you may not mix with these nations
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that God takes seriously who we marry for this reason, because
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the person that you share a bed with is the person you share the
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most beliefs with. The person you share a bed with
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is the person you're going to raise kids with.
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The person you share a bed with is a big deal to God.
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That is because it's going to inform your perception of who
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God is. And so he doesn't want the
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Israelites to not marry because of they're from another nation
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or anything like that. It's because of their beliefs
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that they're going to worship idols and they're going to make
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them, serve them and bow to them and listen to them and live for
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them. And God knows that that is the
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way of destruction. It'll destroy your life.
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So he says, hey, do not go marry these other nations.
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Do not mix with them like this. He echoes it in the New
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Testament that as a believer, we are not to marry an unbeliever.
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In fact, listen to me, college students and single people in
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the room do not if you are a Christian, do not marry an
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unbeliever that bluntly, I'm going to say it.
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Do not do it. Do not start dating an
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unbeliever. Do not start considering
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marriage an unbeliever that God would call that foolishness.
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They will steer you towards idols, and idols are things they
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get. They're good things that often
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we make God things. And they have ears but can't
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hear you. They have eyes but can't see
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you, hands but can't help you, feet but can't walk with you.
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Why would you turn to them? And if God is a thing you're
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clinging to most in this world, why would you cling to someone
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else who's not going to help you cling to Him?
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Because we need to cling to Him and His words like our lives
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depend upon it. Clinging is for a party 2, not a
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party 3. Clinging is also not weird.
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It's wonderful. Here's what I mean by that
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clinging. I think some of us think of like
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the Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn movie with the stage 5 clinger.
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When we hear that term, we, we think of people who are overly
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attached. We think of people who are like,
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wow, there's they're a clinger. They're sticking to me a little
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too much. They're the, I can't get rid of
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them. They are a little bit too much
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to deal with. Clinging has a bad connotation
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because of over attachment. But listen to me, you can't
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overly attached to God. You can't it's actually
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impossible. He's the best thing for your
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life. The closer you are to him the
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better you are that the nearer you are to him the better your
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life goes. But we can detach from God.
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We call this self-reliance or independence.
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Like, INDEPENDNT, like independent DJ Khaled would be
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the best. Like we think to ourselves, man,
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I would just be better if I wasn't clinging to God, if I had
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no one to cling to. And that's where it gives.
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The third thing, clinging is not optional.
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You are going to cling to something.
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You're like, yeah, I'm not clinging to God like you're
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talking about, Brandon. I'm not, like, married to God in
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this way. I'm not taking him serious
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enough. Sure, but I don't know that I
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have to because I'm not clinging to anything else.
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Incorrect. Look back at the Bible with me,
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verse 8. But you shall cling the Lord
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your God, just as you've done to this day.
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For the Lord your God is driven out before you.
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Great and strong nations. Jump down to verse 12.
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For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations
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remaining among you, and make marriages with them, verse 13,
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know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive
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these nations out from you. What's the text implying here?
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That verb is used again for a reason.
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It wants you to see that clinging is not optional.
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You will cling to the remnant or you will cling to the Redeemer.
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You will cling to something. Your heart was made to worship.
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It was made to attach. And so you will find something
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to attach to. It might be someone or
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something. The something might be status,
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it might be wealth, it might be your work, it might be a
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relationship, it might be something, but you will find
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something to attach to. And God is saying, don't cling
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to that, don't attach to that, don't glue yourself to that.
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It leads you to a place you don't want to go.
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Hurt and heartache, devastation and brokenness.
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The only hope we have is clinging to God and His words.
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That independence from God has a cost.
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So I would just ask you today, like where in your life, because
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you're evaluating your own leadership of your life.
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When you've self LED, you haven't appealed to God's words
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to lead you. You haven't appealed the sound
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counsel to lead you. Like where has that gotten you?
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When you've just listened to your own heart and your own
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mind, has it gotten you to good faces and places?
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My bet is, is that the more you look at your life and the more
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you look at leadership decisions you made for your own life.
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And if you kept that pattern up, it would get you to a bad spot.
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I was listening to comedian talk about this.
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He said, man, I'm a bad leader of my own life.
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I think I'm wise. I think I'm smart.
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And then I make a decision and it blows up in my face.
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That's what independence gets. You cling to the words of God
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like your life depends on it. What do you cling to besides
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Jesus? What is the thing that you cling
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to, that you hold tightly, that you've glued yourself to, that
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you're known for? Part of loyalty to God's words
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is being known as a person who clings to them like our life
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depends on it. So when you are clinging to God
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like your life depends on it, why is it then that you're
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clinging to Him? Search your heart.
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When you do cling to God, it's because a crisis hit.
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Is it because things aren't going your way?
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It's because your comfort got rocked a bit.
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That's a gift from God to help you cling to Him.
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Good preaching and. When you're not clinging to God,
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why not? What is it that you're looking
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for? We need to cling to God's words
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like our life depends on them. Third and finally, Joshua is
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going to help us see that if we don't cling to God's Word,
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there's a warning that if we don't cling to them, if we don't
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keep them, if we abandoned them, we will watch everything fall
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apart. How to be loyal to God's words?
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It's not abandoning them. It's not putting them on the
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shelf. It's not putting them as a part
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of our life, it's giving our life to his words.
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Verse 14 and now about to go the way of all the earth.
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I'm 110. I'm a geezer.
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I'm ready to die. And you know in your hearts and
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souls, all of you, that not one word has failed.
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Of all the good things that the Lord your God has promised
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concerning you, not even 1.1 drop one iota.
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Not a single promise of God has failed the Israelites.
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He's wiped out and given them the good ground He promised
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them. He's beaten walls and warriors.
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There's nothing that can stand against him.
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Not one of the promises of God has failed concerning you.
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All have come to pass for you. Not one of them has failed.
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But just look at verse 15. Just as all the good things that
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the Lord God has promised concerning you have been
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fulfilled, watch this, so the Lord will bring upon you all the
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evil things until He has destroyed you from off this good
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land of the Lord God has given you.
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If here's the condition, if you transgress the covenant of the
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Lord your God which commanded you, and serve other gods and
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bow down to them. Then God's anger will.
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Be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from off
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the good land that He has given to you.
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This too. Is a promise from God.
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A sobering. 1A Heavy one, but a real one.
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It would be unloving of me to not tell you about this other
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promise that if we transgress, if we sin against God, guess
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what? Destruction would come, death
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would come, the anger of God against sin, the justice of God
26:57
against sin would come. But listen to me.
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The love of God has revealed something better.
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Joshua's in the front of your Bible because it's foreshadowing
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for us, the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, that Jesus name,
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Yeshua. It's it's another version of the
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name Joshua. And so this chapter is saying,
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Hey, here's the what of his warning.
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We need to keep God's words the where of his warning?
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Like where do we need to keep God's words everywhere.
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Why do we need to keep God's words?
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Because we're going to cling to God's words always.
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We're going to cling to something else and we cling to
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something else. It's going to lead us to a place
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we don't want to go. And if we are clinging to God
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everywhere, keeping his words, then when do we need to do that?
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He's saying right now. Because he has a who?
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For this morning in mind, and it's you and me.
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That if we abandoned. God's words we will watch
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everything fall apart. The next book in your Bible is a
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book called Judges. And judges.
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Chapter 2, verse 10, Here's the next generation.
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Here's what it says. And there arose another
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generation who heard this speech from Joshua after them, who did
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not know the Lord or the work that He had done for Israel.
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That it can go that. Quick that this generation can
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know God, and the next generation can miss the mark
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entirely. They don't even know who God is.
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It can happen that quick. And the reason that happens is
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because our loyalty to God's words can come to an abrupt halt
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in our life. We can stop being loyal in an
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instant. We can abandoned them.
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And watch everything fall apart. The book of Judges is a warning
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for all of us, saying, hey, if you abandoned God's word, here's
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what's going to happen. Everyone's going to do what's
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right in their own eyes. Meaning there is.
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No definition of truth, there's no definition of justice,
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there's no definition of right and wrong.
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There's just anarchy and chaos. Sounds a little bit like 2026 in
29:02
some ways. That's what's going to happen.
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If we don't keep God's words, it's going to happen for our
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kids in the world that we're building for them.
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If we do not bow to the Word, if we abandoned God's words for
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other words, listen to me, that's what's going to happen.
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And I don't want that. World I don't want to raise my
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kids in a world that where people bow to the world instead
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of the word. That that's actually who?
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We are as a church family that we are a people.
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Guess what that went? That's why we're bold with the
29:36
Bible is that when the Word and the world disagree, I'm going to
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pick what the Bible says. I will not abandon what God has
29:45
said. You will not abandon what God
29:47
has said. Why?
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Because we're people who are loyal to God's words.
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We're going to explore them. We're going to devour them.
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We're going to eat them. We're going to chew on them.
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We are going to read them and learn them and know them.
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We are going to have people who grow in God's Word together.
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We won't abandoned. This book ever.
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And if we do, permission to fire me?
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It's just the way. Of how God wants us to live our
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lives. Depend upon it.
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What I think is interesting. Here in the text, is it, like I
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said, it is foreshadowing Jesus Christ and Joshua.
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Here he's saying he's on his deathbed and he's exhibiting
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loyalty to God's Word so that we could understand that Jesus was
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loyal onto his deathbed as well. Don't you see the wonder of it?
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Jesus's loyalty to God's words never faltered.
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It never failed. His righteousness actually paid
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for all the times we're going to be disloyal to God's words.
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You aren't going to keep God's words perfectly.
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You are going to struggle, you are going to sin, you are going
30:50
to suffer. You are going to experience all
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that the fallen world has to give.
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But guess what? You have a Saviour who is loyal
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to God perfectly. You have a Christ, you have a
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Messiah. You have.
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Good news is that you don't have to be perfectly loyal to God's
31:02
words because there was somebody who was for you and he went to
31:04
your place on a cross to die for your sins.
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He rose again, conquering sin and death forever, all so that
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you could be counted loyal before God.
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That even the most disloyal among us, the ones who have
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sinned the most and been disloyal the most to God, listen
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to me. You could be called.
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Loyal. Not because of anything.
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You've done, but because of what he's done.
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His. Deathbed was not the end.
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He's not dead. He's alive.
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He kept his word again, and on the third day he was raised
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according to the scriptures. And right now he is ruling and
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reigning and calling to many of you right now, saying, guess
31:45
what? Come be loyal to me.
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Come be loyal to my words. Come, cling to them.
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Come keep them. Come do them.
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Because that is the hope of every single human heart.
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God is calling you. Today he's drawing you in and
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he's saying, listen to me, cling to me.
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Stop clinging to your work, Stop clinging to your status.
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Stop clinging to the words of that podcast and start clinging
32:06
to my book. Be known as.
32:12
Being loyal to that above all else, that's one of the best
32:15
reputations you can have, is a person who is loyal to God's
32:21
words. That people can guess.
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What you're going to think about things.
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Why? Because they know you're loyal
32:27
to the book. That you've pledged.
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Allegiance to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords that you
32:33
committed your way to Christ. You cling to Christ above all
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else. And that means you won't.
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Abandoned them because he won't abandoned you.
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Immanuel Kant, the philosopher, says this, that the existence of
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the Bible as a book for the people is the greatest benefit
32:56
which the human race has ever experienced.
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Every attempt to belittle it is a crime against humanity.
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Don't belittle your. Bible, pray and ask God for you
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to crave it. To be faithful.
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To it to. Find areas where you're.
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Not obeying and keeping it, He'll show you.
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My pastor growing up. He would say often when he'd get
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into the pulpit, he'd say this is my Bible.
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I am who it says I am, I can do what it says I can do, and I am
33:36
going where it says I'm going to go.
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This is my Bible. This is my.
33:43
Bible, Why don't you? Actually, why don't you grab
33:45
your Bibles? Whether it's on a phone or on a
33:46
Bible, let's say it together, This is my Bible.
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I am who it says I am. I can do what it says I can do.
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I'm going where? It says I'll go.
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Let's be loyal to it. Let's pray, Lord, thank you for
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your book. Thank you that it's a book for
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us, that it isn't just for us for now, but God is your words
34:10
that are enduring forever. Then in Psalm 1. 19 You say that
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the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul that the
34:17
testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple, but the
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precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart, the
34:26
commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes that the
34:30
fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever, that the rules
34:34
of the Lord are true and righteous.
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Altogether more to be desired are God's words than gold, even
34:40
much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the drippings of
34:44
the honeycomb. Moreover, by them your servant
34:46
is warned, and keeping them there is great reward.
34:52
Who can discern their own heirs? God, declare us innocent from
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our hidden faults. Keep us back from presumptuous
35:00
sins. Let them not have dominion over
35:02
us anymore. Then we shall be blameless and
35:04
innocent of great transgression. Let the words of our mouth and
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the meditation of our heart be acceptable in your sight, O
35:11
Lord, my rock and Redeemer. God, will we believe in God's
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words like that? That if somebody were to offer
35:17
us a pile of gold or a pot or a pile of Bibles, we take the
35:20
Bible because we believe in the value in the treasure of it.
35:23
It would be the thing we cling to, our security and our rest
35:28
and our joy wouldn't be in our bank accounts or our follower
35:31
counts, but it would be in the reality that there's a God who
35:35
has spoken and that he has been loyal to us.
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He has been faithful to us to give us a book where we can know
35:40
Him and love him and cherish him.
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God, would you be our treasure. And would your words.
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Not just collect dust on our bookshelf, but would we actually
35:55
cling to them? Like a rock.
36:00
Climber climbing the side of a wall, free soloing.
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Would we hold them fast? Hold them strong?
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God. Would you hold?
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Us in the meantime. Until that day when we're.
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Made perfect and perfectly loyal.
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We'll be faithful. We'll be loyal because you're
36:20
worth it. So God help us to not just
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believe that these are your words.
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But would we keep them? In Jesus name, Amen.