Can you praise God even when life is hard?

In Psalm 100, God's people are called to "make a joyful noise" and serve Him with gladness. Dr. Toby Holt shows that real joy rests not on our circumstances but on who God is.

The psalm calls for loud, glad worship. Its center is verse 3: "It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves." We are His people and the sheep of His pasture, coming to Him through relationship, not self-effort. Because the Lord is good, His mercy everlasting, His people can praise Him even in hardship.

Questions this study answers:

1. Why does the psalm call us to worship with gladness? Because God is good and worthy. Joyful worship is the fitting response to who He is, not to how easy life is.

2. How can gratitude change our perspective in trials? It lifts our eyes from our circumstances to God's unchanging goodness. Thanksgiving steadies the heart when life is hard.

3. What does it mean to "enter His gates with thanksgiving"? Coming to God through a real relationship with Him, with hearts full of gratitude. He is the one door to His presence. "Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture." — Psalm 100:3 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

Shortly after the end of World War I, there was a Lutheran minister, as the story goes.

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His name was Pastor Schweitzer.

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He was sent to a prison camp in an area of Russia called Murmansk.

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The region, as you would expect, was cold.

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The region was miserable.

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It was not a place that you would want to go.

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It was where men were sent to die.

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Now, Pastor Schweitzer, he was a good and faithful, devout believer.

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And in the midst of terrible circumstances, in the midst of circumstances that didn't

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look better tomorrow than they were in the present,

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in the midst of circumstances that were undesirable, in the midst of circumstances he did not want,

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this man, this man stayed excited. He stayed passionate, and folks didn't understand why.

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His fellow captors certainly didn't understand why, or excuse me, his captives, and his captors

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didn't either. Now, one of the ways that Pastor Schweitzer demonstrated something that was going

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on inside, some faith he had that perhaps the other men didn't, one of the ways he demonstrated

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this faith was through singing. He evidently could sing, as we've said, I cannot, but he evidently

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could sing well, and so he sang. He sang, and the folks listened, and throughout this cold, fairly

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quiet region, his voice could oftentimes be heard, giving hope to men no matter where they were on

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this campsite. Now in time, he was having such an effect that those who ran the camp said, well, we

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can't have this, and so they determined to do something about it. They warned Pastor Schweitzer,

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they said you're done no more of the singing and one night he would not stop he continued to sing

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into the evening and the commandant the captain of the prison they sent men to take pastor schweitzer

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drag him out into the cold into the snow and there while he was standing they poured cold

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water on him and it had the net effect of freezing pastor schweitzer to death

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but he died singing that final image of that final sound is what the people remembered

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The song on his lips ultimately was extinguished.

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The song on his heart was not.

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Now, there's a lot we could learn, a lot of lessons we could pick up from Pastor Schweitzer.

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But one of them, at least a key one that stands out to me, is this.

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Our circumstances are not the source of our joy.

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Our circumstances, if you write nothing else down, write that down.

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Our circumstances are not the source of our joy.

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Now, we are trained to think that they are.

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You get home, someone says, well, how was your day?

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Well, I had a good day or a bad day or what have you.

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And the thinking is how your day went, how your circumstances were,

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is the net effect of how you're doing that day.

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Well, Pastor Schweitzer had a lot of bad days.

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And yet his circumstances, his scenario, his situation was not the foundation

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of his happiness, his contentment, and his fulfillment in life.

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And it made all the difference.

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So many of us, we get a bad diagnosis.

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something happens financially. There's a pandemic raging around us. All of that becomes our focus.

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All of that. Someone asks, how are you doing? You say, well, I'm not doing so well because of all

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that. And there are times when those things rail against us. The Psalms, there's also Psalms of

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lament. So to be frank, to be honest, there are times when the world comes at our door and it's

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not fun and it's not easy. And yet at the end of the day, in the still of the night, our contentment,

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At least our hope for the future is not vested in what's going on in the moment.

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Because our future has been secured by one greater than ourselves.

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You know, Pastor Schweitzer's just one example.

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If you read Fox's Book of Martyrs, you look back, men and women across the history of the church,

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there have been a lot of occasions when good, faithful men and women have gone to their death singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

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How? How can you have a song in your heart in the face of the sword?

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How can you have a song in your heart when you have cancer?

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I can have a song in your heart when you've lost your job.

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Perhaps when you've lost a loved one.

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Well, again, here's the thing.

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It depends on whether you think you have a future beyond those losses.

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And through Jesus Christ, we do.

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The author of Psalm 100 was not just some giddy Pollyanna

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that went around with a smile tattooed to his face.

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He knew hardship, like you know hardship.

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And yet he got to the place in his faith and his understanding of God

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where he could write these words in the midst of that hardship.

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The psalmist knew he had a good future.

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He knew in whose arms he was held.

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And because of that, he had joy, thanksgiving in his heart.

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Let's consider all that now.

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Let's look at verses 1 and 2 of our text, and let's work our way forward.

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Verse 1.

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Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lambs.

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Serve the Lord with gladness.

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Come before his presence with singing.

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You know, if we're being honest, sometimes coming to the presence with singing,

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whether we're good singers, bad singers, everything in between,

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sometimes it's not easy.

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Sometimes coming to worship God can feel difficult.

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If we're honest enough, sometimes we want church or we go to church

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or we get involved with church because of the tangible benefits.

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There's people there that might be nice to us.

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We can be nice to them.

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There's relationships our children might be engaged in.

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Maybe we like to sing.

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Maybe we like the different functions and programs of the church and things like that.

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Sometimes we get into church for all these tangible benefits, but the primary reason why I

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hope you're here this morning is to glorify the one who has made you. Now, for some of us, again,

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that doesn't come easy. Worship, praise, adoration, all that, we understand those words functionally.

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We understand that that's what holy people are supposed to do, but for some of us, it isn't so

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easy to come in and worship someone who's bigger than us. Now, why is that? Well, there's more

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reasons that we have time to count, but one of the reasons, one of the reasons I think it's difficult

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sometimes for us to worship God is this. It's because of something I call spiritual proximity.

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Spiritual proximity. What do we mean by that? If I told you that right now on the other end of the

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globe that there was a beautiful sunset going on right now in, say, Burma, a beautiful sunset's

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going to Burma, would you care? Probably not. Why? Why would you not care? Well, the primary reason

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is this, because you're not in Burma. You're nowhere near Burma. You can't witness these

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things. You can't see it for your own sake. You could just nod your head and go, okay, that's

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great and that's fine. Conversely, let's pretend. Let's pretend these clouds burn off tonight or

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today. Let's pretend this evening. You look out across the gulf, perhaps, if you're close to it.

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the sun is setting off towards the west and it's looking gorgeous and beautiful and there's

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different colors what might you do well i know what i do i look and stand and i say hey hon

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kids come here take a look at this we're all prone you see something so beautiful so amazing

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so so wonderful you look at that and you look that is awesome you got to come see this this

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is amazing look at the colors you bring people near to praise the object you're pointing to

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to praise. Look at this canvas. Look at this canvas. Now, what's the difference between praising

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that which is close and not caring at all about the sunset in Burma right now? Well, the difference

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is this, spiritual proximity. That which you are close to is easy to praise. That which you can

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witness and apprehend with your own senses, it's easy to praise that. If you have trouble praising

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God, one of the reasons, one of the reasons may be this, you're not that close to him.

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As long as it's God in the abstract, God's somewhere out there, of course worship is hard.

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As long as it's God just somewhere far on the horizon or past the horizon,

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as long as it's God far and not God near, worship, praise, all this stuff, it's going to be academic to you.

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It's not going to seem easy, and you're not going to have a lot of enthusiasm for it.

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You might still come to church. Here's the great irony.

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You might still come to church because of all the other reasons.

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But the main reason, nah.

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You kind of sit through and nod your head.

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Joyful noise, joyful noise.

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Worship praise.

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Make a joyful shout to the Lord all you lands.

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Verse 1 says, serve the Lord with gladness.

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Come before his presence with singing.

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Let me offer another side note.

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You know, somewhere back in the early church, throughout the medieval years,

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people began to associate worship with quietness, worship with quietness. In other words, at some

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point, the medieval church, the church concluded that being silent was a sign of great piety,

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a sign of great piety. In fact, there was a pope in the fifth century, his name was Theophilus,

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and he said this, he said, monks will love silence and the Catholic faith for nothing at all is more

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important than these two things. The Pope was suggesting at this time that silence, faith go

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hand in hand, and there's whole monastic sects back then and in the present that continue to

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believe that this is true. With that said, it's hard to reconcile, if we look at verses one and

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two of today's passage, it's hard to reconcile a dedication to silence with Psalm 100's call to

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make a joyful noise, to make a joyful noise. When you think of the angels in heaven right now, what

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do you think that they're doing? They're singing. They're singing, they're excited, they're joyful.

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You know, sometimes you think of the corridors of heaven, you think this is a place where a

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pin can drop and you can hear it and the like, and there's all this undue solemnity and the like.

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Well, I tell you, there is great piety and there is great reverence, and yet heaven is not a library.

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There isn't people going, shh, in the corridors of heaven right now. That's not the way that it

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works. This isn't just conjecture here. It could be, but it's not. Scripture tells us that the

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angels are often loud, often loud. The Apostle John, remember the book of Revelation? He's granted

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this vision into heaven, right? So he got to see how it works. He got to see how it looks. And

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several times, the Apostle John noted that the angels were loud, that they were excited, they

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were passionate. I'll just read one of these. I think it's in Revelation 6. He described their

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praise and adoration of God. He described what they were doing, and he said, it sounded like

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thunder in my ears. He said, I heard the voice of the great multitude, the sound of many waters,

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the sound of a mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigns.

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Whenever the heavenly host gathers to worship, whenever they gather to worship,

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whenever they're in the presence of God, they're not indifferent. They don't just shrug their

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shoulder and say, all right, time for church again. Time to worship again in this garden and just do

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their thing. No. They're genuinely passionate. The angels are genuinely excited about what they do.

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Remember when they appear to the shepherds at night and the heavens are rent open and this

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great multitude declares glory to God and to men peace and goodwill on earth. Remember how excited

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and passionate the whole multitude does this, the heavenly host, their voices booming. Angels are

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excited. Now, how can they be excited but sometimes you and I aren't? Spiritual proximity. Quite

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honestly, they're closer. They're in God's presence. The closer you and I get to the presence of God,

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the more excited we'll be. And if for us or our children, if for us or for our children,

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grand folks, whoever it is, if for us we're not really that excited about it, again, the problem

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most likely is that we're not that close to the one we're worshiping. Are there ways to change

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that? Yes. But like good physicians, we have to figure out what the problem is, and I would submit

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to you that that may be it. Now, what do we have to be excited about? What do we have to shout about?

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How much time do you got? We got a lot to be excited about. We got a lot to be excited about.

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We got a lot to be passionate about. We got more to be excited about than you have time to write

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it down, if you had a pen and all the paper in the world to write it. We've got a lot to be excited

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about. Some of that which we have to be excited about is to our right, to our left this morning.

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some of it is the way that God has blessed us,

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and some of it is the one who has done the blessing.

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And we can be excited because we know that this one who loves us,

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this one who has blessed us, this one who watches over us,

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this one who has made us, the one who has formed us,

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the one who has given us every good thing,

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has also given us promise for tomorrow,

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that his love for us won't change, even if we do.

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There's a good chance.

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I've spent enough time around people.

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I have children, so I know this to be true.

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There's a chance tomorrow you might behave in ways that you would rather not.

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There's a chance you might do something that you ought not do.

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There's a chance this week won't be your best week.

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And yet, God's love for you won't change.

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When or if that happens.

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Why?

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Because God is faithful even when we are faithless.

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You cannot jump out of His arms.

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You can't jump out of His hands.

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Remember Jesus said, all the Father has given me, I will lose none.

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And that's in part because He holds us tight.

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You cannot jump out of God's hands.

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And what's more, no one can rip you from God's hands.

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If you're not excited about that, check your pulse.

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There's a lot out these doors that can harm you.

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Absolutely.

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There's a lot that can kill you.

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Absolutely.

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But there's nothing that can take you away from God.

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There's nothing that can extinguish the flame of faith in your heart.

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Remember the Apostle Paul?

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Now, this was a guy who was just, he was beat up by this world.

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If you just open the shirt back of Paul, you'd see the stripes that have been laid there.

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This guy was beaten.

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He was shipwrecked, he was scarred, he was imprisoned.

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All manner of things and people and circumstances

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sought to extinguish the faith in his heart.

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It could not happen.

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Could not, would not happen.

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Paul said this, he says,

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I'm convinced neither death nor life nor angels

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nor principalities nor powers nor things present

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nor things to come nor height nor depth

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nor any created thing

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shall be able to separate me from the love of God

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which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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If you live long enough, you'll live to see a great deal of loss.

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Health, family, friends.

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If you live long enough, you'll outlive most of the things that you love now

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and most of the people in your life.

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If you live long enough.

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And because that's true, because that's just reality,

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because that's true, man, your joy, your contentment

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better be vested in something that transcends all that which you will lose.

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it better be vested on high.

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We're glad not just in what we find in the created realm.

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We're glad in what we see when we look to the face of our creator.

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That's where our hope is.

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Let's look at verse 3 of our text.

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Verse 3.

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Know that the Lord, He is God.

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Know that the Lord, He is God.

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It is He who has made us, not we ourselves.

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We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

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You know, in old timey days, in Old Testament times,

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there was a lot of pagan gods and deities and the like.

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They had gods for just about everything.

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Remember back then, back in the days of yore,

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they had gods that were gods of local jurisdictions

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or gods of certain things.

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You could have a god of the rain and the winds and the stars and the skies.

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You could have a god of the frogs and the cotton candy

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and just about every other god you can imagine.

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And depending on your needs on a given day,

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Depending on your needs, you would worship the God who was most relevant to your needs.

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Well, in verse 3, the psalmist cuts through all of that.

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He says, know this, know that the Lord, the Lord, He is God.

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Not God plural, not God part of a pantheon.

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He is God singular.

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Now, the author then goes on to suggest that this God, this God, has made us.

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We didn't make ourselves.

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Now, that sounds intuitive.

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That sounds intuitive.

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If God exists, which he does, and he's the creator, we are the created, and that's just part of that equation.

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Creation itself is always a function, a prerogative of a creator.

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With that said, sometimes we get this topsy-turvy, even this basic stuff.

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He is God, he has made us, not we ourselves.

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Sometimes we even can flip that on our head.

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Even we in Christian circles, who don't subscribe to a lot of other principles, can flip this on our head.

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Now, what do I mean?

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Well, have you ever heard someone referred to as a self-made man?

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Have you ever aspired to be a self-made man?

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The phrase doesn't mean that man created, literally formed his own DNA,

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but it does suggest that man, man himself, is the captain of man's own fate.

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That man himself shapes his own circumstances, his own future, and the like.

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A self-made man, if he truly sees himself that way, then when he dies,

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Whatever level of success he's attained, he owes it in his mind.

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He owes it to his own initiative for attaining it.

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That's what a self-made man does.

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But conversely, verse 3 reminds us.

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Not only did God make us, not we ourselves.

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But then it says something that really should be humbling if we have ears to hear it.

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It says that we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

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I have never known a self-made man.

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I have never known a titan of industry.

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to put on his LinkedIn profile, I am a sheep.

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Why not?

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We don't think of ourselves that way.

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Even in church settings, sometimes we don't think of ourselves that way.

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Of all the things that God can call us, children of God, sons and daughters of God,

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sometimes the word sheep rankles us because we've seen sheep.

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Sheep are not the swiftest creatures in the face of the earth,

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whether it's in speed or intellect.

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We were up in Wyoming.

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We had an opportunity.

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There was a family in our church that we would house sit, and guess what?

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They had sheep.

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This was my first time to encounter, to actually watch sheep up close.

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You'd watch the sheep.

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Man, they couldn't figure out what time of day it was.

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They didn't know what they were doing.

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They were stumbling around, following around themselves.

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They were dirty.

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They had their own filth kind of caked to them.

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You had to do everything for the sheep.

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You had to make every provision for the sheep.

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They couldn't do it on their own.

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When God says we're sheep of his pasture,

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for the humble man or the not-so-humble man, there's a lesson in this.

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We don't usually like that term to describe ourselves.

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Pride keeps us from doing it, and yet at the same time as God calls us sheep, he also establishes

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himself as a shepherd, and he says that yes, there are times when we are wayward, when we are given

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to wandering. There's times when we can't figure out our left hand from our right hand. There's

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times when we're just flat out stupid. We do things we ought not do, but even as that is true,

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we have a shepherd who watches over us. This week, this month, this year, you may well stumble into

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the things you ought not stumble into.

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And yet, even when you do so, the shepherd doesn't give up on you.

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Shepherds have crooks and staffs.

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They have different purposes.

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But one of their objects is to rein in, sometimes discipline, but rein in the sheep.

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Keep the sheep from straying into danger.

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If a wolf comes, the shepherd jumps in front, intercedes for the sheep.

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You know the dangers outside these doors.

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You know the dangers in our own hearts.

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We need this.

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We need a shepherd.

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And if it hurts our pride, recognize it.

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Good.

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Our pride needs to be hurt in order to understand the right relationship we have with our Creator.

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We need a shepherd.

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And the good news is we have one in Christ.

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Let's look at verse 4.

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Verse 4.

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Enter into His gates with thanksgiving.

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Enter into His courts with praise.

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Be thankful to Him.

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Bless His name.

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Enter His gates with thanksgiving.

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Enter His courts with praise.

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You know, our world has a lot of mansions, palaces, castles, things along these lines.

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Places where the high and mighty live.

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Now, chances are, chances are, if you see one of these things up on the hillside, a palatial estate,

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chances are that if you try to just walk in to one of these estates,

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If you try to make yourself at home with all the finery, you'll find yourself marked as an intruder.

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You will be asked to leave or compelled to leave.

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Now, why is that?

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Why can't you just walk into any palatial estate you see and just make yourself at home?

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Why can't you?

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Well, the reason is simple.

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You don't have a relationship with the one who lives there.

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You don't have a relationship with the one who owns that estate.

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They will consider you an intruder if you just waltz on in.

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When you don't have a relationship with he or she who owns this estate, the door remains shut.

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Conversely, conversely, there is a heavenly estate that is better by far.

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There is a heavenly estate filled with many mansions.

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A heavenly estate filled with many mansions in which you are invited to walk right in.

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To make yourself at home.

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Because this is true, we have something to be thankful for.

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Enter into his gates with thanksgiving.

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man alive there was a time when those gates were shut to you and i but through the personal work

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of jesus christ those doors have been flung open the veil has been ripped in two you and i are

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invited in to a place where the angels are careful and treading you and i are invited right in the

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life gates have been opened wide we are to enter in with praise but again we need to have a

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relationship with the one who lives there. I want to linger on that because that's critical. If you

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want to enter in, if you desire to enter in, if all that sounds good, if a place with streets of gold

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and all that stuff sounds good to you, and you want to enter into that kingdom, you want to enter

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into that heavenly estate, you have to have a relationship with the one who lives there. You

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have to have relationship with this king of this kingdom. In fact, Jesus said the same thing in

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John 10. He said this. He says, those of you who want to enter in, listen up. He says, I am the

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means by which that will happen. I am the door. I am the door. There's not another door to the left

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or to the right. There's not another means you can enter in. I am the door. If anyone enters by me,

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he will be saved. And listen to this. He will go in and out and find pasture.

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Have you ever heard of the term party crasher, wedding crasher? I've done a number of weddings.

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I don't want to see any wedding crashers.

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Those who tried to crash the wedding supper of the Lamb,

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they're not going to make it past the door.

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They'll hear those dreadful words, depart from me, I never knew you.

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You see, it's about a relationship.

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To enter into that kingdom, you have to have a relationship with the King.

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Many in our world think you can enter into that kingdom

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without a relationship with the King.

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And because they don't have such a relationship,

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they will hear words that describe that lack of relationship.

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Depart from me, for I never knew you.

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Depart from me, for I never knew you.

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If you don't have such a relationship today,

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you have a problem.

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You have a problem.

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But the good news is there is a solution.

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The king himself bids you welcome.

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The king himself is extending his hand, his arm, even now

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through the personal work of Jesus Christ.

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When we lay hold of that one,

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when we lay hold of his hand,

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as we apprehend him through faith,

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that is the means of our salvation.

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There are no steps you can climb on your bloody kneecaps

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to get into the kingdom on the basis of your own works

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or your own virtue.

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Can't happen, won't happen.

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But through the personal work of Jesus Christ,

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it is possible.

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And this should make us excited.

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Let's look at our final verse now, verse 5.

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Verse 5, for the Lord is good.

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His mercy is everlasting.

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His truth endures to all generations.

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You know, I said earlier, I think it was in our prayer this morning,

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the pagan gods, I'm always fascinated to at least study academically the pagan gods

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and to see how terrible they were.

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Man alive, who thought that worshiping Molech was a good idea?

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Who thought that the gods of human sacrifice,

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the Aztecs and like was a good idea. Why did anyone say that's the God for me? I look at these

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gods of antiquity, the Baals and the Asherahs and the like, the Zeus's and Apollo's and Atlas and

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all these things. And I say, oh my goodness, these gods are dreadful. These gods are unpleasant.

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These gods are fickle too. Even if one of those gods of antiquity, theoretically, let's say you

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could make one of them happy. Well, happiness was only for a season. Happiness only lasted

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momentarily. You've heard the Greek gods. You've watched Clash of the Titans or something like

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that. You know how the Greek gods work. The Greek gods could change on a dime. They were up there

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gambling in heaven over how the people would interact. They were fickle. One minute a god

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could exalt you. The next minute you could be his human piñata. That's the way the gods of

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antiquity work. But against that, over and against that, verse 5 says that the Lord, the Lord, the

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real God, the true God, the creator himself, he is good. His mercy is everlasting. His truth

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endures all generations. He will not change tomorrow. He will not change tomorrow. And one

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of the reasons we can be joyful as believers is not only because our God is strong. Yes,

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he's strong, but he's also good and merciful. No one anywhere has ever written a book called

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Zeus the merciful. No one will. But our God, the Jehovah God, the God of Scripture, he is regularly

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depicted in this way. And because of that, again, we have something to be excited about.

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Let me look to wrap up here. You know, outside these doors, there's a storm brewing in the week

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ahead. The irony is when I first made that note to myself, it was before there was an actual storm

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that started up in the gulf again how many of these do we get here seems like a meeting all

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the time there's another one apparently coming out here so when i wrote these words i didn't

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know there was an actual storm but the reality is whether it's actual or figurative or what have you

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there's something on your radar on your horizon that you don't want be it's whatever what's the

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name of the storm coming up here doug zeta so here whatever storm zeta whatever it might be cancer

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job loss economic hardships whatever the storm is however it's named however it's defined there

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There are things out there that will seek to overcome you.

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There are things out there that will seek to overcome you to extinguish your faith.

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To extinguish you.

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To extinguish your eternal hope.

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This morning, with a real or figurative storm coming in, let me ask you, what are you anchored to?

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When that storm hits, because it will, real, figurative, both, whatever the case is, when that storm hits, what is your anchor?

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What is your anchor?

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If your anchor is no stronger than you are, you're in trouble.

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What is your anchor this morning?

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This morning, let me encourage you.

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Your house needs to be founded on a rock.

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Your house needs to be founded on the rock.

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And if it is, you have something to rejoice over because the winds may come,

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the storm may beat down, and yet the house will stand.

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Why?

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Because it's founded on the rock.

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When you face storms or Goliaths or whatever else may be on your horizon,

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you know, the right man is on your side.

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The one we know as King Jesus.

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And this king will not leave you to fend for yourself.

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This king will not leave you to fend for yourself.

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He will not forsake you in your hour of pain and in grief.

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He will uphold you with his righteous right hand.

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That's who he is and that's what he does.

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And that is ample reason to shout this morning.

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That's ample reason to sing.

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Let's pray and then let's do so.