well hey everybody man I want to welcome you to Highlands this weekend thanks so much for being with us those of you that
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watch on TV and online and all of our in-person locations so grateful for you
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guys in Bluefield so faithful and marrying and down in Bristol and here in
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our Avenue location out in country and chapel and Cafe so wherever you watch uh
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we're just so grateful that you would be willing to allow us to speak to you and hopefully encourage you and we started a
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new series last week that'll sort of take us through the summer through the book of Psalms and we looked at Psalm
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23. now this week um it's going to be a little deeper this
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is a message I've had the opportunity to think about for a couple of months and I want to go back to a tragic time in our
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nation April 16 2007 most of us remember that date and we know where we were on
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that date when we heard the awful news that a shooter had opened fire on the
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campus at Virginia Tech and 32 people had been killed 17 injured and if you
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remember that season because we have so many Hokies from our church pastor Tyler
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was actually a student there during that day and he had classes in Norse Hall
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that afternoon so you know for him it has a special memory and I had two great
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friends they're still tremendous friends of mine colleagues Tommy mcdermus's Pastor up there a First Baptist Church
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in Blacksburg and then Jim Pace who actually pastored a church on the campus
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of Virginia Tech and we reached out immediately to those guys what do you need how can we help
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you and my respect for them during that crisis only grew of how they handled the
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ministry of Jesus to those families to First Responders to their Community
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it was a life-changing day Jim later Jim Pace had lots of time to
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think about what had happened that day all the things of the aftermath as he continued to minister people and still
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to this day continues to minister people and several years ago he wrote a book and the title of the book from his time
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of reflection was called should we fire god it's still available I would
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recommend it to you it's a great read and basically he came to the census of
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all the questions that people had during this season a tragedy that God had let
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them down and how in the world could a God who loves us allow some kind of
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tragedy of the immensity that happened on the campus that they all loved
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and so after a lot of time to think and pray and and consider it he wrote this
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book and the conclusion that he came to was basically we fire people that we
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don't trust if you think about it that's the reason we get fired your trust has been
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validated and we fire you and so because trust had
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been validated in so many people's minds with God the title should we fire god
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I want to talk to you about that because I think Psalms has an answer for us that
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can help get us through even such Seasons as that and I want to look at this uh this idea of trust how much can
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you trust a person that's a great question it's one that we should all ask ourselves
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how much truly can we trust another person how much can we trust God
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you can only trust a person to the degree that you know that person we
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don't trust people we don't know so it's obvious then that the more you know God
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the easier it would be for you to trust him in order for you to trust somebody
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and to have a relationship or friendship you have to have three things in that
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relationship I mean think about this in your marriage your best friends you you have to know that the person that you
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trust has to tell you the truth they got to be willing to tell you the truth they have to do secondly the right thing they
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got to be fair do what's right and then thirdly I think they have to be reliable or Dependable in order to
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develop a relationship of trust so that brings me to the verse that I
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want to look at today of course we'll look at some other verses in Psalms but I want to look at this one Psalm chapter 33 this is like God sort of brought this
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to me a couple of months ago while I was studying one morning and these three characteristics that actually build
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trust in relationship are found in this verse this is what verse 4 says for the word of the Lord is right and
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true he is faithful in all he does that causes us to ask is there anything
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God can't do you know I mean if if he's uh has all these attributes and he's
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omnipresent and omniscient is there anything that he can't do well yeah there are some things that God can't do
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and you've answered this before God cannot do wrong God's not going to sin Bible says he's just he always does
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right so secondly God can't lie God always tells the truth he is Holy the
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Bible says and the third thing that is really where I want to Anchor in today is God cannot break a promise
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that he makes to us he's never broken a promise What God Says he does
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and the Bible calls that his faithfulness his faithfulness
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and I think if we can learn to grasp these three characteristics of God that
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God is Holy that God is just that he is faithful then you'll have no problem trusting God
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even when you find yourself in situations that you don't understand
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that make no sense whatsoever that are the difficult seasons in your
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life and you don't understand why you've been put in that situation you know understand why this situation has
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happened to you you don't understand why you're having to deal with it and you don't understand why it hasn't worked
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out you got to go back to this idea of the characteristics of God if you're a
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Believer he's holy he's just and he's faithful now if you study the Bible you know that
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God's faithfulness is demonstrated all throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament but without a doubt his
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faithfulness shines through over the nation of Israel he continually made promises to the nation of Israel
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and God fulfilled them I love what he says in Joshua 21
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um I think it's verse 45 he says not one of all the Lord's good Promises to the
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house of Israel failed not one everyone was fulfilled so to Israel
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think about this guys faithfulness was one of the most important
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characteristics and qualities of God that the Israelites knew their God was a
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faithful God that he does what he says he will do he made all kinds of promises
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to the nation of Israel I mean he promised Abraham a son up spoke on that
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a few weeks ago he promised the Israelites a land of their own he
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promised the Messiah to them he promised Harvest blessing protection he promised
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deliverance from Egypt he promised restoration after captivity all throughout the Old Testament God made
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promises over and over and over to Israel and notice God's track record not
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one of those promises failed 100 accuracy God proved himself reliable
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Time After Time After Time Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 9 Moses says he is he is
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the faithful God keeping his Covenant Hebrew word their promise to a thousand Generations you
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know in the last four thousand years uh I love Israel I've been there a couple of times I've studied and read about the
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holy land so much but God has remained faithful to Israel over these last four thousand years in every promise that he
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has made in spite of their captivity in spite of mass genocide in spite of
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moving them out of the country relocating them all the persecution the Jewish people have been through and now
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they're all beginning to come back to the nation of Israel and in spite of all these things Israel is still a nation
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today it is strong it's still alive and active that is evidence for Israel to
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exist of God's faithfulness truly is there are
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amazing Miracles that God performed on the basis of his people now I get why
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those Israelites are so zealous for their land they believe to the core of their being God promised it to them and
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he has always fulfilled every promise he's made I I have no doubt that God
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will fulfill his promise they will have their land God's faithful never breaks a
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promise he's never broken a promise what about today you said well that was Old Testament what about today well I love
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what another Psalm says in Psalm 145 verse 13 says this the Lord is faithful
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in all he promises he's faithful I I don't know I think Pastor Steve or
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Pastor Mark preached on this one Sunday and I don't know I've never figured out
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how many promises there in the Bible I remember one of them saying there's 7 000 promises
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of God in the Bible seven thousand I was like my goodness you know and uh whoever
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was speaking that day I was at least they said they're like blank checks that are just waiting for us to cash you know
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God's made the promise he's going to fulfill his promise he's faithful
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so I I'm not going to preach on all 7 000 but I did have some time over the
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last couple of months to think about what are some promises that we all need to be reminded of today in the culture
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in which we live what are some of the I want to look at six today and I want to encourage you to place
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these promises in your life These are wonderful guarantees if you will
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of promises that you can count on from God here's the first one I can depend on
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God to forgive my sin we have a real problem when you think about it
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as people who have been created by God sin entered into our world
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and we were doomed unless God sent Jesus in order for us to have forgiveness for
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our sins but he promised that if you remember he fulfilled that promise in Jesus and today we can rest assured that
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we can depend on him to forgive us our sins I love what we find in first John chapter 1 verse 9 he says if we freely
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admit it's a key that we have sinned we find him reliable
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in just he forgives us and makes us fairly clean from all that's evil God says my forgiveness is based on who I am
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not on who you are and in every promise of God there's a condition there's a premise
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and then he fulfills it and so here he says you got to admit that you're a sinner that you've messed up admit your
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sin confess it to God the promise is he'll forgive here's the second promise I can depend on God to give me guidance
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now if you're here last week we know that David said that in Psalm 23 but when I don't know what to do let me just
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remind you he will give you guidance notice what Proverbs chapter 3 verse 5 says trust in the Lord with all your
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heart never rely on what you think you know but remember the Lord in everything you
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do and here's the promise he will show you the right way he'll do it every time
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yeah many times in life we face this question what am I going to do I'm in a
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big crisis here I've got this major decision that I've got to make and you'll sort of come to this conclusion
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my goodness I don't know what to do here and when you have a question like that and you're facing a need or you need
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some guidance who do you look to isn't it crazy what people look to today I mean you know they read their horoscope
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and and they get the tea leaves and they look at a fortune cookie and all those kinds of things there's only one
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completely reliable source for guidance in our world today that's God that's the
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only one he's the only one who can really see into our future so how do you
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get guidance from God well just real quick couple of ways through this word these 66 books that he has breathed into
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exist instance that is his word his promise to us we read the Bible we study
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the Bible we get more acquainted with God and we find his will for our life in so many cases in scripture and then
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cycling just through Godly counsel get around some people who've been following Jesus for a while and share with them
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where you are and God gives us guidance here's third promise I can depend on God to settle
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the score this is a big one in our culture of division today it seems like everybody's
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mad about something I mean it's a challenge to lead through any business
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or church or faith it's just challenge to lead anywhere today because we have this divisive culture and everybody has
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their side and they planted their stake in the ground and do you ever feel like life's just not fair
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I do at times I mean you know you read about a scandal and somebody's been
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dishonest and yet you know he's able to skip the country and all of a sudden
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he's prospering with millions of dollars and you're working and seemed to barely get by and you say my goodness life
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isn't fair and every time I think that every time I hear you say that my response is always well life's not fair
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God never said he never promised life was going to be fair because we live in
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an imperfect world and because there's sin in the world people do wrong things and innocent people get hurt and life's
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not fair that's why one day God's going to settle score and we have to remind ourselves of this there's a heaven and a
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hell and one day there's going to be a judgment time when God's going to clear the slates and settle the score and when
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you face a hurt do you ever find yourself wanting to get even with that person you know they hurt me I tell you
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what I'm going to get even Revenge that's a lousy way to live Romans chapter 12 verse 19 Paul says
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this he says friends dear friends never avenge yourselves leave it to God
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for he has said he will repay those who deserve it so don't try to get even
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just let God do it and uh he knows what's happening in people's hearts and
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lives he'll repay those who deserve it listen God is very much aware of what
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people do to you when you're put down and you're hurt and you've been stabbed in the back and you've been maligned
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people have spread rumors about you that you know to the core of your being that are not true how in the world do you
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respond to that the world says you better get even you better get on social media and you better start blasting those people you got to defend yourself
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and God says no let me settle the score you really do have a couple options when
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you're hurt you can defend yourself or you can let God defend you now let me just say who you think do better job at
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you or God God okay God says if you want to get even on your
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own you think you can do it better than I can you know what he does he's sort of backs away and he watches you
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and what I've been told and what I've seen my online he don't lift a finger against your enemy he doesn't he just
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lets you all right you want to cash in do it yourself go ahead but if you say God
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you know what's happened and you notice Injustice has come my way I'm going to let you defend me I'll tell you what a
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person better watch out the Bible says we reap what we sow and if people hurt you and they speak
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falsely against you they're going to reap what they sow it is inevitable but you've got to trust God and his
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faithfulness let him settle the score I love what uh Peter describes about Jesus
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and he knew this right I mean he saw Jesus go through all these hideous things these mockeries these accusations
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these beatings I mean he saw this and in his book in chapter 2 verse 23
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Peter says this Jesus never answered back when insulted
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all right there amazes me when he suffered he did not threaten to get even
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he left his case in the hands of God who always judges fairly God's faithful
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sales score it's a promise here's number four I can depend on God to reward my
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generosity so oh and you preacher get on that one well I am I I've never been ashamed to tell you what the Bible says
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about generosity Jesus says in Luke chapter 6 verse 38 if you give it'll be
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given to you for with the same measure you use it'll be measured back to you now I get it I you know I know some of
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you are thinking all right you know he's Prosperity God no this isn't Prosperity Doctrine this is not some kind of
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fundraising technique it's in positive thinking and so what Jesus said if you
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give it'll be given to you that's a promise it's not a lie I can be confident
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because of this promise that God has given that when I am generous that God
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is going to reward my generosity did you know that there are more
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promises in the Bible related to giving than about hell
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have you ever thought about that this is important to God that our God is
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generous so much so that he gave his son he wants his children to be generous I've just always taught what the Bible
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teaches I think we as followers of Jesus we need to be obedient to his teachings I encourage you to give 10 of your
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income back to your local church and if you can't do that with joy here then go
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find a place where you can give back with joy because that's the way God builds his kingdom around the world and
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he gets glory for it and you get blessed for it and when you say oh I'm not gonna do I don't look out Church spends you're
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not hurting God and he doesn't need your money you're only hurting yourself this
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is what Proverbs chapter 3 verse 9 and 10 says honor the Lord with the first
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part of your income yeah you will often tell me well you know I would love to we we just we just
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can't you know when we pay our bills and when we do uh what we've got to do we don't have any money that's the problem
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you you give to God the first that's his instruction to you and when you give him
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the first then you'll find out you do have enough now you may not be able to
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go out and eat every day or you might not be able to drive the fancy fancy but if you put God first he will honor that
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it is a promise that he tells us and when we honor that and Obey that promise
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then he rewards us I can be faithful counting on God to reward my generosity
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and we could pass the mic around today in all of our location you know what we'd find testimony after testimony
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after testimony of the truth of that promise it is truly amazing of how
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generous God is to us and yet it's like you know Prime fingers open because
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somehow the enemy has convinced us it's ours oh I worked for it it's mine no no
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no God's given you everything you have he can take it from you in an instant
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don't be a taker be a giver be a giver here's fifth promise I can depend on God to keep me safe now
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I wanted to hit this one because so many of you have been talking to me about um you know you've you've had a
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situation you've had some tragedy you've had something happen in your life something that just hasn't made sense
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and and you've decided that maybe Christianity is not for you and you've
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read these articles about deconstructing from faith and these kinds of things and you you begin to think maybe I was saved
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at one time and now I'm lost now I'm not say because I'm having these doubts in my mind God never condemned honest
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doubting but once I've placed my hands in the hands of Christ
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and I have committed myself to him and I have truly trusted him for salvation
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then God takes over and I don't need to worry about losing my salvation you do
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not need to worry about losing your salvation because you didn't earn it in the first place
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and you're not going to be able to keep it by Good Works so I I want you to understand I love you
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I want you to be free from this because the enemy brings us into your life and
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it's unnecessary it is a gift through salvation that we just need to open in
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First Corinthians Paul this is happening so this this has been a question forever okay uh this is happening in the church
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in Corinth and so Paul addresses it and in chapter 1 verse 8 he tells these Believers he says God guarantees right
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up to the end that you'll be counted free from all guilt on that day when he
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returns God will surely do this for you because he always does what he promises
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so what's the promise here well God guarantees that what he starts in your life he's going to finish he'll do this
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for you you don't do it he does it for you hey could you imagine the burden if
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we had to earn our Salvation I mean a lot of other religions you have to earn your way to heaven and you never know if
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you're ever going to make it or not if I had to earn my salvation I could lose my salvation if I had to work for it then
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obviously when I stopped working I would lose it but since I don't get to earn it
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in the first place I can't work enough for it I don't keep it by following a bunch of rules and regulations I am
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saved by grace through faith and therefore I am kept by Grace I was saved
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by God's power and therefore his power has the power to keep me safe it doesn't depend on me it doesn't depend on you
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and I meet Christians all the time who have no assurance that they're safe and they're going to heaven and you ask me
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questions like well what if the night before I die commit some big sin will I still go to heaven will I bust
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hell wide open that was a email I got two weeks ago am I going to lose it all and end up in the wrong place I'm scared
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no assurance you can know the Bible says without a shadow of a
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doubt that once you have placed your life in the hands of Jesus
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it says here that God guarantees that he will take you through to the end
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well what happens if I sin hey let me tell you we all sin because we're saved
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by grace through faith until he comes for us and we live with him in heaven The World Is Still affected by sin we
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still get tempted to do the wrong thing it doesn't mean when we sin we lose our Salvation no Christian is perfect we all
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blow it so if I sin am I going to lose my salvation no you're not and and
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here's another verse that Paul is teaching Timothy this young guy he's raising up in second Timothy 2 verse 13.
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it's what he says if we are faithless he will remain faithful for God cannot
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disown himself isn't that a great verse I mean that just brings so much relief
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to this issue we may let go of God there may be seas
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in our life where we go through some kind of tragedy something that happens in our life that just makes no sense at
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all and we feel like this is not fair and God has let me down and you may get to the point where you just say I'm out
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I'm going to let go of God but I want to promise you God's not going to let go of you he will never do it Jesus says in
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John chapter 10 you are in my hand and no one can snatch you away
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no one and then finally this last promise hey I love you I love I feel like maybe
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I'm preaching or something today and it can be come across as mean but I don't ever want to be mean I just I really
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want to help you and I love you I want you to know these promises are great but
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this last one I want you to think about I can depend on God to remember my
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service you know whenever you're doing something and and you know it's it's right
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and you know that in your service it's a good thing to do but but honestly you feel like am I wasting
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my time here nobody is noticing what I'm doing why even try why even bother I
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want to promise you every time God notices he sees it I love what the author of Hebrews says
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in chapter 6 verse 10 he says God is Not unfair he will not forget all that you have
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done nor the loving labor which you have shown for his sake in looking after
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fellow Christians so many of you who volunteer and serve
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here at our church or serve in our communities and guys you're not Spectators you're
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participators and I'm so thankful for you and most of you if not all of you
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work in different areas I mean you guys work in your job and then you come on
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the weekends and you serve our kids over in children's ministry and youth
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ministry you help people find a place to park you greet with a friendly smile folks that come in and I want to tell
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you people come in with all kinds of junk in their life you set up you take
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down you help you deliver meals to people you do hospital visits I mean the
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list is endless and sometimes you may think oh God I ain't got time to do this look at my
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schedule I don't have time but you do it anyway God takes notice he notices
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and if you're not serving in any capacity today at one of our locations or you've just decided I I think I'm
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just gonna stay home and when it's convenient for me I'm gonna try to turn on TV
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I would just say it's it it's more than that all right it's more than that and we eventually
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have to look at our life and we have to see because we are saved we're not saved by Good Works obviously but because we
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are saved we're going to want to serve others we want to be because we've been so blessed we want to be a blessing to
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other people and God says he rewards us for our service
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well there are hundreds hundreds of promises in the Bible these are the ones that you've been
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writing me about talking to me about and I just thought could we look at a few promises today that might encourage you
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and help you in the situation that you're in today here's the deal Guys these promises are
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not for everyone they're God's promises for his people
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and if you're not a child of God then none of these promises are for you
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but I would just ask you this question can I trust God with my life
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you can you can it's the smartest wisest decision
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you'll ever make is to give your life to God and the promise one other promise that
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he makes Romans 10 13 anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved
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have you done that have you called out admitted that you're a sinner and have
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you invited Jesus Christ into your life I know we've talked a lot of things that we struggle with as followers of Jesus
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but just for a second for those of you who are not followers of Jesus would you be willing to admit that
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you've made some mistakes in life and would you be willing to open up your heart today and invite Jesus Christ in
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and begin to be able to cash in on these promises that he's made hey would you pray with me right now let's pray God
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thank you so much for these amazing promises I've looked at six and I think
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Pastor Steve's there seven thousand it's crazy and God I pray that
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we might as your children begin to see that these promises truly are blank
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checks for us to cash and God the neat thing about your promises is you've been faithful for
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thousands and thousands of years that you fulfill every promise what you
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say you do and because of that we can trust you with our life
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and father I pray today for those who maybe have never trusted you now going through a situation that makes
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no sense to them they're considering all kinds of options but if you don't know Jesus
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then I ask you to admit you're a sinner ask him to come into your heart and life
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ask him to forgive you trust what he did on the cross for you and surrender your life to him and you
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just call out to him you open the door and he'll come in and hey if you made a decision like that
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today we'd just love to celebrate with you online you can click that little raised hand button and one of our
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locations or on TV you can email me or you can let a staff person know we celebrate that
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and if you're a follower of Jesus and then you've had to encounter something that you're considering today deconstructing from the faith I just
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want to encourage you let's talk you know how about sitting down with a cup of
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coffee and uh can we just maybe hear what you're going through and could we
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help you and encourage you and come alongside you because we all need a community when you go through seasons
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that almost take us out of the game Lord we're dealing with a lot
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we have a lot of burdens and issues and frustrations and we live in a world that is infected by sin
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and so Lord just help us to see some clarity today that that you're a God
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even in the midst of chaos that is worthy that is faithful as holy that is
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just that always does exactly what he says
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we love you today Lord thank you for loving us in Jesus name amen