I know you have forgotten this S30e152 Psalm 124 & 100

What happens if I forget spiritual pearls that I learned previously? Does that make me a knucklehead, or does it make me NORMAL?

Here's one:If you cannot (yet) serve the Lord with gladness, then serve along side someone who is serving the Lord with gladness.  They will teach you how to be glad.

Where do I find these people? You will find them in the bowels of the church serving the so-called-unlovely. 

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Transcript

I know you have forgotten this S30e152 Psalm 124 & 100

Psalm 124 says: All of your problems go away in the Lord. Just kidding.

         The Bible does not promise an untroubled life

The appropriate mark of God’s children is not the absence of trouble.

the presence of bad circumstances does not indicate the absence of the presence of God

God does not make your problems disappear,

He does change the scenery.         2           if it had not been the Lord who was on our side

when people rose up against us, 

3    then they would have swallowed us up alive, 

If the Lord was not here, things would be different

Ps124:8    Our help is in the name of the Lord, 

who made heaven and earth. 

He is for us, with us. At our side during real problems

Then we got 2 pearl from Psalm 100. Small but mighty psalm.  Don’t ever dismiss a short psalm as not having much to say. We did some MIGHTY psalms, famous psalms, long psalms, Here: short. Powerful. Humbling. Suitable for changing my practice in real life

Serve the Lord with gladness. What if I cannot serve with GLADNESS? 

1  Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!  service

2        Serve the Lord with gladness! 

Come into his presence with singing! 

Y What if the only way I can serve is as a grouch

Here is a secret of the church.  Why must every believer serve? 

1.   Because God says so. Command. Not optional.  

2.   Because this is the labor the Lord uses to make His church function in all its arms: administrative, organizational, mercy, worship and evangelism

3.   Because you benefit from service. 

a.   If you are not serving you should be.  Why?  To your BENEFIT

4.   Let you in on the secret

a.   It teaches your heart the heart of Jesus, the great servant of us all. 

b.   It allows you to imitate the work and the character of Jesus, which He desires for all of His followers

c.    You meet the best Christians in the bowels of the Chruch.  Go find some unpalatable area of service. Two criteria: One that is inconvenient.  One that is exhausting.  Find someone who poops in their pants to serve.  The unlovely.  The awkward. The children. The elderly.  The weak. The incompetent. The knucklehead wont be hard

d.   Here is one of the secrets: While you are there you will also find this: You will look around you and you will find a bother or a sister who GETS PS 100:  SERVE THE LORD WITH GLADNESS. *****If you cannot yet serve the Lord with gladness, then serve along side someone who is serving the Lord with gladness.  Where do I find these people? Serving the unlovely.******

What if I cannot serve the Lord with Gladness Yet?  Does that mean that I should notserve? Absolutely not.  What it tells you is that you MUST SERVE. Put yourself in the thick of it.  Why?  Because that is how He is going to give you gladness.  AFTER you step into service.  AFTER you step out in faith.  

You will get gladness in service AFTER you serve with those who have gladness, 

After you meet the saints that have already gotten the memo. 

Rub shoulders with them.  

Find someone who loves the apparently unlovable,  those who you love only with some difficulty.  Maybe the 2 year olds, maybe the middle schoolers, maybe the curmondgeonly, maybe the far away, Maybe the addicted, maybe the arrogant.

Find the difficult to serve.

There you will find the best saints in the church.  Trust me on this. I have seen this over and over and over.

Serve with them.

It is they that will teach you to be GLAD

It is The Servants that serve the unlovely that will teach you how to be glad.

They will show you how to be glad.

This is the secret of the church.

Serving with the saints, that serve the supposedly unlovely, are the ones that will also be serving YOU.

By asking: What if the Lord should drop me after 1000 years.     5           For the Lord is good; 

his steadfast love endures forever, 

and his faithfulness to all generations. 

We realized His faithfulness is  one of His critical characteristic before and during our earthly lifetimes. Here was a new one for me: 

Lets say 1000 years from your death, God stops being of the character of HESED. Faithful loyalty to His knucklehead people somehow stops

If He is unfaithful, then we fall out of heaven. 

It is the pillar upon which we will stand before Him for eternity

         For if there is No steadiness with God,

there is nothing to stand on or at least nothing to stand on for long

Do you see ? It is Him, His grace, His steadfastness that keeps us there. Without His Hesed we’d be in trouble NOW, and in the future. 

 Without the pillar of HESED, 1000 years from now, we ALL FALL OUT OF HEAVEN

         For if there is No steadiness with God,

there is nothing to stand on or at least nothing to stand on for long

Here is an amazing new thought: we absolutely depend upon the HESED character of God to put us into heaven, (or at least allow us a way that we could get there) AND we depend upon it for our continuance there**********.  

We desperately depend upon the Dependablilty of God******

Hesed isn’t theoretical. It is Necessary*****

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