I'm honored that you would have me and thank you for that. It's been a good time being here and Brother Ray and Brother Herb and Brother Sergei being here kindly to me put icing on the cake. Also, before I forget it, Brother Thomas Ray Floyd, some of you may know him, some of you may not, I know Brother Leroy does and some of the others, but he sends his love and wanted me to express his love to the congregation here. If you have your Bible, turn back to the book of James, chapter 4. We've been trying to look at this passage in verses 5 through 11. with regard to drawing nigh to God. And I want to read the verses again and kind of reiterate a few things, but we won't, I'm mainly going to look this morning at the section there in verse eight of drawing nigh to God directly. But anyway, do you think the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? but he giveth more grace. You remember that word more means greatest. So we can say God not only gives great grace, he gives greater grace, and he gives the greatest of grace. But anyway, but he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn. Weep, and let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother and judgeth his brother speaketh evil of the law and judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge." And we could go on. And we've looked at verses 4 and 5, and here in verse 7, particularly the last part it says resist the devil and he'll flee from you. And I'll just say this, that there are many things that come in our lives that we know is not of God. And we don't have to guess what we're to do, we're to resist. We're to resist. And as we said yesterday, I believe, It didn't say if you resist the devil or you should resist the devil. It's a command to resist. No option. Resist the devil and he will flee. So if the devil is hanging around, which he always is, but if he is attacking you, continually attacking you day in and day out about a particular thing or things, then evidently we are not resisting Him because He hasn't fled. We need to keep that in mind. These are things that we need to consciously be aware of in order to be near to God. And there are many, many, many other things that we could bring out within this, and I would encourage you to, if you desire to, to read over this passage this next week and next few weeks and study over it and meditate on it and look up commentaries on it and think about it. And so we want to look at this here this morning where he says, draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. It cannot be questioned But God has commanded here, He has commanded us to draw nigh to Him. Sometimes we might say, well, I just wish I knew what the Lord would have me to do. Well, if nothing else, draw nigh to Him. Draw nigh to Him. You don't have to worry about that. If you wonder what you ought to do today and how you ought to serve the Lord, if you can't think of anything else, think of draw nigh to Him. Four words. Four words, draw nigh to Him. Draw nigh to Him. So He has commanded us to draw nigh to Him. And so the question that we should ask is how do I draw nigh to God? How do I draw nigh to God? It's one thing for us to preach and say that you ought to draw nigh to God, And you ought to do this, you ought to do that, you ought to do something else. But the verse says, draw nigh to God. And the question is, how do I do it? How do I do it? We have hinted at a lot of things. I want to look at five things particularly, five or six things particularly this morning on how to draw nigh to God. The first thing is to think about God continually. Think about God continually. For those of us that were over at Brother Bill's yesterday, Brother Herb made the statement that if he is away somewhere and his wife is not there, then he's constantly thinking about her. He's thinking about her. How often do you think about God? And I'm not saying, if I were to say, do you believe God is here today? You'd say, yeah, God's here today. But are you as consciously aware that God is here today as much as Brother Dave is consciously aware that Brother Leroy is sitting beside him? Do you really think about God, and consciously, knowingly, that God is with you? You know, if we were going to commit some sin, and we realize that God is with us, and the Holy Spirit is in me, and if I want to be close to God, then I don't want to do that sin, do I? whether it's getting mad at somebody, or whether it's gossiping, or whether it's lying about somebody, or whatever it is, you pick the sin. But what we're trying to get at is to have a, and this is a phrase that I came up with many years ago, I may have got it from somebody, but anyway, have a conscious awareness that God is present. Not just, yeah, God's present, yeah, God's everywhere, but a conscious awareness of the presence of God and that you are in the company of God. How often do you do that? Have you ever done that? Have you ever had a conscious awareness? Sometimes we do, and sometimes we have what we call those moments when God blesses our cup to overflow. And we like that. And that's sometimes what we think of as being close to God is when He comes to us in a special way. Well, that is a way of being close to God, but we can be close to God continually whether we have an emotional experience about it or not, but having a conscious awareness that we are in the presence of God. God is with us. God is with us. And He's with us continually. As you go about the day, you know a lot of times when I'm cooking and washing dishes and doing things like that, well I've got my iPhone going and I'm listening to sermons. Trying to have my mind filled up with things that are good and not let it wander. but also in the midst of that is to have a conscious awareness that God is present. Isaiah 26.3 says, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee. Do you have peace with God? Are you even at peace with yourself? Do you want peace? God has told us, thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. You know, we read those passages yesterday about humility, where it said the word was doubled, humble, humble. Well, that perfect peace is, thou will keep him in peace, peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, in the original. Perfect peace, perfect peace. So that's one of the things is to be focused in thinking, thinking, thinking about the Lord. You know, we made reference yesterday, I think, might have been Friday night, but anyway, whatever, a young man and a young woman having an interest in each other, what are they gonna be doing? They're gonna be thinking about each other. They're gonna be thinking about when they can be together. If they can't be together, They're going to write a letter or send a text or do something, but they're thinking about them. They're thinking about them. They're thinking about them. They realize that there's a need for them. Secondly, one way is to spend time with the Lord in reading His words. in reading His Word. Do you read the Word of God daily? Do you read the Word of God daily? If you're not reading the Word of God daily, shame on you. Don't expect to be close to God if you're not reading His Word. You can't be close to God if you're not reading His Word. You can pray for God to bless you to be close to Him, but if you're not reading His Word, you won't be close to Him. I do remember, I think it was Friday night, Brother Herb and Sister Ruth, when they were first, I think they were away from school, away from each other, they used to write letters. They read the letters. You know why they read the letters? They were interested. They wanted to know what the other was thinking. They wanted to know what the other was feeling, as it were. John Newton, after the Lord converted him and he was still a captain of a ship, he would write letters almost daily to his wife. And sometimes he would get back home before the letters did. But he wrote. Why? He was interested. He was interested. His mind stayed on her. He wanted to be near to her. If you want to be near to God, let's put it this way. Think about God in eternity. Nothing there but God. He creates and puts man on the earth. And man wonders, what is it that God would have me to do? But He gave it to you, the book. He gave it to you, the book. I can sit around and I can think that God wants me to do this, that, or the other, and I may be right and I may be wrong. But when God tells me that we're to hide the Word of God in our hearts, that we not sin against Him, when He tells us to read His Word that we might know Him, I don't have to guess about that. I don't have to guess about that. Brother Dave, has suggested that you be reading and looking over Jeremiah 9, verses 23 and 24 this week. Well, if you really believe that God has put him here as one to lead you, then you're going to do it. But if you think Brother Dave has said, well, that's just his idea and his opinion, and then I may do it or I may not do it, If you don't make a conscious awareness to do it, you won't do it. We have to purposely do these things. We need to be reading the Word. We need to spend time in being involved with God and His Word in order to enjoy His company like it would be with anyone else. You need to have quality time in reading the scriptures. Like I said, I believe Friday night, I try to read so much each day. Sometimes I can do it in 15 minutes, sometimes it takes me two hours. My mind gets distrayed and sometimes I go to sleep. See, I'm one of those retired folks too. And sometimes when I'm sitting there reading, I'll doze off and have to wake back up and figure out where I was again pick up the context and read it again and read it again. But I'm determined by God's grace I'm going to read so much each day because I want to hide God's Word in my heart. And I don't always remember everything that I read. Just like Brother Dave doesn't remember every meal that Sister Mabel has cooked. But if he hadn't been eating, he wouldn't be alive. God's Word does not necessarily always stimulate your mind or your emotions, but God's Word will give sustenance to your soul. God's Word will give sustenance to your soul. You see, your soul is on a deeper level. You may not feel it. No pulsation of energy may be going through you or not, but God's Word is going to have an effect on the soul. I could give you some scripture on that, but we don't have time. We need to move on. Number three, I put two things together. It's prayer and meditation. Prayer and meditation. If two people want to be close to each other, they're going to talk to each other. And you've got to talk to God. you've got to talk to God. How often do you talk to God? Really talk to Him. Consciously talk to the Lord. I go about the house on a daily basis, and sometimes in sending up short prayers to God, I do it so often I wonder sometimes if I'm just talking to myself. And many times I'll ask the Lord if I am talking to myself, bless me to repent of that and have mercy on me as a father pities his children. You know the Lord pities those that He loves. Have mercy on me and bless me anyway. Be honest with God. Don't try to fool yourself in thinking you're fooling God. We can't fool God. Where I have problems, and I would covet your prayers for me on this, where I have problems in praying is spending quality time to God in prayer. It's one thing to send those little ejaculatory prayers up each day and constantly as you go about, but I'm talking about just stopping. Tuning everything else out. I'll get down and I'll try to pray like that and I get to thinking, well I need to be doing this. Or I need to be doing that. Or I need to be doing something else. And then when I get up to think I'm going to do something else, next thing you know I haven't even done that either. But spending that quality time with the Lord. We sing sometimes sweet hour of prayer. Have you ever spent a whole hour in prayer? How can we sing sweet hour of prayer if we don't even know what it's about? This has to do with being close to God. Close to God. So, it's prayer. We need to have devoted times to prayer. You need to have a time each day that you can devote to the Lord. Some of you men that are working, you might have to do it at a different time than others would. But we need to cultivate that and spend time with the Lord. Do you believe God answers your prayer? Do you really believe God answers your prayer? Are there some things you prayed for you haven't seen any results? Well, we know that God answers all prayers. Sometimes there's no, but He answers them. But if you don't believe God answers your prayers, why not? Have you done any investigating as to why? You see, I can't give you a fix-all. You've got to figure those things out for yourself. Ask God to bless you. Ask Him to open your mind and your heart. Next is in line with prayers, meditation. You say, well, how's that different in thinking? Well, it has to do with you're going to be more intently doing it. You know, they say meditation is kind of like a cow chewing its cud. An old cow would go out and be grazing and get a clump of grass and ball it up and swallow it down. Get another piece of some grass and chew it up in a ball and it'll swallow that. Then it'll go lay down in the shade tree And it belts those balls up one at a time. And then just chew and chew and chew and chew and chew and chew. See, Brother Dave has asked you to do that this week with Jeremiah 9. Jeremiah 9. Meditating, meditating, ruminating on the Word of the Lord. Fourthly, singing the songs of Zion. Don't neglect singing in your daily worship. Don't neglect your singing. In the past few years, I've gone through about three different songbooks. I'm working on another one now. Some of those songbooks, they don't have any music in them. So I have to make up a tune. It's my tune. You might not be able to sing to it. But I tell you what, to take those songs and think about what you're singing. You know, sometimes we come here and we sing and we all have to be together. It wouldn't do good for somebody to be singing three or four words behind the other. And sometimes we do it by rote and we don't even realize what's being sung or what's being said. I'm amazed at some of the songs. Many times I'll sit down and after I've done my Bible reading and pick up the book and my old heart is kindly still somewhat out of shape and those men have expressed my heart. I'm just amazed how some men can take so few words and say so much. Chew those songs. Enjoy them. And if you can't figure out a tune or make up some kind of a tune that'll work, just read it. Read it and meditate on it. But don't cut short the songs of Zion. And then finally, number five, spend time with God's people. Spend time with God's people. I've got verses for all of these things, but we don't have time to go through all of them. And that's alright. But it is clear from the Scriptures, and I'm sure that Brother Leroy, well I know he has because I've heard some of the sermons that he's preached on 1 John, and he's already pointed it out, that you cannot have fellowship with God if you're not having fellowship with His people. You can't. You can't. Read 1 John. The reason that John wrote the epistle, because he said, I have fellowship with the Lord. See, John knew he had fellowship with the Lord. And he said, I'm writing this to you that you may have fellowship with me as we have fellowship with the Lord. And if you can't enjoy being around the Lord's people, there's something wrong with you. There's something wrong with you. So, loving the brethren is a sign that you're walking in the light. You say, well, how do I know that I love my brethren? Well, if your brother has need, you're going to do what you can to fulfill that need. Several years ago at Grace Chapel, when I was still there, we had several young men that thought maybe they might be called to preach. So we gave them a Wednesday night each to give a lesson and sometimes Sunday night and so on. But one young man got up and he gave an excellent message on love. Excellent. When service was over with, Brother Tony McAvella knew about one of the men in our congregation that was having some financial problems. And so he asked for the men to come to the back in the fellowship hall and asked that we dig into our pockets and come up with some money to help this man. And this young man that gave an excellent message on love He said, He got Himself into that, I'm not giving anything. He didn't love. He had no love in Him. He had no love in Him, no love about Him. He had it here, but He didn't have it in His heart. See, if a brother has need, then we who have, we're to give. That's just one small illustration we could give. So these are the five things, or six maybe, however you look at it. Thinking, thinking about God. Prayer and meditation. Singing. Spending time with His people. These are things that you need put into your life or in reading the Word of God, I'll overlook that. Nothing profound. I haven't said anything this week that's been profound. I haven't said anything that you don't already know. I don't believe. But I believe I have said something that will do you good. That will do you good. That was my desire. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word. I thank You for this congregation. I have great love for them. I pray that You will bless them to grow and to enjoy You. I pray that You be with Brother Sergei now. Bless him as he comes forth Bless his English to be what he would desire it to be. And give us hearing ears and an understanding heart as we give him our undivided attention. I thank you for this brother whom I love lives in distant lands. It's good to know that there are people that you really know, that you can have rubbed shoulders with, and know that they're in foreign lands contending for the truth of the gospel. In Jesus' name, amen.