The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Now who is this speaking about? And who can do this? That's a question that we have to ask ourselves as we read this psalm. The question is, in verse 3, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place? What's the answer to that question? Christ. If we apply it to ourselves, outside of Christ, it is impossible, right? Because the answer comes back in verse 4, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart, none of us are there, or have been there, none of us have not lifted up our soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, He shall receive the blessing of the Lord and the righteousness from the God of his salvation. For this is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob Selah. Lift up your heads, and here's the application then to Christ. Here's where we see the answer to these questions. And I want us to think about this as we come to this weekend to look at God, my closest companion. I want you to think about that phrase, okay? I want you to think of that phrase, God my closest companion. I want you to pause on that phrase. The words have been chosen specifically. The intimate relationship. We could also say, God my closest relation. But I've chosen the word companion because not all of your relations are companions, right? Companion is one who is close and who is our friend, one with whom we can relax, okay? And I want us to understand this, this idea of relaxing in the presence of God, right? And I want us to apply it then as we go on to our devotional life, to our walk with God, as we go through these 10 aspects of our relationship with the Lord, that our relationship with the Lord is a relaxed relationship. That's what the Lord said, be still and know that I am God. Relax and know that I am God. that our devotions and our devotional life, quote unquote, is not simply a rushing into a room, a reading of scripture, a time of prayer, 10 or 5 or 15 minutes of prayer or whatever, and then we go on about our day. I want us to disabuse ourselves of that idea of devotions. Devotion is a state of mind. Devotion is a state of mind. And we have to, there are times when we have to go to the closet, when we should be in the closet, but that does not in itself constitute devotion. That's what I'm saying. That's what the Bible says, okay? That is not in itself devotion. And so as we consider this idea of the Lord, my closest companion. It's one with whom I have a relationship, but it's one with whom I have a relaxed and a friendly and a devoted relationship. He is our spouse. He's our best friend. There's not another friend on earth. So the Proverbs tells us, he's a friend that sticks closer than a brother, right? And I want us to get this Let this idea percolate into our minds, okay, as we go on throughout the week. And this is where the psalmist is in Psalm 24, because he brings us to Christ in verse 7. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, Even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in." Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts. He is the King of Glory. Let's decide on purpose in our minds and hearts tonight that we want to learn something. We've come for a time of fellowship. I want us to be relaxed and I want us to have time of relaxation. I don't want us to be in an intense time of study and concentration throughout the whole weekend of course. But we have these sessions, that's what we're here for. We're the Lord's people. And we have to come apart and rest a while. And we can only do that in the Lord, in the Lord's Word. And so I want us to do that with that purpose in mind. And I want you to purpose in your mind tonight, every one of you, all of us, to ask yourself tonight what you want to get out of this, what you want to go home with, right? these promotional people and motivational speakers to talk about take-home phrases and take-home aspects of this is something you have to take home. If you miss all else, this is a take-home statement. Ask yourself what do you want to take home from this? What do you want to benefit from? Pray that the Lord will speak to you, that the Lord will address something in your life in your heart that he will come to you this weekend and that in Christ's name you can ascend into the hill of the Lord you can stand in his holy place you can stand before God in prayer relaxed before God relaxed before God me a sinner unclean, vain, in myself, standing before a holy God, relaxed? Where can that be? How can that be? Only because Christ has purchased. He has purchased it. He has received the blessing of the Lord. He has received the righteousness from the God of his salvation. He has earned it. He has purchased it for us, his people. And so as we come This week let's keep this in our prayers. I've asked my brother Alan Samuel to give a testimony. I'm going to ask my brother to come now and give us a word of testimony and then we'll have something to eat and the evening is yours. What's left of it. Okay. Thank you Erin for allowing me to share my testimony. I'll give you a summary of my upbringing. I was born in England. My parents were married in England and had an arranged marriage. My father was raised Roman Catholic in Pakistan and my mother was raised Protestant in Pakistan. So it's not a completely Islamic nation as many people would think. My parents were married in the John Bunyan Church in Bedford, England. At that time they had no idea who John Bunyan was. I don't even know if he still knows, my father still knows who John Bunyan is. Anyways, my father moved us to Canada in the late 70s, moved to Ontario, lived in several cities in Ontario and had somewhat of a background in church life to a degree. My mother would take us to the Roman Catholic Church, not always, but definitely on Christmas and Easter. But my mother was a praying woman. She gave us Bibles and she actually read the Bible with us and taught us how to read it. And so as young boys growing up, me and my brothers. I guess myself personally, it wasn't until the year 2000 when I heard the gospel for the first time. And how did I hear it? I heard it through a a non-denominational church service, which was done by, I don't know if you're familiar with Amway or Quickstar, these network marketing companies. Anyways, before going to that conference, at that time I was probably 22 years of age, and I just started in my field of work, electrical, and I was a little disenfranchised with it, I didn't really like it, Mainly because of the people I worked with, they were just miserable people, complaining about everything and just miserable. I didn't know what I was getting into, so I thought, well, I need to get out of this. And basically, in my mind, I thought the only way to get out of this is to make more money. How do I do this? That must be the answer. So, anyways, the gentleman showed me the business opportunity and I thought, well, this is my way to a million dollars. I'll get out of electrical and I'll get myself a yacht. That was my thinking. So, and anyways, I went to this church service at this conference, this business conference. and this gentleman asked me to go, and he wasn't a Christian, he was actually a Sikh, Sikh man, but he had a Bible, and he read it, and he highlighted it, and I don't know what he got out of it, but he definitely read it, and he suggested I go, he wasn't a Christian, but interesting, he would read it, and I went to this conference, this service, Assuming that I knew what Easter and Christmas meant. Assuming that because I have this church background to a degree, I knew something about it. But I really didn't. I really didn't know anything about it. What that meant. And this gentleman went up there and he spoke. He said he was a Baptist. And all he did was open up the Word of God. And he just started reading the words of Christ. What Christ taught. What Christ said. And when I heard it, I didn't like it because it was exposing me as a sinner. And I knew I was a sinner, but for someone to tell me really offended me. I thought, well, who are you to tell me that I'm a sinner? You're a sinner. That was my thing. You can't tell me I'm a sinner. But the words of Christ were so sharp and just right to the heart, just cut to the chase. And I'd never heard that before. I'd never heard Christ exposing the human heart. how depraved it is. And I knew, I can't argue that because I know that's what's happening inside my heart. How can I argue with Christ? And the fact that when this gentleman started teaching on, this is why Christ died. He died on the cross for your sin, to take it away so you could be forgiven. All this sounded too good to be true to me. How can one man do this? How can he just take away all my sin just like that? I have to do something. I need to do something. And in my mind, I knew I had sin. I had guilt. I had shame. I know that. People might look at me and say, oh, Alan, you have everything together. Yeah, externally it might look good, but I know what's going on in my thoughts, in my heart. I know the storm that rages there. So I had this guilt, and I tried to self-reform myself, I guess. I would kind of take good ideas from different philosophies and religions, trying to think that I'll take that and this somehow will make me a better person and I'll start eliminating these guilty feelings and thoughts I have. But it wasn't working. It wasn't working. I was trying to do good in order to get better, but I'm still doing bad things, so how can this help me? This is a lost cause, what I'm trying to achieve here. But hearing the gospel, hearing that Christ would forgive me, that he would forgive me of all my sins and take away that guilt and I would be right with God. That was my only hope that I had. There's nothing I could look to besides that. And that was too radical for me when I heard that. That was just, that's too radical. That's too good to be true. But there's nothing else I could look towards. There's nothing else I could... look to to say that will redeem me, that will make me right with God. That was my greatest thing. At 22, I was asking philosophical questions. Why am I here? What happens after I die? Is this what life is all about? Eat, work, sleep? Eat, work, sleep? Is this it? And these were the philosophical questions in my mind. And so I was searching. I was looking for answers. I was looking for something. I was looking for truth. But when I heard the gospel, that was my only hope, that Christ would take away my sin. He would take away that what stands before me, what I'm carrying, this burden, this guilt, this weight. If Christ has done it, then I have to look to Him. I have to trust Him. I have to rest in what He's saying. And at this place, they did an altar call approach and so I walked forward and a lot of people did and at that time that's all I knew I wasn't raised really I wasn't raised in the church or I wasn't brought up in the church so I didn't really understand anything so I just walked forward and I had the people that I came with who a lot of them were business people and at the same time I thought well what are they going to think about me you know But then my second thought was, I don't care what they think about me because I need to go forward. I need this forgiveness. I need this redemption. I went forward, I prayed this prayer, and I don't know if it was a sinner's prayer or not, I don't know. I asked for forgiveness, I asked the Lord to forgive me, to admit that I'm a sinner, and I never admitted that before in my life. The first time in my life I was actually honest, I think with myself, but more importantly I'm honest before God, that yes, I am, I am a sinner. I can't deny that. accepting the fact that Christ died for me, that He took away my sin, that to me was freedom after coming from that weekend because this burden that I carried with me, this guilt, this shame, It was like it was gone. The burden's lifted. It's not here anymore. Christ took it away at the cross. He paid for that. And I can't explain it in its full entirety. It's done. There's nothing to look at. God is not looking at that sin. It's over. It's history. That's all I knew coming out of the weekend. That's all I understood. That's all I grasped. I didn't know anything else besides that. I just knew that something's changed. Something's different. I need a Bible. I have to get a Bible. This is my first Bible I bought. It's a King James Bible, $10. It's falling apart, but it was the best $10 I spent. And I just went through the first book. I went through his Proverbs. I was just stuck in Proverbs. I just couldn't get out of there. I guess I needed wisdom. It's probably more foolish than anything, so I needed a lot of wisdom. But that's all I knew. And I had to tell my friends. I told my friends. I'm a Christian." And they said, yeah, we know you've been a Christian your whole life. I'm like, no, Jesus Christ, I'm a Christian. And they're like, what does that mean? And so some of my friends were indifferent. Some of them kind of mocked it. Some of them thought it was good. They thought, oh, you need this. This is good for you. And my parents didn't really grasp it or understand it. They kind of thought, well, you've always been a Christian. No. So I didn't really grasp it or understand it. I was so excited, I had to tell everyone basically, to tell my fellow workers, I'm a Christian now, and that's when I was tested by all my fellow workers. I had Jehovah's Witness fellow workers, Muslim fellow workers, Atheist fellow workers, whatever, they all challenged me, and I knew nothing. I'm like, wow, this is interesting, I thought Christianity was supposed to be easy, and everything's supposed to be good now, and no, I was being challenged constantly. And I thought, well, it just forced me to get in the Word, get in the Bible, and struggle with issues and just seek answers and find truth. But I couldn't let it go. I said, well, I know it's hard, but this is too precise when it comes to speaking to the the condition of man and God's remedy. So there's nothing else. Who writes this stuff? No man can think this up. This is too radical. Because it's not what I've done, it's what Christ has done for me. And to sum it up, I'm going to read you a Bible verse, which is perhaps my favorite Bible verse. It's Matthew 11, 20, 30. And I know many of you know this verse by heart. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. And you shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. And that's where I stand with my testimony is that Christ took away my burden, my burden of guilt and shame and religiosity and took it away so that I could be free to know Him and to know His saving grace and to that caused me to want to love Him more and seek Him. And it has been easy. No, it's been a challenge. Nonetheless, that's The way it is, that's life. But if you're a Christian, I realize, as Christ said, in this world you will have trials and tribulations, but take heart, I've overcome the world. So it's not a one-time thing, it's a daily walk. And then growing in grace and knowing Him and seeing Him work in your life by trusting Him, resting in Him. and just being, well, praying for humility, I think. So, most believers, everyone struggles with something. I think, I guess pride is universal. So pride would be a struggle, and learning to be humble, and staying away from self-righteous tendencies, and always coming back to grace, and not to self. Nonetheless, I hope you take encouragement from this verse here in Scripture. Only Christ can take away your burden. And He can give you an easy burden, or a hard burden, but He'll give you strength to bear it and to overcome. So this life is temporary, and eternity is what we look forward to. So nonetheless, we're salt and light in the world, and we are called to be witnesses and to go forward in our lives. I'll praise the Lord for His grace and mercy, and I just pray that this weekend will be a good weekend of resting in the Lord and knowing His promises and growing in grace and fellowship and being more of a man of God as God has called us to be. If I can make a statement, I think that's a desperate need in the world, not just locally in the church, but worldwide. Where are the men? Just regularly, but where's the godly man? Where's the godly man? And that's a burden, I think, for many people here. But take heart, because the Lord has already won the battle. So even as it gets darker and darker, the light can only get brighter and brighter. So we have victory in Christ, and there's nothing that the devil has in him. But we find victory on our knees in prayer. So thank you, Aaron. Appreciate it. Thank you. It's encouraging. There's one aspect of the testimony that I always like to identify. And that is the fact that it's a daily process. I think in many evangelical circles there's a testimony, and I grew up listening to testimonies, and I got born in a Christian home, got saved as a child, went into the world, come back to the Lord, and by the Lord's grace I'm able to go on. That's a formula of testimony that you hear. Salvation is there, which is good. And heaven is there, the hope of heaven, which is good, but there's a big gaping mass, a void in the middle that many people leave out, and that's this aspect of salvation, that we are being saved. We are being saved. I have been saved, I will be saved, and I am being saved. He is saving me now. He is, in other words, sanctifying me. That's what a brother said. It's a daily process, growing in grace, dealing with particular sins, pride, and avoiding self-righteousness and all of the different sins that we deal with. There's a growth. And if there's not growth, there's something wrong. If there's not growth, there's something wrong. There should be growth. in our attitude, in things we do, in our speech, the way we say things, in how we deal with people, there should be growth in areas of our life. And if there's not growth, brethren, in your life, in these areas, then we need to question. No matter how old you are, no matter how young you are, there has to be growth. We will never be perfected until we reach glory. And if you look to the Lord, If you look to the Lord and pray what the Psalmist prayed in Psalm 139, search me O God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, see if there be a wicked way in me, lead me in the way everlasting. The Lord will reveal things to you, might be simple things, you might not be in flagrant sin, you might not be doing things in the world that you, that would be shameful, but we have attitudes, we have words, we have thoughts, we have interactions. We all deal with, and we're all being sanctified.