It's been a little bit since I've been up here. You got a Bible? Go ahead and turn to Psalms 27. Try and get this quickly. Kind of want to deal with a little bit, maybe just a short charge. of looking at the blessings in your life, the blessings from God. We wake up every morning, and that's a blessing in itself. Kind of three different points. I'm going through maybe I just do the first one for tonight Psalms 27 1 the Lord is my light and my salvation Whom shall I fear the Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked even mine enemies and my phones foes came upon me to eat up my flesh They stumbled and fell Right there, just having the Lord as our salvation is the greatest blessing you could ever have. You have salvation. Anybody in here who's saved has a blessed hope that we get to go see God in heaven one day. We don't have to worry about going to hell. We don't have to worry about losing the fight. We have a blessed hope, the Lord, my light and my salvation. Each one of us is saved, we have our salvation. The greatest blessing that God has ever given to us. He sent his son, John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son. Those of you in here, fathers, would you send your only son to die for the world? Die for people you don't know? Die for people who blasphemed against you? Die for people who Criticized your name done wicked stuff against you. Would you send your only son? To die to hang on a cross To talk to be tortured to be tormented To die for us We are nothing We're nothing right now We don't deserve we don't deserve to wait. We shouldn't we don't deserve to even be awake right now. I We don't deserve to live in a country that's still free. We don't deserve to have a house of God that we can come here and worship Him. We don't deserve to have a preacher who will stand up here every Sunday, every Thursday, and preach the Word of God. We don't deserve it. And I think we take it for granted, too. We say, oh, well, that's life. I've got to go to church today. I've got to go to church. Oh, there's another meeting. We might as well go. We look at life like it's, like we control it. We don't control it. Cause you could die any second. Lord says, think, what is it? Think not today or think, what is that verse? Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. You don't know what's going to happen. We could all die in the next five seconds. You don't know. I don't know. And we take all of it for granted. We have a salvation that saves us from hell. We think of hell and we're like, oh, it's just a burning flame. It's just a lake of fire. No, it's torment for the rest of eternity. Forever and ever and ever. I don't think we let that sink in hard enough. Forever and ever burning, never getting help You can't even get a drop of water. That drop of water would mean so much to you. That drop of water would be so much of a relief to you if you could get it, but you can't. We have that blessed assurance of salvation, but what about those who aren't saved? We have a lot of family members who aren't saved. Maybe people in here who aren't saved. our family, our kids, our grandparents, whoever may be, and they're not saved. And we just go on like it's nothing. I have family members, close family members right now that are not saved and will not come to church. They're missing out, and they're going to miss out because time is short. We don't have a lot of time to reach them. Turn to Romans 10.14. I'm going to squeeze this down real quick. I can get my place. Romans 10, 14. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. but they have not all obeyed the gospel. For he saith, saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." It tells you right there, we wouldn't even know the truth without a preacher. A preacher comes up here every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, every Thursday, every time there's a meeting, whatever it may be, extra services, and preaches the truth. The truth doesn't matter what time it is, doesn't matter what time of the season it is, whatever. He preaches the truth. And we take it for granted that we have it. What about the people across the seas, the ones who don't even know what God is? Never even heard the Bible. And we're like, oh, well, we've got to go here, preach here again. No. We never take it like that. This is a man of God sent from heaven. It said there are some who have not obeyed the gospel. There's some preachers. Church is right beside over here. Don't preach the word. Don't preach the truth. They get in there and say, oh, well, you're okay because you said, I love Jesus. And they believe that. They will put their lives on that. What about these other ones? They have Buddhism and all this other, they believe in a statue to save them. They've offered up their children to that statue to save them. And they're all burning. Most of them now are probably burning in hell. Because they don't know the truth. We have a man of God sent from God to preach the truth. It doesn't matter when it was. Ever since I've grown up in this church, He's always preached the truth. I can always trust in Him to know that He's preaching the truth. It doesn't matter who walks in the door. If the President of the United States could walk in the door, He'd still preach the truth. Amen. It doesn't matter who it is, He would still preach the truth because He's a man of God sent from God, and I believe that. Now what about us being a blessing to others? We have all these blessings from God. We get to wake up every morning. So far, I've woke up every morning of my life and have had mobility. Never woke up in a wheelchair. Never woke up on crutches. Never woke up with a broken leg. Whatever it may be, I've always been able to get up and jump out of bed. We take it for granted. I take it for granted. I'm guilty. I take it for granted. What about just, I mean, I get to have a job. And I complain about it. I got to go to work today. I have a job. There's a lot of people that can't have a job. They're so messed up. Either you're so messed up on drugs or something you can't hold a job, or you just can't move. You can't have a job. You don't have the mobility to do it. And we take it for granted. We take it for granted that the people in our lives maybe are I think of my grandfather. I didn't have him but for 12 and a half years of my life. That's all I knew him for. That's all I knew him for, 12 and a half years. He was a blessing. I knew he was a blessing. So many times that he would, anytime I'd ride with him to go to a job, he wouldn't stop talking about God. It wasn't a break for him. It wasn't even tiring for him to talk about God. He just kept doing it. You know why? Because he loved God. And he loved me, and he loved my family. That's why he did it. He wanted us to know the truth. I think of the other ones, Miss Owen. She was a blessing, not only to me, but to all of you, I know. She always spoke truth. She was always a help and a blessing to others. There's many more in this church that have gone on, and we're a blessing. And we just take it for granted. We go on through life like, oh, well, they're going to be there tomorrow, so that's OK. You wake up like that. You think, oh, well, that person's just going to be there. Go to bed at night. When you go to bed, when you pray, I hope you all pray before you go to sleep. When you pray, what about tonight? When you go to pray, don't thank God for anything. Wake up the next morning and see what you have. I think mainly, probably one of the only reasons we have anything, well, first of all, God is merciful and great. But what we have right now is because maybe we actually thank Him for what little bit we have. We're not in here, we all drive nice cars, we all drive whatever, I mean, yeah, we're not the richest people in the world, thanks be to God. We all come in here, we have nice clothes on, but it's just like, oh, well, I can go down to the store and get me a good suit for a hundred bucks. No, you can't. Tomorrow you could be bankrupt. You can't, you can't trust anything in this world nowadays. So I put my money in a bank account, I turned it into gold. What's that matter? Be stolen, burn up, your bank account goes whatever, all this technology coming in, gets locked up, you can't get onto it. We just take it for granted. We run throughout the day thinking, I have everything I need and nothing is going to change that. Go to bed thinking like that. You wake up in the morning and see what you have. Because God might just take it away. We go through these trials in life. I think one of the biggest trials so far in my life was losing my grandfather. Because I held him at such a high, not as an idol, but as a mentor. I looked to him because I knew he was a man of God. He was straightforward. He knew the truth. And I knew I could always trust him. And then I lost him. It's so hard when you lose somebody that close. I think of Preacher. I think of my grandmother when they lost their spouses. My grandmother was so down all the time when she lost Paw Paw. But he was in a better place. But we still want him back. We still want him here with us. But we could go through life thinking, well, I wish they were here. I wish they were here. I don't want them back. They're in a better place. Instead, grow from it. Take something from their life. Ms. Sowen lived a true life. My grandparents lived a true life. We can all learn from that. Instead, we go through life taking it for granted that, oh, they're gone. I don't have them here with me. I'll never see them again, or it's going to take forever before we get to heaven. It might not. He could come tonight. We don't know. If you're saved, it'd be all right. If you're not saved, it's not going to be all right for you. You're going to wake up burning in hell. We just take for granted everything in our life. Say, well, I'm 80 years old. I haven't had that long of a life, or my life's been great, or my life's been horrible. You've had 80 years. I've had 18 years. Maybe you have only had 40 years, whatever it may be. One year is a blessing. To make it to every year, make it to your birthday every year is a blessing. Because there's many people that don't. I think of little Chloe, who died when she was five. Five years. I've lived over three times that much so far. She didn't get a life. Yes, she's in a better place now. But she didn't get to experience it. And if we take for granted the days that we have, just think about it. You could go right now. You can't stop it. You would go right now. Whether you're saved or not, you could go right now. And we just take it for granted. Think of just trying to bless other people and say those ones who've gone on they've been a blessing But what about when you're living right now? Say well, what can I do? Well Preacher just said you're going Christmas caroling maybe in a couple weeks. That's a blessing Because there's a lot of the elder people that we go to they don't get out They come they come in a lot of this we used to do it all Bunch of younger kids used to go a lot and they'd love to come in here. They love hear us. I Do you think they took that for granted? Do you think the people that, you could just send a thank you to view card to them or a text or something like that. You think they'll take that for granted? They probably needed it. Because they could be going through a rough time. You don't know. You don't have to know. You don't have to know everybody's life. Just say, hey, I'm thinking of you, praying for you. That's a blessing. That can be a blessing. You say, oh, well, that's nothing. That could be something to somebody else. You say, what can I do? There's two verses that tell us we can do anything. Turn to Luke 137. Run out of time. Should have had my pages marked. I had two verses. Let's see here. Luke 1.37, for with God nothing shall be impossible. And then Philippians 4.13, I believe that one goes with this. Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. If you're saved and you have Christ in you, nothing can stop you if you do it through God. If you make sure He's leading you and you do the will of Christ, you can do everything. The Bible also says if you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could move a mountain. Say, oh no, I can't. Have you trusted God? Do you put enough faith in God to say, Lord, and maybe that mountain's not a physical mountain, maybe that's a mountain in your life. your spiritual life, your family life, your friend life, whatever it may be, there's a mountain in your way blocking them, blocking something. You say, Lord, I need your help. We got to get over ourselves, get humble before God, and he'll help us. Because he just, I mean, I just read two verses. Honestly, one would have been good enough because it comes from the Bible. I can do all things through Christ who's strengthened with me. Nothing is impossible with God. but it's up to us whether or not we take the truth and apply it in our life. So many things that we could go through life and actually we'd probably be blessed more if we thank God for it. If we thought of it every day and just said, Lord, thanks for the shoes I have on my feet. You would be. You'd be more content. If we get over ourselves, get out of our selfish world. I'm just as guilty as anybody else. If we get over ourselves, think about others, think about Christ. I mean, just think, Christ came and died for you. Would you die for Him? Would you die for somebody else? I have a great relationship with my buddy Eli. I would die for him, and I can honestly say that. You say, oh no, you're probably just joking. No. That's how close me and him are. He's the only friend in this world I have. You know, there's other guys that, you know, we're buddies, yeah. He's my friend. That's a true friend. My preacher said, there's one preacher that said, if you have five true friends in your life, you've been blessed. I've been blessed with just one. I don't even have to, he doesn't, he shouldn't, maybe he just shouldn't have even showed up in my life. But I'm blessed to have him. I'm blessed to have parents that have brought me in church, raised me in church, I could be living on the streets right now. I'd be kicked out of my home right now. I could be on drugs. I could be dead right now. But instead, I have the ability to be here in church. And we take it for granted. I'm done. But maybe if we just go through life thinking about, Lord, what have you blessed me with? We don't have to look very far. Clothes we're wearing, what we drive, ability to move, speak, hear. We don't have to look very far. Thank God. And I think of one more thing. What if God treated us the way we treat Him? What if God treated our stuff how we treated His stuff? When you take your Bible home, do you lay it on a shelf, you put it neat somewhere, or do you just throw it on the couch? You throw it on the shelf. Let dust collect. Do you even read it throughout the week? I'm guilty. I don't read it enough. I'm guilty. But the song says, look what God has done. So many things, and we just take them for granted. So many things in our life, and we take them for granted. It's up to us to change it though. I'm done. ♪ I am blessed, I am blessed ♪ Every day that I live ♪ I am blessed when I wake up in the morning ♪ And I lay my head to rest ♪ I am blessed, I am blessed Brother Dennis, this is a word of prayer. Pray for the food. Give us another day that we come to thy house to worship thee. And I pray, Lord God, that you help us to honor and glorify thee. Never be thankful unto thee for all the many blessings that you bestow upon us to help you give us, and Lord, all that you do for us. And I'm grateful and thankful for life, health, and strength, Lord. And I pray, Lord, that we would honor and glorify thee. Praise you, bless the church, bless those that are sick. Encourage, strengthen them, touch them. May your hand be upon them, supply their need, Lord. Lead, guide, and direct them. Praise you, bless the fellowship, bless the food, and strengthen our bodies this season. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.