Alright, get your Bibles out. We are going to be in Psalm 100. Psalm chapter 100. I will echo what Mike said. Mike, you hit the nail on the head. We have a specific flavor of humor in this church, don't we? We certainly do, and it's been cultivated over several years of our dry, sarcastic pastor at the helm, of which I am immensely thankful because that's my stripe as well. I've got other elements of my humor that are more maybe bombastic, maybe even childish, but the lion's share of it is dry, dark sarcasm, and we get that in loads here. I'm very thankful for that. We're going to be in Psalm 100 today. We're going to be talking about something that I, this is one of my favorite places in the whole Bible is to talk about what I'm going to be preaching about this evening is Psalm 100. And if you would stand with me, if you are physically able, we'll read this together. I will correct my statement. I will read this out loud and you will follow along with me. Psalm 100. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, he is God. It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise be thankful unto him and bless his name for the lord is good his mercy is everlasting and his truth endureth to all generations i love this portion of scripture i hope you do too this one has encouraged me throughout my life as a Christian from the time that I was new in the Lord, 18-year-old kid, to now. And as time has gone on, this portion of Psalms has gotten sweeter and sweeter and sweeter as life has gone on for me. I trust if you're familiar with this, it has done the same with you. And it should be no shock to you what the title of this preaching is. I tried to make it creative, I tried to make it fun, I tried to make it funny, and the only title I could come up with was pulled right out of verse number two, which is this, Serving the Lord with Gladness. Serving the Lord with Gladness. Let's pray, we'll get right into it. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. Lord, I'm just so thankful and I feel so unworthy of the fact that you would put me into the ministry Father, I love you. I'm thankful. Every time I get an opportunity to preach, Father, it's a gift to me personally that you would allow me to do that. Lord, I pray that you'd use me this hour. I want to be used, Father. I don't want to come up here and give a bunch of my opinions, Father. Lord, I want you to work, and I pray that you would, and I pray that you would use me. Lord, as much as my flesh would allow, Father, I pray that you would do that. Lord, I pray that your word will go out to your people and be used in this world to edify saints, to convict sinners, and to glorify you, the Father. Lord, I thank you for the opportunity here, Father. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, and amen. And you may be seated. So we're coming up on VBS, right? And that's a week of work, isn't it? If you come out of EBS and you don't have a bit of frustration in you, you're either very, very, very spiritual or you're very, very, very lazy. It's one or the other. After VBS, if you're coming out of that with no frustration at all, no tiredness, no fatigue, nothing like that, you're either very, very, very spiritual or you're very, very, very lazy. You're watching other people work. VBS time is coming up and that is a time where I think Molly drops more sweat per gallon in that week, then she probably lets out the entire year, I would guess. There's a lot going on. She's got an entire team of people here that are decorating. There are people teaching. There are people serving. There are people doing snacks. There's people building things. James built that back there. That doesn't just happen. That happens because people put their hands to the plow. And there's a whole lot of service that goes on in this church. Our church as a whole is a church that is a serving church. So much so that if you are not serving, the rest of us ought to, if we're doing it right, we should look like a bunch of buzzing bees around you wondering why you're standing still. That is what our church is. We are servants. We are worker bees. That is who we are as a culture. And that's a good culture to have. And I don't want to get away from that. I wonder about these churches that And I've seen them, I've preached in a few of them, and I've observed them. I don't know what the motive is behind these churches that just have themselves a happy Jesus party all the time, and nobody ever does anything, and you can't get anyone to vacuum, you can't get anyone to go soul winning, you can't get anyone to help on the bus ride. You can't get anyone to teach a class. But every Sunday, droves and droves of people come, and they're having a Jesus party, and they're happy in the Lord, and they're shouting and screaming. And then you go up to them and say, hey, you want to give out some tracts? And they do this. I don't understand churches like that. We are supposed to be, get this, serving the Lord. We're supposed to be serving the Lord. And in a church like this, that's what we are supposed to be doing. What is the church for if not for service to Him? That is what the church is. And this is what I would consider to be a church that people serve in. And I've observed it, and I've seen so many people serving each other, serving new people, serving people who are down, serving the Lord, doing it with right intention. And I've seen much of that, but you know what I've seen a lot of as well, not necessarily in this church, but among Christians? I've seen some pretty angry servants, too. I've seen some people doing things out of sheer obligation. Now, I understand every now and again you want to do something, you don't quite feel like it. I totally get that. I don't always feel like it, okay? And I know you won't either. We're made of flesh, we're limited, I understand that. But there are times when the Christian will come to the plow of God and grab it with anger. And I ask you, is that how we are supposed to serve the Lord? The Bible would say, no. Do we serve with the gladness that God commands of us? You see, in Psalm 100, I love these verses because it says this, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. That means everybody. Serve the Lord. A lot of people are, you know, they can be good at that. Serve the Lord, what? With gladness. That part, I think at times, people struggle with. And I think that when you come into a VBS time, And when you come into a high workload time, your gladness gets tested a little bit. You see, gladness is a product of joy. That's what gladness is a product of. It's the outward expression of what is inside of you, the joy of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what gladness is. And I love what Brother Pledger said. He didn't say it exactly this way. I played the editor. He said something that excited me so much. I was sitting right where Joe is sitting right now. He said something, I went, oh, where's my, I don't have a note. I ran to the office, grabbed a little note card, ran back, wrote it down, and I edited it because I had, in my mind, a better way to say it. I don't remember how he said it at this point. But here was the point that he made. Joy comes from Jesus. Happiness just comes from what happens. Okay, so that joy, that gladness that you have, it needs to come from the joy that's inside of you. That joy needs to be rooted in the Lord Jesus Christ and his blood applied to your life. God commands us to serve him with gladness. Do we serve him with the gladness that God commands us to? Here's my proposition, church. It's a simple one. It's one that I thought was appropriate right before we head into a very busy week together as a family. God wants you to serve him with gladness. God takes no pleasure in a bitter, obligation-laden servant who only does what he needs to when he has to. God takes no pleasure in that whatsoever. In fact, I would argue, if that's your attitude, put the plow down, give it to somebody who will do it with a smile on their face until you can get to a point where you can serve him with gladness. No, no, that's not what he wants. He's only pleased by servants with a glad heart towards him. That is what pleases him. The question becomes, How do we tap into that? What can we do? What are some practical things that we can do to initiate this gladness in our hearts? And that's where Psalm 100 gives us the answer. And I want to talk about that this evening, is how can we serve the Lord with gladness? Three things that I see in Psalm 100. They're not alliterated. I can turn in my ordination papers after the service if you need. I apologize for that. They are not alliterated, but they do make coherent sense. I think that's really the part that we're looking for. And they are biblical, which is paramount. So let's look at this together. How do we serve the Lord with gladness? Let's look at this. Psalm 100, let's start at verse 3. In fact, let's look just right at verse one again. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Verse three, let's look at this. Know ye that the Lord he is God. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. So what's the first thing we can do to bolster up this gladness in ourselves? Number one, we can understand our relationship with God. We can understand our relationship with God. Many relationships go sour because the ones involved do not understand the dynamics of it. The fact is, we have a particular part to play in this thing, and so does God. What is God's part in this thing? What is it about God? What role does He play in our lives? Go with me to the book of Revelation chapter 4. Revelation chapter 4, please. Revelation chapter 4, verse 11. The Bible says, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power Get this, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. You can take this to the book of Genesis, chapter one, verses one as well, for the obvious, in the beginning, who? God. God created. So number one, his relationship to us, number one, is the creator. God is the creator of the universe. He is the creator of the universe. He is the one who has made all things to be. He is the life of every single living person. He is the reason every heart beats. He is the reason every tree comes up. He knows when every tree goes down. He knows exactly how much water is in the ocean. And he is a God that created everything on purpose where he wanted it to be. He's a very intentional God. He is a creator God. And he is a creative God. God is a creator. And if you don't think that's impressive, go build something. Anything. I mean, you look at guys like Bill, you look at guys like Joe, you know, building trucks, building buildings, putting stuff, taking something that was nothing and putting it up and you see a building erected. How many church buildings have we seen go up and we think, wow, glory to God. I think about, I look at these pictures often, and I reference this much, but I think about the Akron Baptist Temple in 1950 when they built their million dollar building. That was a creation, that was bricks, and that was mortar, and that was waterproofing, and that was a million dollars in 1950. There was like 227 tons of steel, and it was erected on Manchester Road in Akron, and when it was done, everybody looked at it and marveled. They went, wow, that is something. And you know what, today, it sits a pile of rubble on Manchester Road in Akron, Ohio, because that's what man builds. And we look at that and we think, wow, how impressive. It lasted not even really the full course of a human life before it was torn down again. Yet what God creates is lasting. What God creates is regenerating. What God creates is so vast, our telescopes cannot number, you can't see it. It's endless, it's limitless. We can't see the heavens no matter what technology we have. He is a Creator God and we need to acknowledge this about Him. And we need to start giving Him the credit that's due for the work that He's done. Down that line, go with me to Ephesians chapter 4. What is the second thing God is? Ephesians 4, verse 6, one God, and get this, Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. Number two, we see God is a Father to us. God is a Creator, God is a Father, and where the Bible teaches, we cry, Abba, Father. God is not some distant nebulous, weird. Who here has ever had a weird and distant boss? Anyone ever have that before? I've had that. You know where the boss is, you know, they never really get close because they're like, oh, you're just going to leave again anyway. I had a boss like that. When I worked at Fast and All, my boss was like that. He had been there since, like, 1992, and he's still there, actually. And he would go through a salesperson every year, essentially, for the last 20 years. And then I stuck around, and I stayed for four years. And the funny thing about this guy, I respect him a great deal. I think he does a great job. You know, I would start to ask him leadership questions. And I would ask him things like, You know, Troy, how do you, you know, how do you handle people like this? Well, what do you do with this? Well, how do you handle this? Like, how do you, how do you feel when people leave? He goes, I just get another guy, I guess. I go, well, how do you know when they're going to leave? And then at that point he looked at me, he said, I'm not telling you. He doesn't want me to know my own signs, I guess. Well, here's the thing. I can't knock him for that. You get 20 years of people leaving, it's gonna make you behave a certain way. I get that. My point being is that that's not how God operates. God is not some weird, distant, overhead being who is keeping you like this. No, God is your Father. And the Bible teaches he's so much of a father. He teaches the fatherless that what you lack in an earthly father, you seek in me, your heavenly father. He is your father. So we look at this idea of him being a creator. He creates the world, he creates people. I will pause, he is a father. I will pause. How can we look at a creator and a father and God and read in his word and think abortion has any place in humanity? He is a creator God. He is a father God. He loves all of his creation. He wants all of his creation to become his children through the blood of Jesus. He doesn't want them to be hacked up and murdered. That's not his design. That's not his desire. But that's his relationship to us. He's a creator. He's a father. And not only this, you go to the book of Exodus, we won't turn there for sake of time, but that references him as the I am. Jehovah get this number three. He is the uncreated one God is not created. He is from everlasting to everlasting. He is from the beginning to the end the Alpha Omega He is uncreated. He is the creator. He has never been Created he doesn't live in the bounds of time you understand this is this is God the Father and who he is and not only this but He's not just a creator, he's not just a father, he's not just the uncreated one, the Jehovah, but look at this, number four, he's the good shepherd. Go with me to Psalm 23. If I could take you to one 45-second, maybe to three-minute instance in my life where this verse, these verses really came alive, We were, it was a Midway Baptist Church at the time. We were at the fair. And Midway, what they do is they have a tent at the fair. They hand out water. They give out Bible verses and gospel tracts to passerbys. Little kids, they make them come out and, I'll give you a piece of candy if you answer a Bible question. You know, one of those things. It was fun. You know, I worked that every year I was there. And I loved it. I enjoyed it. It was a good time. And one lady was walking by one day and, We ask her, what's your favorite Bible verse? And I start to see a tear come down her cheek. This is an old woman. A tear comes down her cheek, and all of a sudden, she stops, and then she lowers her head a little bit, and you start seeing tears, and she just starts saying, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. And about this time her hands started to go up. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over. And at this point she was really crying and she was just so worked up and she said this, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And she clenches her fist and puts them in the air and starts shaking them and she goes, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And it moved her to tears and it moved her to such excitement for the Lord just to know he is the good shepherd. He cares for the sheep. You're the sheep, I'm the sheep. He wants to lay us down on green pastures by the still waters. That's his heart for us. That's his relationship to us. Now let's talk about the obvious here. We're a New Testament church. This is His relationship to us. Jesus Christ coming down, laying Himself like this, willingly on a cross, letting His blood shed for your sins, for my sins. He laid on that cross so that we could lay beside the still waters of salvation. That's his relationship to us. What's our relationship to him? Number one, we are, if you are a born again believer in Christ, get this, you are his child. And as a child, what are children? I've got five of mine, it looks like, sitting back there behind the Clevelands and Tina, and those are my children. And I love them, and I think they love me. Pretty sure about that. You wouldn't answer honestly in this context anyway, but I appreciate the head nodding. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. My son's doing this. We're his children. If we're born again, what does that mean? Well, what do you think about your children? You say, I'm mad at him, but you love him, don't you? You say, I love him. You're going to love him more tomorrow, because that's the love of a parent to a child. We are his children. We are the ones that go to him and cry, Abba, Father. We are his sheep. You know, they don't take sheep into battle. You notice that? It's not a beast of warfare. There's a reason for that. It's because they've got no competency, they've got no aggression, they've got no brain, they've got no eyesight. They've got nothing. Are you getting the picture? We've got nothing. We are nothing without the Lord. We are his sheep. He is our shepherd. Now, that's only a bad thing if you don't trust the shepherd. And we are not just his children. We are not just his sheep. But get this, looking at Psalm 100, knowing ye that the Lord, he is God, it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. We are living in his pasture. This is my father's world. We know that song. This is our father's world. This is his pasture. And we are living in it. And as a result of being his child, his sheep living in his pasture, Knowing everything that we just covered, what He is. He is the Creator, He is the Father, He is the uncreated One, He is the Good Shepherd, He is Jehovah. How can you not serve Him with gladness? You know what our problem is? We put ourselves in the place of God. We get ourselves to the point that we think we're pretty close man I made that happen look I'm in sales I get it you get up you get a good juicy deal that happens and you get a good commission check off of that thing and you navigated it and you negotiated the terms and and you got everyone to say yes and and you get the money coming in and and and all those things happen it gets real easy to look at it and say I did that you've done nothing without the Lord We're nothing without him. The Bible says, without me ye can do nothing. Nothing. So he's up here, we're way down here. And get this, if your joy is rooted in, I'm sorry, if your gladness is rooted in the joy that is rooted in the son of the one that I just described, You ought to be happy as can be. If your gladness is rooted in what you can do, and how well you can perform, and your own temperament. Look, I know everyone in this room, and everyone in this room knows me. Every person in this room I have seen angry, and every person in this room has seen me angry. We're a family, we've seen each other. I'm not a guest preacher. We know each other by this point. We're not perfect. And what we love to do, we love to anchor our gladness into a joy that is rooted in our own competencies, and then it breaks from the ground up, and it all shatters, and we get really angry, and then we blame God. It was us that did it. We never anchored it in the thing that mattered, which is our joy in Jesus Christ. How do we get joy? Number one, we understand our relationship with God and His relationship to us. He is the Supreme One. We are His children. We can trust Him. We ought to be glad in Him. Understanding the hierarchy this way does something for us. It encourages us to trust Him. This trust translates, get this, to worship. We cannot worship God properly if we do not see Him as He is and ourselves as we are. Adjusting our view sets Him higher in our hearts. It's going to help us give Him the worship that He deserves. So understand our relationship with God. Number two. Go with me to Psalm 100, verse 4. So in verse three we just read, know ye that the Lord he is God, it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pastor. Verse four says this, enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. Number two, number one, we need to understand the relationship dynamics. Number two, we need to commit to proper behaviors in worship. Commit to proper behaviors in worship. How do we do this? Well, number one, you have to worship God. You have to set aside some time and worship Him. We need to spend time in worship. Let me ask you, church, and be honest in your heart, no one raise your hand, how much time do you spend actually worshiping God? actually just not physically putting your hands up, but for a matter of putting your hands up and going, God, you are worthy of all praise and all honor and all glory. Amen. And attributing that to him. How often do you do that? You say, not as often as I'd like. I'd say me too. But how often are you doing that? You have to worship God. You need to commit to proper behaviors in worship. It starts by what? Worshiping Him. Stop worshiping yourself. Stop spending all your money on you. Stop spending all your time on you. Stop idolizing your kids. They're gonna grow up and leave. You know what your kids are gonna do? My four kids, five kids, you know what they're gonna do? They're gonna play a dirty trick on me. The second that they get to a point or they can be my friend. Some guy or girl's gonna come along, and they're gonna look at my kid, whoever that kid is, and that kid's gonna look at them, and that kid's gonna go running for the hills with that person. And your kids will too. Stop worshiping them. Stop worshiping the things that you can buy. Stop worshiping your friend relationships. Stop worshiping your job. Stop worshiping yourself. Worship the Lord, because it is He that is worthy of all praise and all honor and all glory, and nobody else is worthy of that except Him. Stop giving it to other people who don't deserve it. We need to worship God. Spend time in worship with God. And get this, once you have gotten to a point where you're worshiping God. It's what I love about Brother Bill. I see Bill, and something that I love about him is that he will get something that he thinks God wants him to, and he just runs and does it. Runs to it. I asked him to teach a Sunday school lesson the other day. I'm like, hey, you want to start teaching the adult Sunday school? His eyes get wide open. Yeah. Yeah, anytime, anywhere you want. I'll do it however you want, whenever you want, however much you want. I'll do it. Let me tell you, that's a minister's dream to have people answer in such a manner. But the thing is, he does that. He runs to it. But the second he gets new information, his pastor develops him, I see him course correct, too. You know, you do that a couple of dozen times in a couple of dozen months, you're a different person. That's a beautiful thing. So, you know, a starting point is you want to start worshiping, but you don't want to start there. You want to start honing that in to something that is more biblically specific. So what do we do? Well, after you've established a pattern of worship, what do you do with that pattern of worship? Here's how you polish it a little bit. Stop treating worship as a ceremonial event. and start treating it as a pattern for your life. There's a difference. Don't be a Catholic. Don't come into this building on a Sunday morning, a Sunday night, Wednesday night, raise up holy hands here, and then live a completely different life out there. I got to tell you, I don't. One of the best compliments that I ever received was from my children, one of my kids, a couple of years ago. They came up to me at home. We were playing. We were doing something or another. And one of my kids comes up to me. And please, you understand my heart. I'm not trying to brag on myself. I'm not. I'm bragging on the Lord with this, because he's the one that does it. But one of them, they came up to me and they said, Dad, I don't understand something. And I go, what? And they say, well, you're this great, fun, lively person in our home, and you have all this energy, and you're goofy, and you're funny, and you're this and you're that. And you're not quite that at church. Here's how I translated that. My kids see the best of me in my home. And that was directly, in my mind, that was praise to God. That was encouragement that I needed at that moment. But here's my point in bringing that up. Your Christian life can't just be some ceremony that you dawn in this building. It can't be. Say, this is a Wednesday night crowd. Wednesday night people, it happens to you too. I am one. I've been to Bible college. I've sat at Bible college and turned it into a ceremony because I was fatigued. I've been backslidden in Bible college. Imagine that. How can that happen? I'll tell you how it can happen. You get into your flash and you start putting the tie on because you like the tie, not because it honors the Lord. And you start focusing on yourself. And before you know it, the worship that was going here is going back here. It ought to be a way of life, not just a ceremony. What does that mean? That means this threefold here. That means you worship in public. In public. It says here, verse four, enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. What are the gates and the courts? That's the public square of Christian life. You enter into those with praise and thanksgiving and worship to God. It also says in Hebrews 10.25, the ultimate verse of 2020, not forsaking the assembling of yourselves, you worship him in public. Also, you see in the book of Acts 2.46 that you worship from house to house. Preaching and teaching from house to house, it says. Now that verse, I believe it means two things. It means soul winning, obviously, but it also means going to people's houses and talking about the Lord and studying him. Look, it's one thing to hear me or pastor come up here and preach. Come over to our house. Houses, we don't live together. There's not an outbuilding that we share or anything like that. He lives at 409, I live at 422. Close, but not the same. Go to his house. Come to my house. Open the word of God together. Not because it's church, but because we love the Lord. Go from house to house. You got a friend in this room? How about next time you see them, instead of going to them, and saying, hey, let's go watch a movie, or let's go get Mexican food, or let's go do this. Say, hey, let's get together and open our Bibles and pray. It's in public. It's from house to house. And it is also based on Matthew 6, 5 and 6. The verse is about the prayer closet. You do worship him in private. Listen. You get up in the morning or late at night, that private worship with the Lord has produced some of the sweetest times in my life. And if you do it, it'll produce some of the sweetest times in your life. So you worship God. You worship him as a way of life, not just in ceremony, in the public, from house to house, and also in private, and then also you worship him appropriately. Give him thankfulness. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving. Give him thanks. Enter into his courts with praise. Give him praise. Be thankful unto him and give this, bless his name. Blessing means to, to put a blessing on the name of Jesus means to invoke divine favor upon that name. So to bless the name of Jesus means Jesus is the son of God, he is all man, he's all God, and he is my only ticket to heaven, and I'm trusting him and him alone with my soul when I die. That's blessing his name. You are ascribing deity to the name of Jesus. That's what that means. You give thankfulness, you give blessings, you give praise, and you give it, get this, often. Not just every now and again. How do we get glad in the Lord? How do we serve him with gladness? Understand our relationship with God, Number two, commit to proper behaviors in worship towards God. Let's look at number three. Psalm 100, verse five. This will encourage you, I hope. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. Number three, we need to stand strong on God's character. You want to serve him with gladness? Stand strong on his character. What is his character? What we see right there, it is unmatched goodness. is unmatched goodness. Go with me to 1 John chapter 3. Chapter 3 verse 5. And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and get this, and in him is no sin. You know what it means when there's no sin in him? There's no fault in him. There's no imperfection in him. In God is nothing but goodness. That's all that there can be left. If you subtract the sin from you and me, and you subtract the evil from you and me, and you remove the water as well, through 70% water, the only goodness that is left is the goodness of the righteousness of Christ, which has been applied to your life through the blood of Jesus, manifest in the Holy Spirit in you. That's the only goodness that dwells in you. There is no good thing in us. And we forget that. There's no good thing in us. But there is nothing but good in God. And until you can get to a point where you can believe that, you'll never go anywhere in your Christian life. You're gonna live a miserable, miserable Christian life. You'll serve when you feel good, and then when you don't feel good, you won't serve. You'll serve when things are going good, and then when things are going bad, you'll blame him and you'll run off. And that's no way to go through your Christian life. No, he is only goodness. Now that doesn't mean he always agrees with me, but if I've got any sense at all, I better get to myself where I'm agreeing with him because he's the one that's good and I'm the one that's evil. In him is unmatched goodness. In him is everlasting mercy. It is a mercy that is everlasting. It is him withholding that thing that we deserve, which is hell. And the beautiful thing about his mercy is that it is truly everlasting. I'll tell you what, we go to West Virginia. We just got back. And we go to my wife's cousins, Jess and Brandon, the ones who started the Christian school down there. And the water situation is a little bit different down there when you're taking showers. It's just a different way of life. They have well water. So when I take a shower down there, I am, it's funny, I will, because you never know how much water you have and you can run out. That's the situation down there. And there's nine kids and four adults. So, and we've done this on a Sunday morning with one bathroom, mind you. So I'll get up and I'll take my shower and here's how I take my shower. I'll take my rag, I'll take the, whoops. Then I'll take a little bit more. I'll put a cup in there. I'll pour it on myself. Now it's a race. How fast can I wash myself before that soap gets dry? And then it's another race. Now this is where all the water has to go. Now I actually have to rinse myself off. Go. OK. Off we go. Let's go to my house for a minute. I bought a 50-gallon water tank, people. 50 gallons. And you know what I do in there? Ah. My wife goes, what are you doing in there? I go, shh. Ah. You say, that's a waste of water. You guys have trucks, guns, and shoes that cost more than what I paid for my house. You mind your own business. Here's my, I got everyone with that one. That was buckshot. Here's my point. I treat the water differently when I know it's limitless. You bask in it. You enjoy it. It's not a terror. It's not something you worry about, because it just keeps coming and coming. And that's the mercy of God. It is an endless amount of mercy that he applies to your life. And it's never going to stop, and it's never going to quit. And it's always going to be available to you. But you have to believe that about Him. It is everlasting mercy. He does not limit His mercy. We should not either. Thirdly, stand strong on God's character. What's God's character? For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. God's words endure. This word has the same power that it has always had, that it will always have. And you need to believe that. His words endure. His truth endures. It never falls to the ground as irrelevant. There are people who call it irrelevant. There are people who mock it. There are people who malign it. And you know what? Every one of those knees of those people are eventually going to bow down to the Lord Jesus Christ and call him what he truly is. Every single knee will bow and every single tongue will confess what God is and what Jesus has done. You need to stand strong on that, Christian. You need to stop letting yourself get embarrassed about your own testimony. And you need to stop letting yourself get sad in the Lord when you should be glad in the Lord. He is the solid rock on which we stand. His truth endures from generation to generation. That is his character. So in conclusion, God wants you to serve him with gladness, he does. He wants you to serve him and he wants you to serve him with gladness. God takes no pleasure in a bitter obligation ridden servant who only does what he needs to in order to get by. No, no, no, no, he doesn't want that. He is only pleased by the servant with a glad heart towards him. So how do we initiate this gladness in our heart? We need to understand who God is and who we are. We need to commit ourselves to public and private worship and study. And we need to stand strong as monuments of God's character. Doing these things will make us glad in Him. And we have to be glad if we ever hope to please the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we thank you.