Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God hath done. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God hath done. On verse two, are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy? You are called to bear. Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly. And you will be singing as the days go by. Faster, count your blessings, name one by one. Count your blessings. Name them one by one. Count your many blessings. See what God hath done on the last. So amid the conflict, whether great or small, do not be discouraged. God is overall. Count your many blessings. Angels will attend. Help and comfort give you till your journey's end. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God hath done. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God hath done. Thank you for singing. You may be seated. Let's go ahead and pray. Once you find your seat, just to open our service, and then we will do memory verses right after that. Lord, I thank you so much for Layton Chapel. I ask that you would be with us tonight, be with the word, be with Bill as he preaches, and that you would just give us a good time around your word that we would leave here encouraged and motivated as we go out into this work week in Jesus' name, amen. All right, I'm going to grab the blue one, see if I can activate this correctly. Okay, oh, we are good to go. All right, hey, if you've got, whoa, this is very loud. Thank you, thank you. If you have a memory verse, let's see what is left out here for us. Is Mike here? Oh, Mike's not here, oh. Then it's mints for everybody, I'm just kidding. We do have chocolates and lollipops as well, dum-dums, but if you have a memory verse, yes, in the back, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. Grace be with you, Hebrews 13, 12. Very good. There you go. Give her a hand. Oh, so many choices. Did you have your hand up? Yeah. All right, go. 1 Thessalonians 5, 25. Brethren, pray for us. Brethren, pray for us. That is a very good verse and a good verse to remember right now. Good job. Charlie, you got one? There we go. Give him a hand. He got it. You're raising your hand? All right, I'll be over there in a minute, I promise. All right, five, four, three, two, oh, you got it. There we go. All right. There we go. He got it. Good job. Genesis 1-1. You think you can too? There we go. Reference and verse, both of you. Good job. OK, which epistle are you going to quote? James 3 9 through 12 therewith bless we God even the father and therewith curse we man which are made after the similitude of God Out of the same mouth proceeded blessing and cursing my brethren these things ought not so to be Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter can a vine my brethren bear olive berries either Can the fig tree my brethren bear olive berries either a vine figs so can no fountain yield both salt water and fresh. I Here we go. Great job. If anyone wants to challenge for head of the class, you got to beat that. All right, who else? Who else got a verse? Anybody? Yes, ma'am. I don't need a mic. Oh, yes, you need a mic. Comfort yourselves together and edify one another, even as you also do. Congratulations. There we go. I'm good. Oh, no. Passing up candy. Oh, my. All right, anyone else have a verse? All right, you can get what you want. You want chocolate or a sucker? All right, anybody else before we're done for the evening? Oh, OK, sorry. I'll finish the verses on the side because it wouldn't all fit. So it's Ecclesiastes 3.1. To everything there is a season and a purpose to every, excuse me, to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. Amen. It's a very timely verse, that's great. Well, good job to everyone memorizing verses. Y'all did better than me this week. I was rather lax in it, to say the least. Oh, we have one more? All right, what's your verse? There we go, pray without ceasing. Grandma's quick with the short verses over here. Five, four, three, oh, there we go. All right, Mr. Bill, do we have anything else? All right, with that, then I'm just going to turn it over to Mr. Bill. Good evening, Layton Chapel Baptist Church. Good to see everybody here tonight. We'll get the mic straight, no problem. Tim is on it. Yeah, oh, everybody's coming in. Good, good, good, good. Well, continue to pray for Brother John and Miss Bethany. You know, I was, sad, happy, is all. But I would say this, don't get ahead of yourselves, let's wait on the Lord. Let's wait on the Lord, let's see where he's gonna take us, let's see what he's gonna do, because we know that the Lord's got this. But probably none of you, but my problem is I always get ahead of the Lord. I get ahead, I jump ahead, and I figure the possibilities and the what's and the questions and the things and the that. And I've learned over years that that's just no good. Because he'll reveal it to us in his time, you know, with his patience and his wisdom and his guidance. Just love up on him, pray for him, give him their space, and we'll go from there. Brother Frank McDonald, would you open us up in prayer, please? Amen. Turn to Psalm 100. Brother John assigned me Psalm 100 and told me to speak on worship and praise. So Psalm 100. Tonight, I'm normally fairly structured. I like the three points in a poem, the big opening and the application. I'm just going to tell kind of a story tonight. I'm just going to tell you what God showed me about Psalm 100 and some things that I'd never seen before. and some things that I learned, and hopefully that you can take that forward with you throughout the week. Okay. Worship, praise, adoration. Both mean giving praise to a divine being, a divine God. Praise, adoration, worship. How do we worship God, LCBC? Tell me. Tonight's very interactive. You got to work with me. Word and in deed. What does it mean to worship him in deed? I like that. Rose and I have a little teeny sign on one of our ledges in our house that says you can preach a better sermon with your life than your lips. In deed, in word and deed. And then I will say this too, that is so important. The deed, I believe that's how most people get saved. Yes, the preaching is powerful. Yes, it doesn't return void. Yes, we should witness. But I think more people get saved just by watching Christians be Christians. That's how I got saved. You know, it was Cary Snelling. He was a chaplain. Can't get rid of those chaplains. And he came to play on our softball team. We were the birbs. Remember that old Tom Hanks movie, The Birbs? We were the birbs. And we were horrible. But he always brought his family. You know, we were a little rough in language. I wasn't saved then yet. We were a little loose with our tires and what we said and what we did. And he had his family there. And I thought, man, that's different. It's always there. They're always with him. He came to play with us on our team. And long story short, I came here on October 20, 1995. I got saved. because somebody had a deed. How else do we worship the Lord? Spirit and truth. We're actually gonna talk about that a little bit tonight. A little spirit, a little truth. Yes, girl? Reading the Bible. Good job. By reading the Bible, by devotion to his word, it's so, so, so important. So there's a lot of ways to worship God, but we're gonna look at some more we didn't even mention tonight. First, we're gonna talk my Monday. Mondays don't bother me. Anybody here dislike Mondays? Raise your hand, Rose. She's a Monday hater. We're a house divided. I don't care. Monday, whatever. It doesn't matter to me. Rose likes Mondays. So my Monday, I get up, do my devotionals, go to my little gym thing, and I'm a list guy. I make lists. for everything. If I'm going to cook lunch, I make a menu. I just make lists, OK? And nothing was happening right on my list. I couldn't do this. I couldn't do that. The phone kept ringing. My parents are in elderly care. And stuff was going wrong with their nurses and their blood sugars. And they're dizzy. And it just was a tough day. And the grass is this high. And I need to get out and mow. Nothing clicked, you know? I burnt the toast I made for lunch. Finally, a little bit later on, it broke. The rain broke. And I'm like, okay, I got to mow, you know? Us men get so tunnel vision sometimes, and what we have to do, we forget what we need to do, is have patience and calmness and worship the Lord as we go along instead of being a grunchy grouch, right? So I even Googled, I Googled, is it bad to mow after a rain? Evidently, it's really bad. So what do you think I did? I mowed anyway, right? So I mowed anyway. I'm out there, and I'm talking, I covet a few things, but I can step down and admit this. I covet my John Deere lawnmower. We grew up poor country people, and John Deere was always a status symbol to me. And one time for my birthday, Rose said, you can buy that lawnmower if you want to. And I'm like, no way. No way. No way. I got a John Deere. I'm going to run like a deer. Right? And I mean, it's up there. It's up there. I wash it. I clean it. I scrub it. I scrape the little thingies out. I'm not a giant mechanic. You want to break stuff, you call me. You want to fix stuff, you call Josh. OK? So anyways, I'm mowing. I'm mowing. I'm cruising around. I normally mow in one direction, but I deviated from my standard direction. When you deviate from your standard direction in a way that you know that's not right, that should be the first sign, right? I mowed in a different pattern, and I'm cruising wide open. Did I say it's a 54 inch? It's big. Anyways, you know those iron water boxes, meter boxes? No. So they're a little too pointy down wheels in the front? I said, Smack. And the rear end came up, and it quit. I'm like, oh, I was mad. Then I was like, how am I going to tell Rose? OK. She going to kill me. And I was just really, I don't get depressed. I mean, you guys know me. I'm happy. I love Jesus. I love life. Everything, every glass is full to me. They aren't half full. They're all full. It's unlimited possibilities out there in the world because every day as Christians, we get to make a choice. And I'm not putting me up there, but I choose joy. I choose Christ. I choose a structure. But I just got the pooch mouth, man. I was just like, I was mad. And I rarely get mad. I was upset. And then I started thinking, well, I don't have a job. I'm stupid, I'm not any good. I just got depressed. And I was like, hmm. And it hit me, God just said, what do I have you teaching on Sunday? Worship, Lord. Praise, Lord. How's that coming for you right now? Not too good. I'm mad. I'm upset. Things aren't going how I want them to go. He goes, calm down. What about the Holy Spirit I gave you? Did you ask him? No, because I'm mad. Just let me be mad. And he goes, nah. Let me tell you what. Just go home. And then I was like, go what? She said, just go. So I got in the truck. I drove away from the B&B, only maybe from here to the Welcome Center. And I stopped. You have to see it. And I looked over, and that's my bean field. That's three, four seasons ago, it was a bean field. It's 12 acres, 10 acres, it's roses rented out, and that's my prayer closet. I park there every morning, try 6, 630, and I get my prayer list down and I talk to Jesus. He goes, that's where you need to go. That's where you need to go. You don't want to be a hypocrite. How are you going to stand up in front of those people with this attitude you've got? You got to get some worship in your life. You got to get it going on. You got to get your praise on. And then you ever get those chaplains where you're not sure where you're going, and then in nine minutes, you got three or five, three by five cards filled out because you're writing so fast, you can't stand it. It's just ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. You know, and all of a sudden, it's, I love you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. I might not have that job today, but I'm one day closer. You didn't leave me. You didn't forsake me. The mower can be fixed. I don't know how, because I ain't fixing that thing. I don't know how to do that. Because that's just no. My idea of fixing is dropping it off at John Deere. And when you don't have a job for a minute, you don't have a ton of extra cash. So you're like, you just wait on them. Again, let's just start. Let's jump in. Psalm 100, verse 1, and I'm just going to read a verse and break it on down. I won't read them all in the beginning, but, Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Two thoughts that the Lord laid on my heart. Why do we worship the Lord? You know, we see a lot of worship in this world going on. Maybe you could throw a little at me. I'm a great teacher. Nah, you know, we see a lot of worship of movie stars, Olympics, athletes, you know. Could we worship maybe our pastor? He's our pastor. He's a man of God. Should we worship him? Why do we worship the Lord? Think about it. There's a lot of reasons. Well, the first reason, let me back up, why we don't worship man is they don't deserve it. They just don't deserve it. They didn't earn it. You got to earn it. Our Lord earned it. Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are the only ones ever to earn it. They made it all. This is real simple, but these young people quoted this verse three times tonight. In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth. Wow. He made the world. He deserves our worship. He made us. Genesis 126. Let us create man in our own image. And we'll talk more about that later. I like this when Job is talking to God. God's not some silly weakling. He's a stud. He's tough. He's strong. Can you imagine God and Job talking? Job 38, verse one through seven. 38, listen to this, listen now. Then the Lord answered Job out of the world and said, who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Job, you don't know. Who are you? Gird up your loins like a man, for I'll demand of thee and answer thou me. Where were thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding. Answer me, boy. Do you know? Where were you? Because look around. I made this. You don't even know who you're talking to. You know, look at this. I love this stuff. Who laid the measure thereof, and thou knowest, or who hath stretched a line upon it? Wherein the foundations therefore fastened, or who laid the cornerstone thereof? When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. That's one you read over quick. But I don't know about you guys, when I Bible study, I try to see it. I'm very visual. It helps me learn if I can see it. I might be right, I might be wrong, but I still want to see it. You know, but that verse right there, I see Jesus on his throne. Because who are the morning stars that sang together and all the sons of God? The angels. How many angels are there? That's a ton. I know there's 10,000 times 10,000, but can you imagine a heavenly angelic choir just praising the Lord, just worshiping the Lord? I was gonna go to, was it Revelation 4? Isn't that the worship book? Somebody know? Caleb. I guess I should know, but it's up there in Revelations. But think about that. Picture that, millions and millions of perfect angelic voices singing to God. Where were you, Job? Were they worshiping you? No, they were worshiping me. I'm gonna skip eight through 17, but they're the same. It just goes on and on and on. Verse 18. Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? Declare, if thou knowest all, Job. I added the word Job. Go ahead. Tell me what you know, buddy. Because I'm God. You know? There ain't nobody like me. You know? I love the word of God and I never get tired of reading it. Whenever I think there ain't nobody like him, Bad English, but it's right. And it's in the Bible. Let me show you. Isaiah 45, 5 through 8. Listen to this. I am the Lord, and there is none else. There is no God besides me that girdeth thee. Thou hast not known me. that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, there is none else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. Drop down ye heavens from above and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open and let them bring forth salvation and let the righteousness spring up together. I, the Lord, have created it. Verse 9, 45, 9 says, Woe unto him that striveth with his maker. You can't beat him. He's bad to the bone. He's God Almighty, creators of heaven and earth. He deserves worship unlike no one else does. Show me another living God. Buddha, Confucius, the Mormon, they're dead. You can go to their graves and see where they're buried and see their epitaphs. You go to Jesus Christ's grave, little sign, he's not here for he is risen. It's awesome. It's awesome. He's alive. He deserves our worship. By the way, he came a long way for us. Galatians 4.4, but when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His son, made of a woman, made under the law. God sent forth his son from where? The heavens. He came a long way from you. And God sent forth his son. That's hard. Be hard to send your son away from home. I remember when Jason left. My son is 36 now. I was hurt. I was hurt. I was crushed. He was my friend. I was his dad, don't get me wrong. But I missed him. And it really hurt me, because when he went away, he had found new friends, and he left me. with a bill, but anyways, and not this bill, that bill. But I missed him. It was hard to send him away, empty nest syndrome. But God willingly sent his son to come to earth. Why? To fix the sin problem we had. He sent, and to do that, he had to go to Calvary. And he had to die upon a cross. to Telestai. It is finished. He died, but he wasn't there for long. Boy, the devil was happy at that time. The devil didn't want to worship him. The devil said, I've got him. I've got him. He's mine. He sent death and corruption to the grave. And on the third day, He was gone to shed his blood for our sins so we could have a relationship together. He not only sent his son away from home, he sent him to die. He's worth worship. Psalm 100 verse 2, serve the Lord with gladness, come before his presence with singing. In this verse, God impressed one word that I wouldn't have picked with worship. I just didn't think about it, Caleb. Serve. Serve. You want to worship God? Serve Him. What's your calling? Everybody has one, right? If I ask you, what is yours, could you tell me? What's your niche? You know, what's God called you to do specifically? Are you using that to worship him? Commanded a lot of troops, ran a lot of things, done a lot of things. And the things that I'm successful, I think, is I learned from the Bible, not me. the Bible, but I believe in my heart, everybody I meet has a gift. I believe I can learn something from everybody in this room, and I have. Even TJ here. There's TJ. Come on in, TJ. He's happy. He's positive. He's motivated. He's excited. He's genuine. He's kind. Boy, I could be like that more, couldn't I? I could be like that more. You know, we get in the way and think we're the boss. One of the, you remember when you first got saved in Christian steps that you learned, you know, you learned the value of this and truth and faithfulness and tithing and serving. So I remember this. So it blew me away that when God sent forth his son to come to this earth and walk the earth, with a mission, right? I didn't get it for a long time. He didn't do nothing he wanted to do, did he? Jesus didn't wake up and said, here's my schedule, here's my plan, here's my day runner, here's my list, this is what I'm going to do. He never did it. What did he do? The will of the Father that sent him. Because I'm a business owner. In my world, whatever I said, whatever I said, whatever I said, that's it. Not a lot of discussion needed here. This is where we're gonna go. This is what we're gonna do. Strap on, let's go. We did what I wanted to do. But I learned that I needed to drop that I mentality, young in my Christian walk. Because if my Lord and Savior can come and submit and humble himself, He's God. Why did He do that? For an example for us, how to serve. Serving. Who did Jesus come to serve? Luke 19.10, for the Son of Man is to seek and to save that which was lost. It's lost. This is crazy ADD jump. Have you ever heard that term? Oh, he's just being Christian. Oh, he's just being Christian. That means you're just being nice to somebody, you know? You really want to call him a moron, but you just say, bless your heart. You know, you're just being Christian. I think I saw Jesus here just being Christian. Listen to this. Mark 2, 17, when Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, the whole world have no need of physician, but they that are sick. I came to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He said, they said, they that are whole have no need of physicians, but they that are sick do. So Bill, what are you getting at? I don't know, it's just a thought. None of us, all of us have need of physicians. Nobody's whole. Jesus was just being Christian. He was just being, no, oh, you guys, you whole people are okay, I just came for you sick people. Jesus came for the whole world. The whole, whole world. You know, not just America, the whole world. Not just white people, black people, the whole world. God loves us all perfectly the same. And he wants to see us be saved. You know, God so loved the world. Verse three, know ye that the Lord, he is God, and he hath made us, and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. I said it already, but he made us. We're not ourselves. We're bought with the price. We're not ourselves. We have to learn obedience. And we all know this. This is a Sunday night crowd. But I'm such a knucklehead, I need to hear it every day. We need obedience. We need submission. We need to praise him. You know, I think we sometimes forget how much God has really just given us. I really do. Because I don't have a lot of tolerance for the Eeyore mentality. Oh me, oh my, I hope I can make it. Under the circumstances, I'm gonna try. I don't have a lot of tolerance, I don't. I think that insults God. It's called imputed righteousness. You want a cool study? Look up the righteousness of Christ. The righteousness of Christ. When we got saved, he gave it to us. Because he wanted to create us in his image. What does in his image mean? That we look like him? Somebody help me. What does that mean? Think we're twins of God? He created us in his image. God the Father's only a spirit. He doesn't even have an image, right? The Holy Spirit is a spirit. He doesn't have an image. When we are created in his likeness, that means his character. We're created in his character. We're created in his demeanor, his attributes, his customs, his ways. Rose has got, they have four generations of girls. Joanne, Rose, Erin, well now there's Madison and Ava, but they're the grandchildren, right, and great-grandchildren. They all look alike. But you know what else they do? Rose says it all the time. I was just like that as a kid. I caused that same cane. I said, did your parents beat you? Because that's what we need to do with Ava. But she doesn't agree with that. No granddaddy tough love there, but she just said, I will beat you. And I believe her. But he gave us all his character, all his attributes, all his demeanor, the ability to do right and be right. Yes, I'll talk about it later, but you know, it's like you said, it's sanctification, right? He gave it to us all, but we gotta work on it. We gotta work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. We gotta try, we gotta have effort. I've said it a million times, God really doesn't care if you win or lose. He just cares if you try, because he's already won it, and he will never lose. So you don't need to be a winner, just try. Go out there. Failure with God is still awesome. I don't know how, but whatever's happening to John and Bethany right now, it's for their good. I don't wanna speak out of turn or speak disrespectfully, because I love them, but I believe there's a righteous God who intends good for them. I believe their life is clean, pure, honest, decent people. Will he put him through something? Sure, because he's wanting to give him something. Storms make you stronger. You know? Thank God one day that sanctification journey will end, right? Amen. 1 John 3, 2, beloved. When it says beloved in the Bible, what does it mean? Christians. Christians, and it's funny, because the verse says it. Now are ye the sons of God, and it did not appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. I'm not much into music, Christian music. I like the old-fashioned Christian radio. I'm an old crony. I got saved out of rock and roll, so I just don't flirt with that. But the first Christian song I really flipped over contemporary-ish was I Only Imagine. Wow. Yeah, it's your favorite too, isn't it? Yeah, it was at Grandma's funeral, wasn't it? I was there. I can only, can you imagine? What's it going to be like? Thousands and thousands and thousands of people saved through time and eternity. People that were saved in the 1500s. Talk about a melting pot, but I think we'll all be able to communicate the testimonies to give Jesus all the honor, all the glory, bow at his feet, get a minute with him, get a new name, new heavens, new earth, a mansion, it ain't an apartment, streets of gold, fellowship. Hey, I'm stoked about the marriage supper, okay? I'm usually the one doing the serving, but then Jesus will be doing it. He'll be doing the serving. Can you imagine when he reaches over? That's huge. But one day when we see him, These will all be gone. They'll all be gone. I didn't have time to go over this, because I'm almost done. I wanted to get into another fun study I encourage you about sheep. Look up the attributes of sheep, Steve. You're a studying fool. Yeah, it's really good. It's really, really good. Lots of comparisons there. Verse 104, enter into his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise, be thankful unto him and bless his name. Back to the beginning of my story. When I hit verse four in my prayer closet, I realized I'm giving you this one, it's a free one, It's a really important way to start your day. If you just get up, shower, shave, and run, and I'm talking to family here, and you all know me, and I do that sometimes, but shame on you. You gotta start with praise. What's your prayer closet look like? Do you got one? Do you have a prayer list? Do you have a plan to praise Him? Or are you just winging it? By the way, you can't teach winging it to other people and we're to teach other people. Teach you all nations going. Show me your prayer list. Open with prayer, praise, close with getting all the sin out of your life. I love AARs. I AAR everything, everything I do after action report, everything. Okay, to see what I do, how I can get better, how I can do better, what can I learn from, did I do what God wanted me to do? You know, but again, to get back on track before you ask for this or that, you need to praise him. Now, you may not build, I'm again thinking logistically, you might not be able to open up every prayer conversation with praise. Let me explain. You know, when Peter was walking on the water, what he shouted at Jesus? Save me. Wasn't a whole lot of praising going on there. Just save me, Lord. But that's OK. I call it this. Every day I say I should use my wits. Use my wits. Use my wits. And I had a hard time with this. Because I think early in my years, I couldn't pray or praise him or do anything unless I was down on my knees next to my bed with my Bible open to Psalm 100. And just all, you know, I just couldn't. I didn't know it was OK just to talk to him. Hey, Lord, love you. Should I go in here or not? Lord, I love you. Should I buy that or not? Should I say that to my wife and my kids or should I not? It's okay to have, can you pray while you're driving down the road? Sure you can. It's okay. It's okay. You know why? God loves to talk to you. God just loves it. Let me illustrate that. So Jason, it was my son's birthday, 36th birthday. Rose and I jumped in the truck. We left at 5.30 in the morning. We're going to Beaufort. We're going to the beach. We're going to Beaufort, day tripping. And we always have fun when we drive down there, you know? Because it's really cool. Anybody ever been to Beaufort? Yeah, it's really cool. It's really historic. We talk about things. We got there with my son and his wife, Ashley. And we parked, and we went over to this farmer's market. And it was just where the Spanish moss was in the trees, and the big, giant, old courthouse. The building was 1789 built. And I'm like, whoa, this is so cool. And Jason was our guide. And then he goes, I'm going to mix it up. Just follow me. He's a fireman there. So he knows houses and codes and, you know, what's going on in the city and stuff like that because it's smart. And he's telling us about this house and that house and how this guy had to write this down and build that up because it wasn't the code. And it was cool. We came across to a street, you know, the front street in Beaufort right there. And on the water side, no residential construction is allowed, only commercial buildings. And he said, But one guy snuck through, Richardson, he owned the Panthers. He wanted to buy it for his house and they said, you can't make it a house, it has to be a commercial residence. So he spent $275,000, put in a commercial kitchen, called it a bread and breakfast, and never opened. And now that's his house on this side of the road, right? There's always a way. And we went and we ate ahi tacos and things and stuffs and had the best time. Oh, we went to Friendly Market. Oh, I got these cookies. They're made with potato chips. Potato chips, chocolate chips, butter, milk. I'm getting off track. But it was really fun. This was really, huh? Voila. It was really fun. So I get home, go into bed. saying my prayers, and what did I do in AAR on my day. And I said all that to say this. Do you know what the best part of that day was? I saw, I ate, I traveled. You know what the best part of that day was? I got to listen to my son. He just talked. I didn't say anything, I just listened. Yeah, it's true, I'm up here, it's true. Pastor John said if I'm gonna lie, I have to get on there. He was very clear about that. Man, I was so proud of my son. What a good boy. What a smart kid. What a man, what a Christian man. And all he did was talk to me. You get it, right? Do you think God gets excited when you talk to him? Yeah, he does. Verse five, I'm gonna wrap this up. I had to skip some stuff, I think. So first four, I do want to say this. I just wrote here, Hebrews 13, five, let your conversation be without covenants and be content with such things as ye have. For he has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. He'll never leave us or forsake us. I know we all know that verse, but he won't. He'll never stop loving us. You know, it's impossible for God for him to stop loving us. Doesn't matter what we do, doesn't matter how we act, he'll never leave us or forsake us. We think he leaves us, and we think he forsakes us. Why? Because we rely too much too often on our emotions. I feel like, jeez, when I was deployed and I had those 300 people working for me, the thing I hated the most was, Bill, let me tell you how I feel. Let me tell you how I feel. Let me tell you how I feel. Do you feel me, Bill? Do you feel me? And I can't tell you what was going through my mind at that moment, but it was not Hebrews 13.5. But anyways, we put too much value on our feelings and emotions. We do. We need to put all the value that we have on Jesus Christ and his word. Because we're going to mess up, and we're going to not feel like it sometimes. And I had a list of 10 Bible characters to cover here. But don't let emotion. cloud your worship, stick to the word of God, stick to the truth. The number one way he speaks to you is here. Everybody agree with that? So how is he going to speak to you if you don't read it? Get in it, and he'll speak to you. And it's so joyous, and it's so wonderful, and it's so great. 105, for the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations. For the Lord is good. He really is good. You know, I didn't say it in the story, but I left you hanging on my broken lawnmower, right? The Lord sent me somebody to help me fix it. Josh, right there. Because I mean, I tried to look smart because I'm older and stuff like that. But I'm no engineer like he is. He's smart. And he fixed it. A little hard work, a little sweat. I could have never done it alone. And I was worried about it horribly. But God sent a helper and fixed it. I think God just sends us helpers all the time. miss them sometimes. We just don't pay attention sometimes, you know. I look to hear mercy and truth. Finish up with these two words. What's the definition of mercy? Good job. I like it. Psalm 2510, all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, unto these such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. Psalm 677, he shall abide before God forever, O prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of life, and I'll dwell in the house forever. What's the definition of truth? Accurate, right, undeniable. easily provable. Who is the truth? Jesus Christ. What's the only truth we know? Because there's lots of, you know, it's right here. This is the only truth that I know. If I want to know something, it's in here, I promise you. I promise you it's in here. If you have a thought and an emotion, a feeling, a question, a fear, I promise you it's in here. I promise you. And I promise you God doesn't hide it from you. If you want to use it to find it out, he'll give it to you. He will give it to you. And what a good feeling that is. Close. I'm done. Five things I want you to remember. Worship him because he made it all. Worship him because he earned our worship. Worship him because there ain't nobody like him. We get the opportunity to participate in a religion that our founder is alive. Wow. To worship the Lord is to serve him. Now, Leighton Chapel Baptist Church is a working church. But do you serve him? I listed all the areas we could serve. I won't even go into them all. Serve him. Use your talents for the Lord. He gets great honor and great glory from it. Three, we're made in his image, not what he looks like and we look like, but his character, his attributes. That's you. That's in you. He molded you like clay. That's in you. His righteousness is imputed to you. Use it. Use it. I'm proud to be on the winning team. I'm proud to be on the winning side. You can't beat my God. He's great. He's great. Four, start your days with praise. End your days with 1 John 1 9. Praise Him and keep short accounts. Hinder him. He'll never leave you. He'll never forsake you. He'll never stop loving you. But fellowship can be broken by sin and the flesh. And most of us will break it, if not every day. When you do, start over. Get over it. Quit making it about you. If the lawnmower never ran again, would that define me as a person? It's just stuff. It's just stuff, right? You can replace stuff. Five, praise God for His mercy, and His truth, and His word, our firm foundation. Thank you for coming. Caleb closes in prayer, and then after he's done.