Join us in standing. Like you said, we'll get started with our service here. Romans 12, 2 says, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. It's good to be in the Lord's house today. Brother Marsha, so would you open us in a word of prayer, please? Amen, please join us in singing hymn number 159, Blessed Be the Name. ♪ Blessed be the name, blessed be the name ♪ ♪ Blessed be the name of the Lord ♪ ♪ Blessed be the name, blessed be the name ♪ ♪ Blessed be the name of the Lord ♪ ♪ And his name above all names shall stand ♪ ♪ Exalted, glory for the Lord ♪ Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name. Blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name. Blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord. ♪ My dear Prince of Peace ♪ ♪ Of waters we will conquer ♪ ♪ Whose reign shall never cease ♪ ♪ Blessed be the name, blessed be the name ♪ ♪ Blessed be the name of the Lord ♪ ♪ Blessed be the name, blessed be the name ♪ Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. You say I'm not able, there's another God to call. And I can't sing or teach, and no title do I hold. Lord, what can I do? For I want to do my part, and I want to help the hurting with all of my heart. all around, that's something I can do. I can pray in my secret place, calling on your name, that's something I can do. I can pray. shows no interest. My child has gone so far. Though I try my best to reach them, their hearts just seem so hard. Lord, what can I do to help bring them back to you? For my family's lost and dying, and my words do not get through. ♪ That's something I can do ♪ ♪ I will pray in my secret place ♪ ♪ Calling out your name ♪ ♪ That's something I can do ♪ ♪ I will pray ♪ I will pray. I will pray. I will pray. I know you'll hear us call. And we pray. We will pray. Stand once again, we'll sing hymn number 65 just before we land. ♪ When I long to be by my Savior's side ♪ ♪ Just over in the glory land ♪ ♪ Just over in the glory land ♪ ♪ I'll join the happy angel band ♪ ♪ Just over in the glory land ♪ have a Oh a a a a a a a a When the mighty horse doth step, thus shall the reign of glory end. When the blood washed from thy foes shall ensue, thus shall the reign of glory end. God's power in the glory land. How joyful the happy angel went. God's power in the glory land. God's power in the glory land. There with a mighty host of saints. God's power in the glory land. Amen. Please remain standing as we go to the Lord in prayer for our offering today. Brother Robert. Oh. Amen. Thank you. Yeah. I'm kind of homesick for a country to which I've never been before. that goodbyes will there be spoken. For time won't matter anymore. Beulah Land, I'm longing for you. And someday on thee I'll stand, there my home shall be turned. sweet Beulah land. I'm looking now, looking now across that river where my faith, where my faith will end in sight. There's just a few Just a few more days to labor. And I will take, I will take my heavenly flight. Beulah land, I'm longing for you. And someday on thee I'll stand, there my home shall be eternal. Ulaman, sweet Ulaman. I'm longing for you. And someday on thee I'll stand. There my hope shall be eternal. Sweet Beulah Land. Beulah Land. Sweet Beulah Land. Let's stand once again and we'll sing hymn number 143, Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine. His Spirit washed in His blood. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior Perfect submission, perfect delight. Visions of rapture now burst on my sight. Drink, Del'sty City, drink from above. The mercy whispers of love. This is my soul. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story. This is my song. ♪ My Savior all the day long ♪ Amen, thank you, you may be seated. Is there something in your way? A battle you can't win? Do you struggle day to day? With thoughts of giving in? There's no reason for despair. He has walked this way before. With compassion flowing free, he's there for you and me. That's what grace is for, when all hope fades away. Just reach out in faith and know He's already heard He'll mend your wounded heart And peace you will restore His arms are open wide Walk through mercy's door That's what grace is for When the answers just won't come And your soul cannot be still When it's all been said and done ♪ Rest in the Father's will ♪ There's a multitude of sins ♪ Covered by the blood that pours ♪ Blood that cleanses every stain ♪ So that none remains at what's grace's floor When all hope fades away and prayers are only words, just reach out in faith and know He's already heard. He'll mend your wounded heart. ♪ Easy will restore ♪ ♪ His arms are open wide ♪ ♪ Walk through mercy's door ♪ ♪ That's what grace is for ♪ ♪ His arms are open wide ♪ ♪ Walk through mercy's door ♪ That's what grace is for. That's what grace is for. Amen, it's good to be in the Lord's house today. If you would take your Bibles turn to the book of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy One say that You know, we're a blessed church musically, and I'm so thankful for the talent that God has given us. And the VCs are out of town today. It was good to have Mrs. Gilson join the rest of the instruments today. And, you know, she really makes Dan look pretty good. A big job, but you know, she does a really good job with that. And so, we have next week, Brother Hardy gonna be with us. He'll be a real blessing to you. And the following week will be Brother Gibson. And I would just encourage you to plan to make sure you're here those two weeks. I know there'll be a real blessing to you spiritually. Deuteronomy chapter 11, if you found that you can stand with me in reverence to the reading of the Word of God. Entitled this to love the Lord thy God. Verse number one. Therefore, thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments always. And know ye this day, for I speak not with your children, which have not known and which have not seen the chastisement of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm, and his miracles and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt unto Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to all his land. and what he did unto the army of Egypt, and unto their horses, and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord hath destroyed them unto this day. And what he did unto you in the wilderness until ye came into this place. And what he did unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Elab, the son of Reuben, how the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession in the midst of all Israel. But your eyes have seen all the great acts of God which he did. Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day and ye shall be strong and go in and possess the land whether ye go to possess it. and that ye may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swear unto your fathers, to give unto them and to their seed a land that floweth with milk and honey. For the land, whether thou goest in to possess it, it is not as the land of Egypt from whence ye came out, where ye sowed thy seed, and waterest it with thy foot as a garden of herbs. But the land, whether ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven, a land which the Lord thy God careth for. The eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it from the beginning of the year, even into the end of the year. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I love you today and I thank you for the time to be able to come together in your house and to worship you. Lord, we pray and ask that you would meet with us, that you might be honored and glorified through the preaching of your word, that our lives might be stirred and changed and challenged, that we might seek to walk with you and to know you and to serve you with our lives. Lord, thank you for your great love to us. We pray that you'd be with those that are sick and unable to be with us today. We thank Brother Tom, and we ask that you would touch his body, your will would be done there, and be with Miss Patty, the others unable to be with us, dear Lord, just pray your will would be done there. Thank you for time together today, we love you, and we ask these things in your blessed and most holy name, and all the people said, amen, you may be seated. So it's been a little while since we had a message on loving God more, which is our theme for this year, love God more. And so I just wanted to go back and remind us again, this is our theme and why it's our theme. I come to Deuteronomy chapter 11, I'll be quite honest with you, I came to chapter 11 because of that phrase there in the first verse, therefore thou shall love the Lord thy God. And then as I got to doing some background, it really made it come alive to me. So if you go back, and we're not doing it today for the sake of time, but you go back to chapters eight, nine, and 10, and you find the nation of Israel, they get crosswise with God. Moses goes up into the mount to get the Ten Commandments. So when he comes down, the children of Israel have made this golden cap. And then they take and they grind the thing up and he makes them drink it. It makes them sick. And so then we come to chapter 11. So we have this great rebellion in the heart of the people of God. So first of all, let's note this. that if Israel, who had seen all these wonderful miracles of God, could get crosswise with God in less than 30 days, I think we can. Okay? Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure we can. I'll definitely say we can, okay? And so we come to chapter 11, and it's kind of their pick-me-up. It's kind of their, okay, let's get this behind us. Let's get back to loving God. Let's get back to serving God. Let's get back to walking with God. And so that's where we find ourselves today. And I just wanna draw your attention to verse number one. The first thing we see is that keeping his commandments. keeping his commandments. Now, it's interesting, this portion of scripture, we're gonna find three major points, all of them talking about loving God. So verse one says, thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments always. So this charge, this charge would be God telling them, you need to love the Lord your God. It would be something like a requirement that he'd place upon them. And so they were to keep that. And they are to keep his statutes. And they're to keep his judgments. And they're to keep his commandments. And all of these things are found in the word of God. So God didn't say, look, I'm gonna leave this mysterious for you, I'm gonna make it hard for you to find. No, God said, I'm gonna give you what I want you to do, I'm gonna tell you how I want you to do it, and I want you to do it. And so how does he want him to do it? He wants him to do it always. Always be willing to follow the charge of God. Always be willing to follow the statutes of the word of God. Always be willing to follow his judgments and his commandments. Because if we seek to love God and to serve him, then we're gonna want to please him, and the way to please him is to do these things. to follow his charge, to follow his statutes, follow his judgments, follow his commandments. Now, if that was applicable to the children of Israel as they're coming back off of their rebellion, do you not think that it would also be applicable in our lives as we would seek a daily walk with God? Because see, he's charging them, this is now your daily walk. This is the way you need to daily live. You need to daily remember that I'm your God, and you're to love me, and you're to put me first, and you're to keep me first. But I don't know about you, but in this day and age in which we live, I find it difficult sometimes If I'm not careful, I find it difficult to remember I'm to be about loving God rather than pleasing me. Because it's awful easy to get to the point of, well, I think I'll just please me today. Or I'll please me for the next week, or the next month, or the next year. I just find it too inconvenient, preacher, to put God first in my life every day of my life. Yet the truth is, as a child of God, every day we ought to wake up and say, God, thank you for your love to me. You realize that no one, no one, no one, no one has ever loved you like Jesus? That's awesome. That's an awesome thought. No one has ever loved you like Jesus. Wow. I'm afraid that sometimes that we just let words flow over us and we don't really just stop and think about no one has ever loved me like Jesus. My mom and dad were great people and they loved me and cared for me never like Jesus. My wife's a great woman. but she's never loved me like Jesus. My children are pretty much good children, but they've never loved me like Jesus. I pastor a great church, but it's never loved me like Jesus. Nothing's ever, ever, ever, no one's ever loved me like Jesus. That's pretty awesome. No one's ever loved me like him. No one's ever cared about me like him. No one's ever, I mean, you know, Lalo, I can call out to Jesus in the middle of the night and he's not put off that I've called his name. He's not put off that here in the middle where everybody else is sound asleep, I just call out to him. Say, God, I need you. I need you to act on this. God, would you have your will done here? Would you show me what to do here? And he's not like, hey, buddy, go back to sleep. You can worry about that in the morning. He's not like that. No one's ever loved me like Jesus. Now, when we think about this fact that God loves us, and we think about the fact that I am to love him, then I think that that means that I need to change my bar or my level of love. Because see, we all have a preconceived idea of what love is, right? I mean, our ideas of love may be entirely different than everyone else. I mean, I grew up in a, in a deal where men never told each other they loved each other. Men rarely express love to their wives. I'm telling you, that's not the way we ought to live. My bar for love has been raised as I've read my Bible. And I find out that I'm supposed to love everyone. And then I'm given a standard of how I'm to love everyone. I'm to love them the way Jesus did. Oh, wait a minute, it's okay to love most of you, it's pretty easy, okay? But when I go out in the world and the world mistreats me, I'm still to love them because they did that to my Savior. And I'm to love them the way my Savior loved them. So our bar of love, we need to realize, it's not set off of Hollywood, praise God. Or we'd all be sitting here on our 10th or 12th marriage, and you know, mistress and whatever on the side. It's not based off Hollywood, and it's not based off anything but off of God. He is our standard of love. Now, As they seek to walk with God and to know him, he promises them here in this portion of scripture rewards for keeping all the commandments. Look in verse number eight. It says, therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong. Strong. Oh, probably not just physically strong, but I would also say spiritually strong. and go in and possess the land, whether ye go to possess it. Now they're looking at the promised land, they're gonna go to the promised land, and God is saying, look, if you'll keep my commandments, if from now on, what I command you, you will do, then I'm gonna make you strong, and you'll go in and possess that land. And then he goes on in verse number nine, and he says, and that ye may prolong your days in the land, In other words, you're gonna live longer. If you seek to love me and to know me. then I'm gonna bless you as you seek to know me, love me, you're gonna follow my charge, my statutes, my commandments. When these things, as they happen, I'm gonna make you strong, you're gonna go and possess the land, whether you go to possess it, and I'm gonna prolong your days, which the Lord swear unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed a land that floweth with milk and honey. Man, when you think about the blessings of God, When you think about the promises of God, if I'll put God first, if I'll seek to walk with him, if I'll follow his charge, if I'll follow his statutes, if I'll follow his commandments, if I'll do these things, then God has promised, I'm gonna make you strong, I'm gonna help you to go to possess the land. And by the way, that may be different for each of us. What does the land look like? I don't know for sure. I know what God's will and plan for my life is, and it's like he goes before me, and he helps me in the difficult, hard times. I don't know what your land might look like that God has called you to possess. I don't know what that might look like, but I know if you'll trust God, he will show you, and he'll go in, he'll help you, and he'll lead you, and he'll guide you, and he'll give you long life as you'll seek to walk with him. Here's the sad thing, is that many don't mind having another God to love, they're just gonna slide him in among the other things that they love. I just challenge you that God plays second fiddle to no one. God is God and God alone. And if you say, well, you know, preacher, that's good, but you gotta understand, I've got my job, and I've got my wealth, and I've got my family, and I'm just gonna put God in the mix of all that, you're missing it, because that's not what God wants. God says, if you'll put me first, I'll take care of all the rest of it. But too many times we want to take God and we want to bring him down, we want to put him amongst all the other things that we find important in our life when in reality, he ought to be the number one thing that's important. He ought to be the one that we want to live for. He ought to be the one that we want to serve. And as we do that, he'll take care and he'll line up all the rest of that. The second thing we find is in verse 13. And it shall come to pass If ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments, which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God. and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. So here we are with this thought again, to love the Lord your God, to put him first in all that you do, to lift him up, to elevate him, to love him with my all, with everything. And then he says, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. Our love for God is many times seen in our service for him. Our love and our service ought to be evidence of our devotion to God. Now I'm not gonna ask this question for you to give me a verbal back, but I want you to think about that. How long has it been since you read your Bible? How long's it been since you've really prayed? I'm not talking about praying over the food or praying before you go into bed. I'm talking about how long's it really been that you've prayed and you said, God, I need you to work, I want you to work here, and there's this need, and these people need this, and God, I need you to work here. How long's it been that you got up ready to go to church and you said, I get to go to church today? I hope it was today. How long's it been since the giving of our tithes and offerings have been a joyous thing? Man, I can't wait till they take that offering today. I'm so thankful, look at all that God has blessed me with, and I get to give back to him of that that he has blessed me with. How about giving ourselves to his work? Lord, I'll serve in whatever area I can. I'll help in any way that I can. Our service to the Lord ought to go from us to our families. And so our families ought to see us serving God. I can remember back as a kid, I can remember the home I grew up in. I can still remember Saturday afternoon, my mom would be working on her hair, and that's back when they had those hairdryer things. She had one of those real small ones, and she'd put that hat thing, after she'd roll her hair, she'd put that hat thing on her head, and she'd plug it in and be going, And she'd have her Sunday school lesson out. I didn't know how she could concentrate with all that going on. She'd have her Bible and her Sunday school lesson out and she'd work on her Sunday school lesson because she taught sixth grade girls. And she had to get ready for them. Anytime you work with kids, you gotta get ready, right? You don't fly in and wing it. They deserve better than that. And so every Saturday, what a great memory. I'm saying what a great memory. I can remember my mom and dad getting ready, and on Saturday night, we had to lay everything out, and it was inspected by the commandant. And I can remember my mom and dad had their Bible sitting there on the counter in the kitchen, and their offering envelope on top of it. I'm telling you, they set great examples for me to follow. I wonder if we would ask ourselves, what kind of examples am I setting today? I wonder what my kids remember about their upbringing. Was it the throwing of chairs and cursing at one another, or maybe not even that bad, just like, you know, if it's a good day, we'll go to church, if not, we're not going. What do they remember? I'm just thankful that I learned service from my parents. I'm thankful I can look back to their lives and how they lived and what they did. I'm so thankful for that. Look with me to verse number 18. Verse 18 says, therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart, and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes, and ye shall teach them unto children. Speaking of them, when thou settest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up, and thou shalt write them upon the doorpost of thine house, and upon thy gates, that your days may be multiplied in the days of your children in the land which the Lord swear unto your fathers to give them as the days of heaven upon earth." So as we seek to serve God with all of our heart and with all of our soul, we seek to impact our families, we seek to impact their lives, that they might realize why God is important, okay? Did you catch that? Why God is important. Not that just God is important. What's the saddest thing, I think, is that you watch a kid graduate high school, and within two years, they don't go to church at all. Something was wrong. And we say, well, it's the preacher. Well, it was the youth pastor. How about, well, mom and dad had more time with them than the pastor and the youth pastor. How about it was in the house? Oh, you mean it might fall upon us? Yeah, very strongly, probably does fall upon you. Something missing in our families today is good, solid upbringing in the most basic of areas, God and church. It's amazing how many people have no need of God and no need of church, and I've got it in my family, so I'm preaching to me too. God and church. How about family and country? I said this last week, I'll say it again. There is a big difference in the election this year. And I think that you can decide it with this right here. As a Christian, if I really believe this book, voting's pretty simple. Doesn't mean I have to necessarily like the guy, but I'm not gonna waste my vote by sitting at home because there is one side that is definitely better than the other. I need to invest my vote or it's gonna slide so far so fast. We may not be able to meet here in a year. No, I'm telling you, our nation's on the cusp. Family and country. Right and wrong. Right and wrong. So I watched a reel just yesterday about a man who set $10,000 cash on the table and two Oreo cookies. in front of his six-year-old kid. And he says, which would you pick? Hey, six-year-old kid, what do you think you'd pick? Two Oreo cookies, right? That other stuff doesn't mean anything. We know if he'd picked that, he'd had Oreo cookies till it was at least, you know, through his teenage years, right? And yet, we as a nation are gonna let children choose what their gender is, at five and six years old and let them have surgeries to change their assignment from God to what someone has whispered in their ear? Listen, I remember as a kid, I remember as a kid, people coming up, what are you gonna be when you grow up? You remember that? What are you gonna be when you grow up? How many of you fulfilled what you said when you were six years old that you were gonna be? I'm gonna be a policeman. I'm gonna be a fireman. I'm gonna be this. I'm gonna be that. I never said I was gonna be a preacher, and yet here I am. And yet we're gonna take a little six-year-old kid and say, oh, well, you know, he likes to carry a doll around, so he must really be a girl, and so we're gonna, come on, man. Yes, Lord, help us. That's why going to church is important. That's why reading your Bible is important, that we do not get confused by the world in which we live. The third thing for us to note, the final thing today, is that we ought to be walking in his ways. So, We have keeping his commandments, second thing was servant teaching, and the third thing is walking in his ways. Deuteronomy 11, 22 says, for if you shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you to do them, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him. We are to walk in his ways. Well, I don't know what his ways are. Well, he's given you a whole book about him. We're to walk in his ways. We are to cleave unto him. God, I want you in my life more than anything else. God, I want to cleave to you. Your word is important to me. I want to cleave unto you. I want to know you. I want you to affect my life. We choose many times a day how we're gonna walk or how we're gonna live. We're faced with decisions that carry consequences. In verse 26, we read, behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day. and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God. But turn aside all the way which I command you this day, and go after other gods which ye have not known." Now remember, chapters 8, 9, and 10 leading up to this, they'd already done that once. But if we go back through the history of Israel, we'll find time and time and time again they turn and walk away from God. Listen, today is not the day to walk away from God. His coming is sooner now than it's ever been. I want to be found on the firing line serving God when he comes. I don't want him to come, I don't want to quit today and tomorrow he comes and I go, man, I was just that close. I was just that close. I don't want to be serving God today, quit tomorrow, and two years later, God shows up. Man, that would be a loser deal, right? I want to just faithfully serve my God until it's my time to go be with him. The hardest thing pastor does. is to watch my good people die. I go in with a smile on my face and light words on my lips. I pray with them, but my heart ripped in pieces. Brother Tom encourages his pastor. by the outlook that he possesses. Because he knows God's real. It's his life always been a fairy book, you know, just the constant Christian life all up here, I doubt it. But I do know this, that now we're down to the time that it's getting real, and he's like, I'm ready to go. And with joy in his heart, He's anticipating, I'm gonna be with Jesus. I'm gonna be in heaven. You can have all your money, I don't want it. You can have all your nice cars and your big houses, I want what Tom has right now, laying on that deathbed, knowing that one time, my breath is gonna quit and I'm gonna transfer from here How did it all start? It started with a love for God. Love for God. And I would challenge you each and every day, let's seek to love God more than the last day. Jesus, I love you today. I thank you for your great love for us. Your word is so full of admonitions and encouragements that we can follow. God, when we boil it down, it's just pretty simple that we need to put you first in our life and keep you there. We just need to make you number one, realize no one's ever loved me like Jesus, put you number one, and just live for you, serve you with our lives. Read your words, study it, pray, meditate on it. Pass it on to our families. Pass it on to our children that they might grow up so that they can raise their families in the same love that daddy had raised them in, to love God and to know him. Thank you, Lord, for this time together today. I pray your will be done in our lives and our hearts and we'll give you the honor and glory and praise. We ask it all in your precious name. Amen, would you stand with me today? Have a moment of invitation, if God's spoken to your heart, encourage you to come, whatever your need. Brother Foster leads us on, I'll live my life. My life, my love, I give to Thee, Thou Lamb of God who died for me, O may I ever faithful be! My Savior and my God. I'll live for Him who died for me. How happy then my life shall be. I'll live for Him who died for me, My Savior and my God. I now believe Thou dost receive, For Thou hast died that I might live, And now henceforth I trust in Thee. My Saviour and my God I'll live for Him who died for me How happy then my life shall be I'll live for Him who died for me My Saviour and my God We got a couple of guest speakers coming up next couple of weeks, the Hardees, and then Brother Murray Gibson will be with us. Patch the Pirate, if you have children in that, you need to sign up and get books, so forth. Information right there, you can see Brother Stephen if you need to. Outreach, September the 7th at 9 o'clock. Encourage you to come and help us with outreach. Youth Rally on the 20th. And we're looking forward to that. Be praying. If you can't come and be a help, be praying that God will use that greatly in the lives of the young people that'll come. And then men's recharge, 27, 28 plus is $80 a man's due by September the 1st. Let's go to Lord and word of prayer. We'll be dismissed. Brother Gary Marston, good to have you home. Would you pray for us? Five. Bible. Versus. Christ. Okay.