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[ Silence ] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [Music]

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[ Music ] [Singing] [Music] ♪ We love ♪

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♪ Oh, gracious Lord ♪ ♪ Oh, heaven ♪ ♪ Heaven's my pride ♪ ♪ Then give ♪

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♪ A poisoned ♪ ♪ Option ♪ ♪ TB ♪ ♪ When I AM ♪

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[Music] Oh, bless me now Oh, bless

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me now Oh, bless me now Bless

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me now I come, I come, I come, I come, I come I come, I come, I come I come, I come, I come

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to thee ♪ Why won't you help me say ♪ ♪ Bless me ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪

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♪ Bless me right now, Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh, bless me ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪

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♪ Bless me right now, Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh, my Savior, my Savior, my God ♪ ♪ Oh, my Savior, my Savior, my God ♪

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♪ Oh, my Savior, my Savior, my God ♪ ♪ I come to thee ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪

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♪ Bless me right now, Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh, bless me, Lord ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪

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♪ I need you to bless me, Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ My Savior, my God ♪ ♪ Oh my Savior, my Savior, my God ♪

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♪ Oh my Savior, my Savior, my God ♪ - Learning by heart. When I was growing up in the church, From time to time I would hear these words, "You need to know it by heart."

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Preparation for programs involving Easter and Christmas, the recitations that were given, parents emphasized that you should learn it by heart. So today our prayerful attention is directed toward a covenant, a new covenant God makes with his people in which he states plainly that we, in our relationship with him, should

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learn by heart. Learning by heart, for many people, just meant being able to recite it from memory. But this message means far more than that which comes from the top of our heads, so to speak, because it deals with that which is deep down in our being, learning by heart.

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From time to time someone says to me, "You know, Reverend, I wasn't there, but my heart was there." And I say, "Yes, but we want you, your body as well as your heart." Learning by heart means the whole being.

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It has to do with one's emotions, with one's aspirations by heart. So as I indicated earlier, many times we want to separate the heart from the other parts of the body. people want to leave their heart in San Francisco and have their feet treading the path in the

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New Jerusalem. But Jeremiah, who has a long and meaningful career, having been called as a lad by God to serve, comes in the evening of his years to the point where he is giving to the people a new covenant in which God says plainly that this new covenant will be one in which it

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will not be determined by one's outer being, but what is inside. The learning will take place in the heart. So God describes this new covenant as a relationship in which Judah and Israel will come together. Judah and Israel have been separated.

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There was a divorce that took place earlier in their history. kingdom went one way so to speak, and the southern kingdom went another. But Jeremiah says here in the 31st chapter, as you read this chapter, that in the new covenant these two will come together, Judah and also Israel.

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The two will be joined together. They will overcome the estrangement that they suffered earlier, and they will come together in this new order. Judah and Israel together, no longer divorced, but together again.

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And then he says, "Those who know my law, those who practice my law, will not be doing it in an external way so much as it will be internal for they shall know it I will write it in their hearts. Now we could go down the street and we can see a traffic life and we will stop whether we want to or not we may stop because that's the

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law but to do it because you want to do it and you enjoy doing it because it's in your heart to do it that's another matter and so this is what Jeremiah is talking about. In that new day, in the new aura, learning will be by heart, because the Lord God Himself says that He will write it in the heart. So, this covenant is a symbol

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of marriage to God. The symbol of marriage. God is the husband, and the nation is the bride. And they have not been faithful in the past.

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They did not keep His word, so a divorce occurred. But now they're coming back, and there is a marriage again. They are remarrying. The conditions are plainly stated that if not to be external, we can do a pretty good

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show externally. But to actually be able to say that this is of the heart. We don't know when something is from the heart. Many times we just take the person's words.

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I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And we take those words for granted. God knows Only God knows the condition of the heart and this is the condition

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that he wants to exist in our relationships with him and really our relationships with one another learning by heart a covenant is a binding relationship

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You are bound to the person and the person is bound to you. We call it being bonded covenant Covenant and we often sing Bless

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Be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above learning

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by heart So this old covenant is by the heart. The new covenant is... This old covenant is not by the heart, but the new covenant is. So when we look at it,

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this is the condition that our world needs today to have our relationships based on the heart.

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Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could have heart-to-heart relationships, rather than head-to-heart? And, you see, the head has reasons, and the heart has reasons. But the heart has reasons that the head doesn't know anything about. And God says, "I will not put my covenant in statues."

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In other words, the old covenant was made of stone. Stone hewn out the smoking summits of Sinai, and presented to the people in tablets, two tablets by Moses. But the new covenant has no chisel stone, no tablets.

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All it has is just the heart. And so often we say down in the South, they say, "Well, we'll do this on a handshake." Well, it's to be done on a heart relationship, learning by heart. of all the things that we are to do, the most wonderful thing is knowing the Lord by heart.

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Jesus, in pointing out the most important commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart," not a part of it, but all thine heart, which means that one is to be wholly and solely dedicated to God, not to Baal, but to Yahweh, the true and living God.

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That relationship is to be with Him, learning by heart. Well, this is a wonderful relationship that Jeremiah is talking about. It's a relationship that will give us not only a new covenant to obey, but a new relationship to maintain, learning by heart.

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So, as the older people would say, when someone was singing a solo when I was a boy, Put your heart in it, they say out there from the congregation. Put your heart in it. Put your heart in it, or put your soul in it.

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Learning by heart. As we look at our relationships, one with the other, this is the covenant not only for several hundred years ago, five hundred years and more ago, it's the covenant for relationships today to learn by heart. We get our degrees and they're wonderful and no

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matter how many degrees we have we still need that heart relationship. Frederick Douglass talks about it in his autobiography. He says that he had the privilege of learning how to read through a great struggle he learned how to read and when he learned how to read he was instrumental in teaching other

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slaves who didn't know how to read teaching them how to read and there was one old man he said in the group he couldn't read but he said he taught that old man the letter and the older man taught him the spirit so what we really need is to be taught by the Spirit of God that's what Jesus says when he says

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let us follow by having that meekness and that purity of heart and so in Kirk of God says that purity of heart is to will one thing. That's all. We have our thoughts scattered, our loyalty scattered here and there, but purity of heart is to be anxious about one thing, and that is to please God. Please God.

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There is a story that comes to us from Howard Thurman, one of the great puppeteers of our race. In fact, he served as a professor in the seminary in Boston, and he also pastored a church and wrote over 20 books.

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And then he wrote his autobiography. And in his autobiography, he entitles it "Head and Heart." "Head and Heart." "Head and Heart."

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That's the title of his autobiography. On the first page of his biography, he tells this story that I share with you now. He said he was serving as the pulpit associate the first year after he had gone to seminary that summer. He was working in Roanoke, Virginia, First Baptist Church.

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Dr. James was the pastor. And late in the night he got a call and the call said on the other side, end of the line, "Are you a minister? I have a man here in the hospital who wants a minister." he says the time is short you have to hurry or else it'll be too late and he

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paused for a moment and he said yes I'm a minister. He said well you must hurry because the time is not long so he said he went out without a Bible in his haste So often, you know, we use the Bible to lay at the end of the pulpit. We use the Bible many times to hide behind.

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He went out without a Bible. And when he got to the hospital, this African-American hospital, they had a special hospital for us in those days. And he got there, they rushed him on in.

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And he said to him, the nurse did, "Hurry, hurry, because the time is not long." And he said when he got in, he pushed the curtain back. He was in a large room, but there was this curtain that sort of sheltered him. And when he said they walked in and he was there on the bed with his eyes closed, with

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his mouth open, and he was breathing heavily, heavily. And the woman said, as she called his name, "The minister is here." And Howard Thurman said, "He began to mumble something, but no words were spoken between them, and the man gave up the ghost."

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But he said as he struggled, that he felt that he was reaching for God. He struggled with this man. He was reaching for God. And what communication he had was not by the head, but by the heart. And there are times in our lives when the only communication we have is the heart.

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Heart-to-heart talk. And you can always have a heart-to-heart talk with God. That's what prayer is. A heart to heart talk. Lord, Lord I need you now.

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Lord, I need you to speak a word of encouragement. And I hear that word of encouragement coming. It said, "Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me."

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Because if you can keep your heart. When everything else may be going to shambles around you, but if you can keep your heart here you can make it Joe had a wonderful family He had wonderful children and all of that. He had good relationships in the church

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in the midst of all of that he was Hounded by Satan and as you read the story, it looks like even God was in on it And he goes to God in prayer. Because if you can keep your heart right, no matter what else is happening, if you can

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just keep your heart right with God, if you can keep your heart right with God, nothing else really can defeat you if your heart is right. So, oh God, give me the courage, give me the strength, give me that relationship that will enable me to be right with you in heart.

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So there'll come a time in the crises of life when we need that relationship with the heart. That's the relationship that will strengthen us in the midst of our turmoil. that relationship that will keep us, that relationship that will sustain us. Thank Peter God that he gives us that relationship of heart to heart, heart to heart.

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So God says, God says, not, not, not Jeremiah, but God speaks to us through Jeremiah. God says, "I, I will give you a new covenant, a new covenant that you can have with you wherever you are, whatever the conditions are." This new covenant will be, it will not be in tablets of stone, but it will be written,

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it will be inscribed in your heart. Oh, thanks be to God that he put it in a place where no one can take it in the heart. We have our problems with surgery and other things, but this surgery of the heart that God gives is surgery that cannot be taken from us.

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It's inscribed by the chief surgeon on our heart. Hard, hard. Hard to hard. Well, our forefathers had the difficulties that we have and far more than that. They labored in the cotton fields,

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And as they labored, they sang the song about the heart. "Lord, I want to be a Christian." Many times they were dealing with people who didn't even profess to be Christian. And other times they were dealing with those who were hypocrites.

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But they sang, "In the midnight of their suffering, Lord, I want. I really want to be sincere. I really want to do what you want me to do. Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart. In my heart. Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart. in my heart. Yes, in my heart. In my heart. Yes, in my heart. Lord, I want to be a Christian

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in my heart. Let all of us, everybody who has that desire, let's join in singing as we extend the invitation to Christian discipleship. Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart. [Music] Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart, in my heart.

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Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart. Lord, I want to be a Christian in my home. ♪ Lord, I want to be more loving ♪ ♪ In my heart, in my heart ♪

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♪ Lord, I want to be more loving ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪

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♪ What I want to be for loving ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪ ♪ For I want to be more holy ♪ ♪ In my heart, in my heart ♪

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♪ For I want to be more holy ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪

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♪ Lord, I want to be a holy ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪ - You are humble. ♪ For I want to be more humble ♪

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♪ In my heart, in my heart ♪ ♪ For I want to be more humble ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪ In my heart, in my heart, in my heart, in my heart, Lord, I want to be more of love, in my heart.

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God wants us to have heart-to-heart relationships. May our prayer be expressed in our daily living. Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart. A bracelet has been reported, so it looks like it could be a ladies' bracelet.

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So check your bracelet. Ladies and men, take your bracelets to see whether you are missing a bracelet, for I have it here, and you may claim it. You're encouraged to meet in the fellowship hall immediately following the benediction for a period of fellowship together. The Lord bless you and keep you.

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The Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace. Now and always. Amen.

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