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[ Music ] [MUSIC] ♪ You are, you'll never pass this way again ♪ ♪ Oh brother, think as you go ♪

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♪ You'll never pass this way no more ♪ ♪ You better do all the good you can ♪ ♪ In all the ways you can ♪ ♪ Write to my fellow man ♪

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♪ Won't you never pass this way again ♪ ♪ You gotta read what you saw ♪ ♪ As you travel here below ♪ ♪ You gotta read what you saw ♪

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♪ As you travel here below ♪ ♪ You better read this book ♪ ♪ As you travel here below ♪ ♪ 'Cause you'll never pass this way again ♪

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♪ Oh brother, think as you go ♪ ♪ You'll never pass this way no more ♪ ♪ You better do all the good you can ♪ ♪ You'll never be all the ways you can ♪

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♪ Do right by your fellow man ♪ ♪ 'Cause you'll never pass this way again ♪ ♪ You've got to live here in love ♪ ♪ If you hope to live above ♪

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♪ You've got to live here in love ♪ ♪ If you hope to live above ♪ ♪ You have to live your love ♪ ♪ If you hope to live above ♪

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♪ 'Cause you'll never pass this way again ♪ ♪ Oh brother think as you go ♪ ♪ You'll never pass this way no more ♪ ♪ You better do all the good you can ♪

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♪ In all the ways you can ♪ ♪ Do right by your fellow man ♪ ♪ 'Cause you'll never pass this way again ♪ - Amen.

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this word. Those of you who have Bibles, turn to Proverbs the second chapter, the first five verses. Proverbs the second chapter in the first five verses. My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and

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applying your heart to understanding. And if you call out for insight and cry I allowed for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

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In James, the first chapter, verses 22 to 25, James, the first chapter, verses 22 to 25, are these words, "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at

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his face in the mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does.

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The subject, learning to live. Every child that comes into this world must learn to live as a human being. told about a child that was reared by wolves. Child crawled on all fours, ate raw meat and acted like a wolf. In fact the child lived the life of a wolf. In

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In order to live the life of a human being, each child needs to learn to walk, to talk, to think, and make wise judgments and acquire those customs that make for human society. Richard Cabot says that there are four things that people live by, worship, work, love, and play.

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And the book of Proverbs is collected wisdom from the sages of the ages. If we want to learn how to live, here is a recipe from the wise.

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This way has been tested and tried. It comes in the form of advice given from father to son. From the older generation to the younger generation. This is a good model.

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To learn to live is to recognize first of all that which is already in existence, that which has gone before us and is passed on to us. Now, some years ago,

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many young people did not want to listen to anyone over 35. They were considered too old, antiquated, out of date, and out of step with the time. But notice here, this advice begins with the word, my son.

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The parent has something to say to the child. Parents often remind their children that they have already traveled the road on which they're traveling. They have already been through experiences that they have yet to experience.

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So the younger needs openness to the older, a willingness to listen to what the parent has to say. How will they know unless someone tells them? How can they know the way to live

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unless they are willing to listen? Instructions will not help unless there is openness, the willingness to accept them. My parents called the child that would not listen hard-headed.

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My son, this says here that the sage of ancient times who is speaking here, says, "My son, accept my words. Store up my commands within you. Listen to what I have to say.

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And treasure these words in your heart." And when we listen to what our elders have to say, sometimes it may seem like a catalog of thou shall nots. But what is involved will be warnings

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along the highway of life. So learning to live involves "Learning to live involves listening to what others have to say." "Learning to live involves remembering."

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We remember what daddy said. We remember what mother said. We remember what the teacher said. We remember what the preacher said.

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Learning to live involves listening and remembering. It is accepting what is said and storing these things up in our hearts. So the sage goes on to say,

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learning to live is turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding. Learning to live involves insight, the ability to see beyond the surface,

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to consider things in depth, to be able to internalize what is seen and heard, insight, to apply what is taught, to find meaning in experience, insight, to be able not only, as some of the old people used to put it, to not only read what is on the lines, but

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to read what is between the lines. Insight. Insight. So, wisdom is knowledge run through the gristmill of experience.

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In other words, there are those who have gone on before us, who have gone through certain experiences, and having gone through those experiences, they have gained a certain knowledge that we may classify as wisdom. So learning to live involves understanding, understanding what we read.

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Ethiopian eunuch was in his chariot reading the 53rd chapter of the book of the Prophet Isaiah when Philip came upon him and he said to him do you understand what you are reading? And he said how can I understand unless I have someone to interpret it? So there are many things that are happening all

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around us. There are many things that are happening to us, but there has to be understanding and one has to be able and really learning to live. One has to be able to interpret the meaning of these experiences. That's what it really means to live, to find meaning in life. Many of the things may not make sense and some

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things that happened to us many years later you look back on them and you say oh I understand now. And all of us can remember that there were certain experiences or there may have been certain things that you wanted in life and you wanted them so badly and so desperately and you didn't get them and as time went on you look back

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and you're glad you didn't because you recognized, you came to understand that that wasn't something that you needed or you should have had at that time. So really, really learning to live is understanding what God is doing in the world. Now God is at work in this world.

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And one has to be in tune with God. One has to be related to God in order to understand what God is doing. is at work in the world and when one is rightly related to God, then one can read the signs of the times.

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What Shakespeare says that you're able to see books in running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything. Understanding, understanding in all of your getting. You're understanding. There is a vast difference in existing and living. All of us are existing. You know, but to really live your life and to live that life according to the divine

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design. God has a divine design for your life and for my life. It's one thing just to exist and it's altogether another to live according to the divine design, pattern that God has designed for our lives.

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Our problem is that we have knowledge without wisdom. Oh, this is called an age of information. We have more information than we have ever had in the history of humankind. We have a deluge of information, but we still don't know how to live.

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We don't know how to treat one another. We don't know how to carry out the commands of the eternal. So our problem is we have knowledge without wisdom, an abundance of information, but we We really don't know how to use it.

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In fact, it may be said that we have a kind of informed ignorance, informed ignorance. We have courage without judgment. We dispense of our energies in useless and meaningless endeavors. We have commitment without consecration.

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We go about trying to establish our own righteousness and we fail to submit ourselves to the righteousness of God. So we, like those men described in the book of Genesis who tried to build a tower that reaches from earth to heaven, we try to honor ourselves, glorify ourselves, and we find

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that our efforts are frustrated in the process. So we are living in difficult times, sort of like Charles Dickens describes in his Tale of Two Cities when he said, "It's an age of wisdom, it's an age of foolishness." So it is a time when we desperately need to seek divine wisdom.

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At such a time when we so desperately need to do that, we find ourselves bewitched by demonic foolishness. Our life span passes away without our knowing in so many instances really how to live. So wisdom is not only remembering and listening and understanding, but wisdom involves being

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open to all of the traffic of life. Do you hear what I said? means to be possessed with wisdom, divine wisdom, is to be open to all of the traffic of life. There's a whole lot of traffic on this road that we're all

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traveling, a whole lot of traffic on the road, and we have to be open to it. There will come some times when there's sickness. Now we're open many times when it's good health. But you have to be open to having some sick days. We are open when there is success, but we also have to be open when we have some

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failures. That's wisdom. There'll be some times when we'll have some ups, but there'll always be sometimes when we'll have some downs and we must be open to all of the traffic of life. Joy and sorrow, the peaks and the valleys. So wisdom involves being able to to relate to the vicissitudes of human existence.

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The wisdom of which I speak is being open to the world and being open to God. Open to what's happening down here in the world and also having an openness to God. That's wisdom. Somehow being able to relate earth and heaven, so that earth and heaven blend in right relationship

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to the one who made both earth and heaven. That's wisdom. Wisdom. God alone gives meaning and purpose to our lives.

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Now we're all here in this world, but to understand why we're here and what we are to do to really know that and to do that and to find meaning in that, one needs to be rightly related to the eternal, to the one who made us. And that's why I've entitled this message "Learning to Live," not just exist, but to

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learn to live. It's to commune with the Creator so that the finite creature finds meaning in being related the infinite one so that the Lord God himself becomes our great teacher. As we say, if we are willing he will teach us his will to obey no matter where for he

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He knows, yes, he knows just how much we can bear. So if we want to know how to live in this world below, we need to be in touch with the Father above. If we are to be rightly related to the relative, we must first recognize the ultimate.

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If we would know how to face the concrete human situation, we must appeal to the absolute. We must seek the one who is above and beyond us. We must appeal to God and he will provide us with the gift of wisdom. For every good and perfect gift is from above.

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Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Lights. He provides guidance in a world of chaos. He gives order.

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He gives light where there is darkness. He gives hope where there is despair. And whatever we need, ask him. He causes us to be born, and the one who causes us to be born will equip us for the human

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situation. Ask him. He will give us the word. He will provide us with the truth that will enrich our lives.

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Ask him whatever we need. God has it. And all we have to do is to ask him and rightly relate ourselves to him. Now James gives us some practical advice concerning wisdom.

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He says be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. So learning calls for readiness. We must be ready to listen. There's an old story that a young person asked Socrates, that great sage of antiquity, "How

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can I gain knowledge?" And Socrates took him and led him into a body of water, and then he pushed his head under the water and held it there for a long time. And so the youngster came up gasping for air.

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And so Socrates said, "My boy, what did you want most when you were under that water?" He said, "Air, air." He said, "Well, when you want knowledge as badly as you wanted air, then you'll get it." If we really want to know how to live, if we really, really, really plead with God and

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ask him. We really want to know how to live, God will help us. So we speak with him as the prophet, as the priest Eli said to Samuel the lad when he came, he said, "Say to them, say to God, 'Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth.'" So have an openness to God is what I'm saying. If you really want to learn to live having

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openness to God and open yourself to God, say, "Lord, here I am. Speak to me. I hear you. I'm willing to be a channel of your blessing." Speak, "Lord, thy servant hear it." So to learn to live the life the Lord has designed for us through Jesus Christ, we must be prepared to hear his word. We must be prepared to obey his word. Yes, we must be prepared to

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do what he says. You know, sometimes people fail to learn because of anger, because of ill temper, because of resentment. You know, sometimes a student goes into a class. And they already go into class resenting the teacher.

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So they don't get what the teacher has to give and to share because of their resentment. And so anger works against the goodness with which the Lord intends to bless us.

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If we would receive the divine wisdom, We must approach the throne of the Almighty in meekness. And with the spirit of meekness and submission, listen to what God has to say.

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Listen to his word. And don't stop there. After hearing what God has to say, do it. For the person who engages in a romance with the eternal,

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The person who engages in a romance with the Word of God will be blessed beyond measure. So that the servant of the Word will have knowledge with understanding. The servant of the Word will be able to manage his or her life in the storm. As the mother of Jesus said to the servants there

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when they were at the wedding feast, if whatever he says to you, do it. Whatever God says, do it. Sometimes it may seem hard.

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Sometimes we really may not understand. But whatever he says, do it, because you are a servant of the word, that you are serving the eternal word,

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and wherever God leads and whatever God commands, do it! Because in the doing of the word of God is the blessing that God has for every one of us. And I'm here to tell you that it pays.

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It really pays to do what God says. Sometimes he may lead us through dark valleys, But it pays, it pays to serve Jesus. It pays every day.

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It pays every step of the way. Though the pathway to glory may sometimes seem drear, you will be happy each step of the way. So learning to live involves being a servant

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the eternal Word. As we come now, we extend the invitation. If you really want to have life, if you really want to have life abundantly, you need to hook up with God. You learn to listen to what He has to say, to be open to Him, and to be open to what is happening around you, and do His Word. I invite you to come as we

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the invitation to accept Jesus Christ, the invitation to Christian discipleship, we invite you to come as we sing. ♪ Now my everlasting hope is shining ♪

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♪ More than thrill or life to me ♪ ♪ All alone I feel the journey ♪ ♪ Say your last before we leave ♪ ♪ Close to thee, close to thee ♪

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♪ Close to thee, close to thee ♪ ♪ All along my fields and journey ♪ ♪ Say you'll let me walk with thee ♪ ♪ Not for ease of worldly pleasure ♪

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♪ Not for faith I've perched so near ♪ ♪ Gladly will I toil and suffer ♪ ♪ Arient, we walk with thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee, close to thee ♪

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♪ Close to thee, close to thee ♪ ♪ Gladly will our torrents suffer ♪ ♪ Arient, we walk with thee ♪ [Music]

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