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[ Silence ] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Still away to Jesus.

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Still away to my God. ♪ Still wait to Jesus ♪ ♪ Still wait to my God ♪ ♪ Oh, what a communion ♪

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♪ Just me and my Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh, what a fellowship ♪ ♪ Fellowship, just me and my Lord ♪ ♪ Sometimes we need to steal away to Jesus ♪

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♪ Sometimes we need to be alone without God ♪ ♪ Steal away to Jesus ♪ ♪ Ought to steal away sometime to my God ♪ ♪ Oh, what a communion ♪

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♪ Nobody but me ♪ ♪ Me and my Jesus ♪ ♪ Steal away all by yourself sometime ♪ ♪ What a fellowship just me ♪

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♪ Me and my Lord ♪ ♪ Children, ain't no harm to steal away to Jesus ♪ ♪ You can take all your burdens to the Lord in prayer ♪ ♪ Steal away to Jesus ♪

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♪ You ought to steal away to my God ♪ ♪ Oh what a communion ♪ ♪ Just me and my Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh what a fellowship ♪

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♪ Oh what a fellowship ♪ ♪ Anybody, nobody ♪ ♪ Just me, me and my Lord ♪ ♪ Oh never long, I'll never long ♪

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♪ Because he's always, he's always with me ♪ ♪ Oh, sometimes he's walking with me ♪ ♪ Walking with me ♪ ♪ Walking with me ♪

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♪ Holding my hand ♪ ♪ Holding my hand ♪ ♪ Being all I need him to be ♪ ♪ Oh, and the times ♪

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♪ I thought he left me ♪ ♪ But those were the very times ♪ ♪ He was carrying me ♪ ♪ Oh, what a fellowship, what a fellowship ♪

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♪ Just me, just me, just me and my Lord ♪ ♪ I never, I never loved, I never loved ♪ ♪ Jesus is always, He's always with me ♪ ♪ Walking with me, walking with me ♪

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♪ Holding my hand ♪ ♪ Being everything ♪ ♪ All I needed to be ♪ ♪ Oh, and the times ♪

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♪ I thought he had left me ♪ ♪ No, but the times ♪ ♪ Carried me for the fellowship ♪ ♪ Just me ♪

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♪ Just me and my Lord ♪ ♪ Oh, I'm never ♪ ♪ I'm never alone ♪ ♪ I'm never alone ♪

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♪ He's always, always with me ♪ ♪ He's walking with me ♪ ♪ Walking with me ♪ ♪ Holding my hand ♪

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♪ Holding my hand ♪ ♪ Being all I need him ♪ ♪ Being all I need him to be ♪ ♪ And children, you know, you know the times ♪

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♪ And the times I thought ♪ ♪ Thought he had left me ♪ ♪ Those were the times ♪ ♪ Those were the times that he carried me ♪

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♪ I'm glad that he carried me ♪ ♪ Oh, what a fellowship ♪ ♪ What a fellowship ♪ ♪ Just me ♪

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♪ Oh, what a fellowship ♪ ♪ What a fellowship ♪ ♪ What a joy divine ♪ ♪ What a fellowship ♪

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♪ What a fellowship ♪ ♪ What a joy divine ♪ ♪ I'm leaning on everlasting love ♪ ♪ What a fellowship ♪

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♪ What a fellowship ♪ ♪ Oh what a fellowship ♪ ♪ Fellowship ♪ ♪ I can steal away ♪

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♪ Fellowship ♪ ♪ All by myself sometime ♪ ♪ Fellowship ♪ ♪ You can steal away your secret causes ♪

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♪ Fellowship ♪ ♪ You can talk to Jesus ♪ ♪ Just me and my Lord ♪ ♪ Me and my Jesus ♪

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me and my Lord me and my Jesus me and my Lord yes me and my Jesus

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me and my Lord me and my Jesus me and my Lord me and my Jesus

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me and my Lord >>Let's all say amen. Amen. In the Gospel according to St. John, the 14th chapter and the 15th verse are these words,

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If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Would you repeat those words after me? If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Love is something you do.

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Love is the sumum bonum of life. It is the highest good, the supreme virtue. It's the best thing we can do in life. Greatest thing in the world is to love and be loved

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is to love and be loved in return. Jesus says to his disciples, "If you love me, keep my commandments." Many of us can remember our childhood days

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when we played with the petal of a flower saying, "She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not. When it ended on not, you always got another pedal to go back

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to be sure that it didn't end that way. But love is the greatest thing in the world. Quite a deal of difference in love making and love in the truest sense. I thought in preparation for this message I'd take a look at Solomon who was known as

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a great lover. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. That's well documented evidence that he was a great lover. As I visited with him, I noticed some of his words, "Baby, I love you.

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Your eyes are like doves behind the veil you're wearing. Your hair is like a flock of goats moving down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep as they come out of a washing pool. Your lips are like a thread of scarlet, your temple like a slice of pomegranate, your breasts

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are like two twin fawns browsing among lilies. How beautiful are your feet in sandals, the curves of your thighs are like jewels, your Your navel is like a round goblet. Come my beloved, let us spend the night together.

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I'm yours and you're mine." Those are words of Solomon as he engaged in expressing his love for his lover. Freud calls this an age that is driven by sex. And our Freudian culture considers sex synonymous with love.

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Wilt Chambers boasted of the fact that he had had sex with 1,000 women over that number. Hugh Hefner of Playboy fame it is said has a sign on his door of his mansion if you don't swing don't rain. Our young people face temptation, peer pressure. If you love me, you will let me. But I want to deal with several types of

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love that may represent several different levels. The first is eros, E-R-O-S, eros, which is rather erratic and erotic, passionate desire to gratify the human biological urges. Eros is the first story in this house. Eros.

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That's the popular form of love that we see expressed in television and throughout our culture. Eros. Eros is erratic.

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Many young teenagers in the heat of passion become mothers, teenage mothers, not knowing what they're doing. Eros is exciting. It provides pleasure, but pleasure does not bring happiness.

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Eros. And some move away from Eros in what we call platonic love, where love, as far as sex is concern is suppressed or sublimated. And we talk about platonic love.

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The first story in the house, which has to do with human attraction, Eros, talks about the human attraction based on how the man is built, he's tall, he's handsome, and then also how the woman is built, the attraction. She has the shape that we used to say when I was young like a Coca-Cola bottle, the shape that has the human attraction, Eros.

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But then as we move from Eros, there's another level. The Greeks called it philos. It has to do with brotherly love. love is that between brothers as we would express it, the name Philadelphia, the city

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of brotherly love, that fraternal relationship we have, brothers, fraternity, the sorority, Another level is that of storge, s-t-o-r-g-e, and that has to do with family love. We understand what it means to be in the family, to be related, blood ties, family love. and we like to keep things in the family and say that this is one popular

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television show headed all in the family. Family, family relations and we as African-Americans have had a long and cherished history regarding that when it comes to what we call the extended family, the extended family. So the main word for that is storge, family, family. Eros, that sexual erotic love. Philos,

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which has to do with brotherly love, and then storge which has to do with family love. But the word that the New Testament really lifts up is the word agape, agape love. I get a letter quite often from a member of this congregation saying, saying, "Pastor, I love you. I love you." And then also asks about how my wife is and

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goes on to talk about, "I love you," but it always has agape, agape spelled out, agape that love which is of God, that love which is unconditional, that love that is divine, agape. Now many of us love, and some of us really get love confused with like. we like this or that, and when we no longer like it,

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when you no longer give me the satisfaction that I want, then I drop you like a hot potato. Agape love is love that endures. It's love that lasts.

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God's love for us is not based on how much we do for him, on how much we do for him. It's not based on how much we love him. We have a tendency to measure our love. Our love has limits. And as a popular song of yesteryears put it, I love you a bushel and a peck.

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I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck. It's measured according to that version. But the love of God has no limits. God does not give his love according to our actions.

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His love to Israel is not based on what Israel does. God loves us in spite of who we are. God loves us. The ground of God's love is altogether in himself.

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He loves us on the ground of God's love is based in himself. God's love is eternal. In loving us as being in himself and apart from us, he's independent of us. being in himself and apart from us. He is in the process of revealing his love on

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a continuous basis. He is revealing his love for us and his love is expressed in his relationship with himself. The father loves the son, the son loves the father, and it is this love that God gives us that God wants to overflow in our hearts that we may share this love with one another.

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To have that love that runs from heart to heart and breast to breast. God's love, agape, is free. Free.

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We can't buy it. God's love is free. Unmotivated, there's nothing that we have really done to motivate God to love us. God's love is free, unmotivated. God's love is shared by

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us in our love for one another. The love of God is related to the love of neighbor. If you love me you will keep my commandments. Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself." So the love of God and the love of neighbor are interrelated. You really

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can't do one well without the other. Love, agape love. Jesus says to his disciples, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." Eris says, "If you love me, you let me. Love is God's greatest gift to his people. He gives us love through the Holy Spirit. He gives us love, love that comes into our hearts and lives and

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overflows. Agape love, the love of God. The love of God will not let go. This love Love is lasting and abides with us always. Young man left the physician's office with these words, you had better see all you want to see

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because soon the darkness will settle and you'll be blind for the rest of your life. He was engaged to be married. So he went to his fiance and suggested that they break off the marriage, hoping that she would say no.

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But to his surprise, she said yes. It broke his heart. And he went into depression. And after many, many days, he came out with a song in his heart.

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These words we sing today, O love that will not let me go. I rest my weary life in thee. He came out with a song because he discovered

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in this experience the love of God was a love that would not give up, wasn't dependent on whether he could see or not see, wasn't dependent on anything that he had done,

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It was the love that was there. So the love of God is there for us. No matter what may be our condition or circumstance, the love of God is there.

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And so we have a commandment from God to love. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. Thou shalt love thy neighbor.

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That's a command. That's not something that you may do this if you like. You may do this or else. It is a command.

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In other words, you'd better do it. If you really want to live the life that is pleasing to God, this we must do.

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If you love me, keep my commandments. So love is being who you are. Love is revealing the spirit of God in our living.

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One must be good in order to do good. Love is not something we do for recognition or praise, giving that in expectation of receiving. Love is being.

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Love is the gift of self. I had a friend, he said, you know Marvin, I can't understand what's wrong with my wife. I give her the finest of cars,

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I buy her all the fine clothes she wants, I provide the money, we have plenty of money for her to spend, for things that she'd like to have, and she's still not pleased,

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and I ask her, "Have you given her yourself?" It's the gift of self. God so loved the world that he gave himself his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

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So too often we love people based on what they have that they give us, based on what they've got. Too often that's the way our love is based. There's a minister in our town when I was young, his wife died and after she died he

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married a young woman that was about the age of his children and the people were talking and they were saying that this woman married this older man for what he has got. And he got up in the pulpit and he said, "No, no, you're saying that she married me for what I've got, but I married her for what she's got." And

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that's so typical of us. We love people based on what they've got that we want and we think we can get and if that does not prevail then we no longer love them. So we love people of based on what they can give rather than who they are. But to really love according to the love of God is based on that person's being,

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not being what you want them to be, but just on the fact that they are. To love me not based on what I have, but for who I am. And it may not be the kind of person that I ought to be, but to love anyway. So Paul lifts this up for us as he writes to the Corinthians. There they were in this church all mixed up, mixed

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up because of preachers. One says I belong to Paul, another says I belong to Apollos. Another says I belong to Cephas. Another said, "Well I don't belong to any of those groups, I belong to Christ." They were all divided, cliques and clans in the Church of God, and Paul writes to them saying, "Behold, I show you a more excellent

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way. It's the way of love, not the way of just saying I like you because you satisfy me in certain ways but to say I love you regardless the love of God that's the love God shows for us and that's the love God wants us to show to one another. The more excellent way of love though I speak with the tongues of

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men and of angels and have not love I'm as a noisy gong or a tinkling cymbal. Though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and have not love it It profiteth me nothing. Though I have the gift of prophecy

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and phantom all knowledge, though I have faith that can move mountains and have not love, I have nothing. Love is patient.

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Love is not rude. Love is kind. Love is not self-seeking. Love is not easily angered.

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It keeps no records. This love of God keeps no records. It is the love that is unconditional, no matter what I do.

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No matter how serious may be the crime, The love of God reaches us wherever we are. Reaches us to the very depths and lifts us and makes us new creatures in Jesus Christ.

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This is the love, this is the love that Jesus is talking about when he addresses his disciples saying, "If you love me, if you love me, You will keep my commandments.

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You will do what I say do. You will be found being more and more like me if you love me. Keep my commandments. So brothers and sisters as we sit at the table today let us remember that love is not a

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based on something we say, but something we do that is motivated by the Spirit of God. That's the love we celebrate. That's the love the church celebrated when the church was young. See how those Christians love one another? That's the love God calls upon us to share. as we celebrate his goodness in our lives.

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The door of the church is open. Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down. Fix in us thy humble dwelling,

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all thy faithful mercies crown. (soft music) [ Music ] >> The door of the church is open.

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[ Music ] ♪ Glory, my Lord, of His daily ♪ ♪ Joy of heaven to earth come down ♪ ♪ This day the spark of the willing ♪

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♪ All thy faithful mercies crown ♪ ♪ Jesus, now our hope, our passion ♪ ♪ Hear our praying, O God ♪ ♪ Visit us with Thy salvation ♪

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♪ Enter in each living heart ♪ ♪ We know, bring Thy loving Spirit ♪ ♪ Into every troubled land ♪ Let us all in healing marry, let us by glad sacrifice we, take away our pain to see, how pure and holy we'll be.

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In the faith that's built within you, set the hopes of liberty. Finish with thy new creation, pure as God's best let us be. Let us see Thy great salvation, perfect in His glory be. Change the glory in truth of Thee, fill it with faith,

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take the place. Give me my star, crown me for Thee. It was when Jesus was in the upper room with his disciples that he observed this meal. As often as we do it, we do show forth his death and suffering until he comes again.

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Paul reminds us that before communing at the Lord's table that we should examine ourselves. Let us go to God in prayer asking that he will cleanse us, prepare us for communion at his table. Oh gracious God our Father we thank you for your goodness and for your grace for your forgiveness. We come to you as

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sinners. We've fallen short of the mark that you have set for us but we thank Thank you for your marvelous work and creation. We thank you for redeeming us from the curse of sin. We pray that you will cleanse us now.

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Cleanse our minds, our hearts. Give us that love that will not let go. Grant that as we commune at the table, we may be renewed. may go forth to face the challenges that are await us.

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Bless this wine and bless this bread. And bless us as your servants, receiving from you your strength to do your work in the world. Amen.

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

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♪ Oh, what joy it is ♪ ♪ To find my way to the rising sun ♪ ♪ Oh, what happiness it would be ♪ ♪ It helps me to find my way ♪

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♪ On our knees ♪ ♪ Let us sing one together ♪ ♪ On our knees ♪ ♪ When I fall on my knees ♪

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♪ You've heard right ways to rise and stand ♪ ♪ Oh Lord have mercy ♪ ♪ Oh Lord have mercy ♪ - For someone who's been omitted who should be served,

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would you raise your hand? Let us commune together. (soft music) (soft music)

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[ Music ] [ Silence ]