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[ Silence ] [Music] I'll be somewhere, listening for my voice, listening for my name. I'll be somewhere, listening, somewhere.

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I'll be somewhere, listening for my name. If your heart is stricken, you will understand. ♪ If you are strength, you will have a son ♪ ♪ If you are strength, you will have a son ♪

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♪ If you're somewhere, use me for my name ♪ ♪ I'll be somewhere, use me for my name ♪ ♪ Use me, I'll be somewhere ♪ ♪ Miss me for my name ♪

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♪ I'll be somewhere ♪ ♪ Miss me, I'll be somewhere ♪ ♪ Miss me, I'll be somewhere ♪ ♪ Miss me for my name ♪

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♪ If you know me ♪ ♪ You will hear my answer ♪ ♪ If you know me ♪ ♪ You will hear my answer ♪

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♪ And if you know me ♪ ♪ You'll be somewhere ♪ ♪ You'll be somewhere listening for your name ♪ ♪ I'll be somewhere listening ♪

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♪ Somewhere listening ♪ ♪ I'll be somewhere listening for your name ♪ ♪ I'll be somewhere listening ♪ ♪ Somewhere, he's here, Lord, he's somewhere ♪

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♪ He's here, Lord, I hear ♪ - Amen. Would you repeat this Psalm after me? God be merciful unto us.

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- God be merciful unto us. - And bless us. - And bless us. - And cause his face.

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- And cause his face. - To shine upon us. - To shine upon us. - That thy way may be known upon earth.

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Thy saving health among all nations. Let the people praise thee, O God. Let all the people praise thee. All right.

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This is the psalm that is the basis of our message today, the entire psalm. The subject of the message, "Power to Save." God be merciful unto us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us

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that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. Let the people praise thee, O God. Let all the people praise thee. The subject, power to save, power to save.

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Three ideas stand out in this particular hymn. They are blessing, praising, and saving. Blessing, praising, and saving. Everybody is concerned about receiving a blessing.

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We want life to be favorable unto us. We want life to be kind to us. We want a long life, good health, prosperity, and happiness.

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We want to be blessed. Some people try to achieve these things all by themselves. They seek to make it solely by perspiration. They attempt to earn these things

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by the sweat of their brow. They toil from early morn till late at night. They work frantically and feverishly. They strain every nerve.

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And though there is profuse perspiration, they miss the goal toward which they strive. They begin with good physical health and they lose their health trying to gain wealth

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and then having gained some measure of wealth, they lose that trying to regain their health. The truth of the matter is, we cannot make it by ourselves. We cannot work our way into the good life.

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The scripture says, "It is vain for you to rise up early, "to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows. "We cannot make it by ourselves. "A man cannot lift himself up by his own bootstraps.

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"We cannot save ourselves. We cannot create our own happiness. We must be blessed by that power greater than ourselves. The psalmist realizes this.

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He points up the source and means of the blessing which is available for all to receive. The source is above and beyond us. That source is the great mystery of our history.

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The source is the very essence of our being, is the very ground and goal of our striving. that source is God. The psalmist knows the source of blessing, so he appeals to God. We all need to be blessed, I say, by the eternal. We need God to embrace us. We need God to

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guide us, to strengthen us, to comfort and keep us. We need God to smile on us. And the psalmist then looks to God in prayer and says, "God be merciful unto us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us. These words are similar in style to that priestly benediction which is given to Aaron. The Lord bless you and

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keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace. One of my friends says that God is in the blessing business. We all want to be blessed and we need to be blessed.

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The problem is where do we look for that blessing? It was customary in ancient times for the father to give a special blessing to the oldest son. So when the time came for Isaac to give that blessing, Jacob disguised himself as Jacob,

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his elder brother, and Isaac gave to Jacob the blessing which was intended for Esau. When Esau discovered what had happened, he said to his father, "Do you have a blessing for me?" And that is a question that is in the heart and on the lips of most people.

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Do you have a blessing for me as we ask of life? That's the question. Do you have a blessing for me? Yes, we want success.

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We want happiness. We want good health. Above all, we want acceptance. is what blessing involves. The blessed are those who have happiness. The blessed

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are those who have harmony in their lives. The blessed are those who experience salvation. God be merciful unto us and bless us. Mercy is receiving good when we do not deserve it. When one has done wrong, one asks for mercy. He wants to be treated kindly and so this temple song is believed to have been

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written after the exile, after the nation had been in the clutches of Babylonian captivity, after the Jewish people had been in the hands of the enemy in a far country, removed from their homeland, suffering the abridgment of basic human rights, made to suffer humiliation and defeat, after all this comes the plea, "God

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be merciful unto us and bless us." They knew that they had done wrong, they knew they had wandered away from God, they knew that they had abandoned the true worship of God. In many instances they had sinned and God was punishing them but now they cry out, "God be merciful unto us and bless us." You know we as a

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nation saying God bless America and we know America has her flaws we know that we're not all that we ought to be as a nation but yet we cry out in our hearts and we sing it from our lips God bless America. Well just as that is true of a nation, it's true of individuals. And so this is true of the person who rebels

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against the goodness of God. It's true of that child that takes the precious possessions of the parent and goes into a far country and squanders those possessions and yet somehow when the child comes to himself he says I'll go back home and I'll say to my father I've sinned. I'm no more worthy to be called

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your son. Be merciful unto me. It's the same experience that comes somehow when we find ourselves having departed in so many ways from the precepts of the almighty. Israel may be in Egypt, Israel may be in Babylon, Israel may be worshiping at the temple in Jerusalem, but whatever may be the condition or

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circumstance there is a cry for mercy. That's the cry of the outcasts. That's the cry of the one who feels somehow outside the circle of fellowship. When he lifts up his voice, so to speak, in prayer and says, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." So whether it's in sunshine or in rain, whether it's in the summer or in the winter, whether

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we are young or whether we are old, whether it's in a time of prosperity or adversity, Whether in sickness or in health, in success or defeat, we want God to bless us. God be merciful unto us and bless us. You know the wonderful thing is that when God blesses us, there's nobody that can take

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that blessing away from you. He can always bless us. And that's the one thing we need to understand in this Psalm.

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There's no condition or circumstance where God can't bless you. He can bless you. When you're young and we have good health,

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we say, "Well, the Lord's blessing me, "I've got good health." Well, when you get old and sick, he's still blessing you.

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His blessings don't cease. When we're in the midst of our success, when we're basking in our success, God's blessing us. We say, well, he's also blessing us in our defeats.

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You know, we need to have some defeats. If we didn't have some defeats, some of us wouldn't really know how to act. And many times when we are trying to do

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what we ought not do and we meet with defeat, that somehow makes us recognize that God is God. God blesses us. There's nobody that can keep God from blessing you.

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So that's what the Psalmist is saying. Oh, I don't deserve it, our nation doesn't deserve it. God be merciful unto us and bless us. Now, the psalmist moves from blessing to praising.

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Let the people praise the old God. From seeking to be blessed of God to the act of praising God. We know we can't make it just by perspiration. We can't do it just by sheer working our way.

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That's inadequate. So we've got to move from perspiration to aspiration. We praise God, we delight in him. We are made to magnify his name, to spread his name abroad.

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So what is really happening here is that there is a pilgrimage from particularism to universalism. God be merciful unto us and bless us. Let the people praise thee, O God. Let all the people praise thee. Let all the people praise thee. O let the nations be glad and sing for joy. Just imagine this song being sung in the temple in Jerusalem and they're

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focusing first of all upon their personal lives and upon the lives of their families. That's where their focus is. That's where our focus is when we gather to worship. But somehow in the course of that worship we make the journey from particularism to universalism. The journey from self to

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others, where we include the whole world. And that's what happens here in this particular psalm, a psalm of praise. And not only is Israel praising God, but Israel is inviting all of the nations to praise God. Oh Lord, open now my lips and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. Oh for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's

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praise. Praise God with the lips. Praise God with the lips for with the mouth confession is made to the mighty acts of God. And then we're not to stop with our lips, we're to praise God with our life, magnify his name as we sing, lift him up by living as a Christian ought. Let the world in you the Savior see, then men will gladly

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follow him who once taught, I'll draw all men unto me. Well in fact if we really want God to be merciful unto us and bless us we've got to praise him. Our being really blessed of God, really being in tune with the blessings of God, God always has a stream of blessings flowing our way. We just must put ourselves in

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that stream by our relationship to him and so if we really want to be blessed of God we must praise God. That we must praise God at all times whatever may be the conditional circumstance wherever we are whoever we are we've got to praise God and when we praise God then we put ourselves in the stream to be really

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blessed of God as he's pouring out his blessings abundantly and so blessing and praising God go together. Then lastly there is saving. Why is the psalmist here talking about blessing and praising? Because he's concerned about the power to save. Saving. He said that thy saving health, thy saving health may be known to

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all nations, thy saving help." You see, it is through the experience of blessing and praising that saving occurs. If we really praise God, we're not just praising God for ourselves, but we somehow become the channel of God's grace, that God is working through us, His grace is being manifested through us, that others may be

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be saved and strengthened is saving health, saving health, saving health. There's a lot of things that look like it's good health, but it's not necessarily the case. When you have a corpse out here, many times people say, "You know, he or she really looked good." Sometimes they look better when they're down there than they looked when they

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up make them look younger in a lot of those ways. Sometimes you can be looking so radiant putting on pounds and all of that but that's not necessarily a sign of good health. Sometimes you're better off when you don't have a lot of pounds. So we're talking about saving health that which strengthens and keeps. Many

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times God has a way of wounding us in order to heal us and he hurts us in order to help us. God is fair in his dealings with everybody, his salvation is free, it's open and so we seek God's blessing and engage in praising him that we may be with him in his saving acts. And when we are in tune with heaven God

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expresses it on earth, "Let the people praise thee O God, let all the people praise thee, then shall the earth yield or increase and God even our own God shall bless us. You see the psalmist is talking about a happy harvest. This is said to be a harvest hymn. When we praise God in our lives that he has a way of

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blessing us. He has a way of saving us and using us to be a channel of his grace to save others. When we engage in praising him we become a blessing not only to ourselves but we become a blessing to others. Listen as God calls Abraham. He says, "Abraham, Abraham walk before me." And as Abraham responds, as

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As Abraham says yes to God, God says to Abraham that I will bless you Abraham. I'll bless your family and through your seed Abraham all of the nations of the world will be blessed. You'll in turn not only be blessed but you'll be a blessing to others. So God shows his mercy to us, he blesses us in Jesus Christ. Jesus

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endures the curse of the cross in order to bless us with the abundant life. He blesses us through his life and work. He blesses us through his word. Blessed are the poor, he says in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are they that morn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the

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earth. Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are you when all men shall revile you and speak evil

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against you falsely. For my sake rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven. So the most wonderful thing happens when God blesses our lives through Jesus Christ and God has blessed us. That's the testimony of our lives. That God has blessed us through Jesus Christ. That's what Paul is talking about when he says he has

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blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. The middle wall of petition is broken down and God has blessed us, he's put a new spirit within us and he's given us the grace to run well the race that he has set before us and so he blesses us. He blesses us by making us citizens of eternity. He blesses us every

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moment of our lives. God has blessed us through Jesus Christ. He blesses us. So that's what the psalmist is saying in this particular passage in this wonderful hymn. He's saying yes God blesses and he turns around he says praise God. Praise Him for His blessing. He's always blessing us and we ought to

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praise Him and we ought to be an instrument of salvation used of God for the redemption of humankind and that's what we ought to be able to join in saying today praise God praise God praise God and there should be a hymn that I remember Sister DeWitty would use it quite often we're blessed we're blessed

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we're blessed we're blessed we're blessed we don't deserve it but we're blessed so we can say praise God praise God praise him all creatures here below praise Father Son and Holy Ghost praise God from whom all blessings flow. That's good news.

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Good news. We stand at the invitation. We accept Jesus Christ as Lord of your life and the Christ of the family of God here at Ebenezer.

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(piano music) [ Music ] [MUSIC PLAYING] [ Music ]

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♪ Sowing in the mornings ♪ ♪ Sowing seeds of kindness ♪ ♪ Sowing in the noontide ♪ ♪ On the dewy ♪

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♪ Waiting for the harvest ♪ ♪ On the time of reaping ♪ ♪ We shall come rejoicing ♪ ♪ Bring it in the ship ♪

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♪ Bring it in the ship ♪ ♪ Bring it in ♪ ♪ Bring it in ♪ ♪ Bring it in the ship ♪

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♪ Bring it in ♪ ♪ Bring it in ♪ ♪ We shall come rejoicing ♪ ♪ Bring it in, Lord, bring it in ♪

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♪ Bring 'em in, bring 'em in ♪ ♪ The sheep ♪ ♪ Bring 'em in, bring 'em in ♪ ♪ Bring 'em in, bring 'em in ♪

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♪ Bring 'em in ♪ ♪ We shall come rejoicing ♪ ♪ Sewing in the sunshine ♪ ♪ Sewing in the shadows ♪

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♪ Fearing neither clouds nor rain ♪ ♪ Sewing in the sunshine ♪ ♪ Beneath the clouds, no ♪ ♪ Where does chilly breeze ♪

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♪ By and by the harvest ♪ ♪ On the time of reaping ♪ ♪ Which shall come rejoicing ♪ ♪ Bring it in the sheaf ♪

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♪ Bring 'em in, bring 'em in, the sheaf ♪ ♪ Bring 'em in, bring 'em in, the sheaf ♪ ♪ Bring 'em in ♪ ♪ Which shall come rejoicing ♪

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♪ Bring it in the sheaf ♪ ♪ Bring 'em in, bring 'em in, the sheaf ♪ ♪ Bring 'em in, bring 'em in, the sheaf ♪ ♪ Bring them in, bring them in ♪

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♪ We shall love ♪ ♪ With all our sin ♪ ♪ Bring it in the streets ♪ - That is by our hands.

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