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[ Music ] He'll lift you up if you ask him. He'll show you the way. He'll fill your cup if you ask him.

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He'll brighten up your day. He'll hold your hand if you ask him. He'll give you strength anew. He'll understand if you ask him.

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He'll keep your secrets too. All you have to do is ask Him. Ask Him. Ask Him.

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Ask Him. And I know, and I know he will see you through. He'll comfort you if you ask him. He'll keep you through the night.

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He'll stay with you if you ask him. He'll make things out all right. He'll calm your fears if you ask him. ♪ He'll give you peace of mind ♪

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♪ He'll dry your tears if you ask him ♪ ♪ He'll give you joy, joy divine ♪ ♪ Ask him, ask him ♪ ♪ Ask him ♪

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♪ Ask him ♪ ♪ You just ask him ♪ ♪ And I know, and I know ♪ ♪ He will see you through ♪

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♪ See you through ♪ ♪ All you have to do is ask him ♪ Just ask him, just ask him, ask him. And I know, and I know he will see you through. See you through, see you through, see you through, see you through. ♪ See you through ♪

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♪ See you through ♪ ♪ See you through ♪ ♪ See you through ♪ ♪ See you through ♪

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♪ See you through ♪ - Amen. - Amen. - In the book of Genesis,

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the second chapter, verses 21, 25. We have the basis for the morning message. Genesis chapter two, verses 21 through 25.

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And the Lord God caused the deep sleep fall upon Adam and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man,

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made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. of my flesh, she shall be called woman,

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because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.

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The subject, the first family. In his comparative study of the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, Dr. James Cone, theology professor at Union Seminary in New York, points out that these two men had different value systems and different views of society because they were shaped

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by different family backgrounds. Martin Luther King Jr. came from a black middle class family while Malcolm X came from a low income black family. Today, there is a growing tendency to classify

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and define the family according to economic income. We rate the family in the low, moderate, middle or upper class, according to their earnings.

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We honor the first families, settlers in our communities and in our nation. We think of those who are first as setting the standard of providing the precedent for others to follow.

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As the family goes, so goes the world, we say. Family is first and foremost among human institutions. It is preeminent in the divine order of creation. There are two accounts of creation in the book of Genesis.

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The first is in the first chapter. There God makes Adam after he has created the world and plants and animals. In the second account he creates the world, rests on the Sabbath, then on the eighth day the Lord makes man and plants a garden and puts man in it. Man is alone in the garden.

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No one to talk with, no one to call his own. He is a solitary creature in a garden surrounded by plants and animals. God said, "It is not good for man to be alone."

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Now prior to this time everything God made, he looked at it and said that it is good. Yeah, he says it is not good. It is not good. It is not good that man should be alone.

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Adam had no help meat. So God said, "I will make a help meat for him." There was no other human being with whom man could engage in dialogue.

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He was lonely in the garden all by himself. He had no family. He was incomplete. And God looked at that situation and said, "It is not good."

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Family you see is God's design for humankind. Everybody is part of a family. This is the way God fixed it. He caused a deep sleep to come upon Adam,

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and while Adam slept, God acted as the chief surgeon. And he performed an operation. He took one of Adam's ribs,

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and out of it he made woman. So Adam is incomplete without Eve. Eve is incomplete without Adam. So while we have traditionally looked upon this day

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as Mother's Day, the Christian church has focused more and more upon the idea of family. Both husband and wife, father and mother, it takes both to make family.

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So here they are, made by God. And it's important, particularly in this day, to remember that he made them Adam and Eve and put them in the garden, not Adam and Steve, but Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. They were to live together as family, man and woman,

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man, not man and man, not woman and woman, but he made them Adam and Eve. And when this occurred after he had made Eve, God himself brought Eve to Adam. He made the introduction and when Adam looked at Eve it was a case of love at first sight and he sang a song of gratitude saying this is now bone of my bone flesh I guess

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that's about the first love ballad we have you know when Adam rejoiced that he received Eve as a help me. This was the beginning of the first family. This is the way all families are to begin by being united by God. It'd be a wonderful thing if these unions that we have in the world today, if these introductions

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were made by God. So Adam and Eve are created by God, placed in the garden, here creator, creatures, and creation all rightly related. Let me say it again creator, creatures, and creation all rightly related. God had made creation and said it's good.

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He made Adam and Eve and they were good. All rightly related, this is the divine intention. So the first family recognize their relationship to each other.

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It is a relationship established by God. It's a harmonious relationship. It is a relationship that honors sexual differences. They are male and female,

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so they complement each other. So it is a heterosexual relationship, not a homosexual relationship. That's the divine design.

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That's the way God intends it for the family. When we say we are family, we recognize that we are related by kinship ties. As Adam said, "Bone of my bone."

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You see, we are made for family. We are to recognize our relationship, the place and function of each member of the family. Husband and wife, father, mother, children,

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grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins, each has a place. But the important thing is communication. And I suppose among the many things

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that the family suffers from today is the lack of communication. Television is wonderful and it can be used as a significant educational tool, but so often it is used in such a way that it blocks communication. Instead of communicating with one another, we just look at the television. So often when I go to visit someone, instead of

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going into the living room and really communicating. They sit and look at TV. Well, I said, "Well, I didn't really come to see the TV. I really came to communicate."

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And so there is this need to communicate. I remember when our children were young and we would gather around the dinner table and I would try to strike up some conversation sometimes.

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I'd say, "What happened at school today?" and I got one word, nothing. It's rather difficult to communicate many times. Rather difficult.

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There's an old story of a husband who came home and his wife prepared a wonderful meal and he sat down and he was eating it. She said, "Well, do you like this?"

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He said, "Yes." "Well, what about this?" He said, "Yes." Well, why don't you say something about it?

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Well, I'm eating it, Anna. [laughter] Communication. Communication.

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Very, very important that we communicate, that we understand our relationship one to the other and we compliment each other. There's another story of a man who came in each evening saying to his wife, "Where is my supper?"

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"Where is my supper?" She said, "Honey, you ought not say, 'Where is my supper?'" He said, "Well, I said, 'Where is my supper?' and I meant, 'Where is my supper?'" So as the story goes, one evening she had what is called a buggy whip, and when he came in and said that she started using the buggy whip and she whipped him till he ran underneath the bed and

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He stayed there until nightfall and he finally peeped out and he said wife will you bring me our pajamas Communication communication very very important it is

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essential that we have clear lines of Communication in the family and it involves dialogue dialogue of husband and wife dialogue of the children with parents communication

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Communication. Oh, how important that is understanding and communication I believe it was

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ABC just this past week that had a on teenage suicide. And one of the mothers who had a homosexual son

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who committed suicide, the son committed suicide, she said after he was dead, if we had just,

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if I had just told him that I love you, if I had just said I love you, I love you. I think he would have understood and he would have known that I understood and

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my son would be alive today. Communication. Husband and wife, children must

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communicate. We discover each other. We discover what is underneath.

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when we communicate. It's said that the human being is like an iceberg. I think something like seven or eight-tenths of the iceberg under the water. And just a small portion of it is above water. And that's the way it is with us. We see a person and we see how they look on the outside, but that seven or eight-tenths is down underneath. We don't know what the person is thinking and how

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they're feeling. All that is underneath. And it's only as the person begins to communicate that we begin to understand and we can know how to relate when that person begins to let us know what is underneath. So here they are, creatures rightly related to God's creation,

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rightly related to the Creator. But they covenant together, they have a covenant relationship. So you see, God provides Adam with a help meet.

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Adam must recognize and confirm the relationship. relationship. So Eve is brought to Adam and he graciously recognizes and accepts her as his own. They are rightly related to each other. Adam recognizes his relationship to Eve and Eve recognizes her relationship to Adam. I remember

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years ago when A. Clayton Powell was pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church that he married Hazel Adams. And they were talking about their marriage together and she had inscribed in her clothing, her garments, "Adams Hazel" and she had put in his coat "Hazel's Adam." Well the marriage lasted a few years and

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it fell apart. It's not enough just to have inscribed in the cloth that you belong to each other. It has to be inscribed in the mind, in the hearts, and in your life together. That's really what makes family. The kind of covenant relationship that is established here calls for a certain maturity, for the

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family will not have it as long as babies are having babies. That's the problem we are plagued with today in our families. Lack of maturity. Babies having babies. Not really knowing what life is all about but but wanting a baby like a a child wants a dog and it's a whole lot more to family than that. It's a covenant relationship.

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It's a give and take relationship. You know what God did when he made Adam? He took out of Adam a rib and from that rib he made Eve. So marriage involves giving and taking. It's a give and take relationship, give and take. So it's a covenant relationship. It involves some losses and involves some gains. That's the way it is in the family circle. There will

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be some ups, there will be some downs, there will be some suffering, there will be some healing, that's the way it is in family. In the covenant relationship is individuality and collectivity. So the first family constitutes the model God presents to the world. Oh there are various kinds of families that we talk

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about today that are counter to what I've just said. We are reading more and more about the gangs, the mafia, that's the family, and they have an initiation in which they pledge their allegiance to the one who is the head of that family And they pledged to be faithful to that family even at the threat of death.

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That's what the cost to be unfaithful, mafia. And then we're witnessing in our communities all across this nation the development of gangs as families. And the loyalty that ought to be given to the family as God created it is given to a family that is counter to what God desires in the world.

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But there is another family, there is another family that is beyond. It's a family that we call the family of faith. And this is the family that is rightly related to God. Something happened to the family back there in the Garden of Eden,

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But God has sent his son, Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ comes and we might have that kind of relationship restored. So that the first family that was created by God,

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the family that is meaningful today must be a family that is created by God, in which we have a common relationship that is based on him.

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So the two, the two, the two must face the third, and that third is God. So when they were shooting in the family, so the three must face another,

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that somehow God must be the one who guides and guards and governs that family. Little child was playing in the aisle on a train that was going rather rapidly,

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and someone said, "Little girl, aren't you afraid? "The train is traveling so fast." And the little girl said to the passenger, "No, you see, my father is the engineer."

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"My father is driving the train! "He'll see that all is all right, "because he is the engineer, And with our Father, the one that Jesus said for us to pray to, saying, "Our Father, our

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Father is the one who guides, who governs this world. He has control. And for the family to be the family, it must be rightly related to him." Oh, thanks be to God who gave us this model, which we are to follow, which remains with

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us to help us and to guide us in all our undertakings. Let us sing together the hymn of invitation, "God Will Take Care of You." As we sing, the door of the church is open. You may come and unite with the family of God here at Ebenezer on profession of faith, by letter, by Christian experience, by restoration, under

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watch care. You may come. The door is open. Come. ♪ This day, though there be trouble ♪ ♪ God will take care of you ♪ ♪ Even in His wings above above ♪

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♪ God will take care of you ♪ ♪ God will take care of you ♪ ♪ Through every day ♪ ♪ For all the way ♪

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♪ He will take care of you ♪ ♪ God will take care of you ♪ ♪ Through days of torment or of pain ♪ ♪ God will take care of you ♪

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♪ In dangers near you shall never stay ♪ ♪ God will take care of you ♪ God will take care of you Through every day and all the way

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He will take care of you God will take care of you ♪ For you may be the river ♪ ♪ From where God will take care of you ♪

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♪ Nothing you ask will be denied ♪ ♪ God will take care of you ♪ ♪ God will take care of you ♪ ♪ Through every day ♪

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♪ All the way ♪ ♪ He will take care of you ♪ ♪ God will take care of you ♪ ♪ No matter what may be the test ♪

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♪ God will take care of you ♪ ♪ Be very wild, the world is rest ♪ ♪ God will take care of you ♪ ♪ God will take care of you ♪

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♪ From every day, all the way ♪ ♪ He will take care of you ♪ ♪ God will take care of you ♪ ♪ Where are you ♪

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[music] [ Silence ]