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[ Silence ] [ Music ] ♪ Sit down, servant, can't sit down ♪ ♪ Sit down, servant, can't sit down ♪

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♪ I just got to heaven and I can't sit down ♪ ♪ Sit down, servant, can't sit down ♪ ♪ Sit down, servant, can't sit down ♪ ♪ Sit down, servant, can't sit down ♪

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♪ I just got to heaven and I can't sit down ♪ ♪ One of these mornings, it won't be long ♪ ♪ You're gonna look for me, I'll be gone home ♪ ♪ Going up to heaven, gonna sing and shout ♪

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♪ Nobody's there gonna put me out ♪ ♪ Sit down, can't sit down ♪ ♪ Sit down, can't sit down ♪ ♪ Sit down, can't sit down ♪

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♪ Just got to heaven and I can't sit down ♪ ♪ Gonna tell my Lord 'bout my troubles down here ♪ ♪ And God's gonna wipe away all of my tears ♪ ♪ Gonna walk him down those streets of gold ♪

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♪ All oh God tell him I will behold ♪ ♪ Sit down, can't sit down ♪ ♪ Sit down, can't sit down ♪ ♪ Sit down, can't sit down ♪

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♪ Just got to heaven and I can't sit down ♪ ♪ When I get to heaven, gonna shout halleloo ♪ ♪ If you get there, you can shout it too ♪ ♪ When I see Jesus, halleloo, halleloo ♪

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♪ Halleloo, halleloo, halleloo, halleloo ♪ ♪ Sit down, can't sit down ♪ ♪ Sit down, can't sit down ♪ ♪ Sit down, can't sit down ♪

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Just got to heaven and I can't sit down. Sit down, seven, can't sit down. Sit down, seven, can't sit down. Sit down, seven, can't sit down.

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Just got to heaven and I can't sit down. Sit down, seven, can't sit down. Sit down, seven, can't sit down. Sit down, servant, come sit down.

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Just got to heaven and I can't sit down. Sit down, servant, sit down. Sit down, servant, sit down. Sit down, servant, sit down.

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Sit down, servant, sit down. [INAUDIBLE] [APPLAUSE] Amen.

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Let's all say, "Amen." Amen. Amen. Let us stand.

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Live on. Live on. Live on. In the 13th and 14th chapters of the Gospel of the Lord, the Lord says, "I will not

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Live on. Live on. In the 13th and 14th chapters of the Gospel according to St. John, Jesus is preparing his disciples for his departure.

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Ten years ago, Peter Marshall, who was an outstanding pastor and served for a time as shepherd of the United States Senate, died relatively young. His wife, Catherine Marshall, tells in a book how difficult it was to learn to live again, to learn to live without Peter Marshall.

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There were things her husband took care of that she was not familiar with, such as the bank deposit box and the bills. There were some large and some small. Things that she had no knowledge of, she had to learn.

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She had her life, you see, woven around Peter Marshall. And she had to learn to live on and to have a life without Peter Marshall. So that is not an experience that we do not have some knowledge of.

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We are familiar with that experience because every one of us has to learn to live without something that we depended upon at some times in our lives. I had a minister's friend who had a stroke and he was without the use of his left side, left hand. And people were asking him what was he going to do since he had lost the use of his left arm.

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He said he wasn't going to worry about that. He was just going to serve God with what he had left. Amen. Good. Good. So we find ourselves in the position of having to live on with what we have left.

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Amen. Not because of what we have lost. So we're challenged all through life to make changes and adjustments.

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We're born as infants and we move from infancy into childhood. We have to make an adjustment. We move from childhood into adolescence. We have to make an adjustment.

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From adolescence into adulthood. we have to make an adjustment. We have to learn at every stage of human existence how to adjust and how to continue to live, to live on.

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Now, Jesus is talking with his disciples And they are all aware that the end is near. And endings are somewhat difficult for us to adjust to. They are often sad.

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And we have a way of encircling that which is the last. We talk about the last words, the last time we were together, or the last time we shared a meal together, as is the case of the last supper. And then there is the first time that we focus upon.

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something that has happened in his ministry many times over. John the Baptist was with his disciples and he saw Jesus. He pointed him out and said to his disciples, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." And they followed Jesus from that time on. Those disciples that had been

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followers of John the Baptist followed Jesus. So John the Baptist had to adjust to being without those disciples. And after that they had to adjust to following Jesus. They had been following John the Baptist. So to learn to live again is involved in utilizing new resources for new experiences. And Jesus says, saying to them, that I'm going to leave you.

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my bodily presence will not be with you. But to be prepared for that experience, I say to you in the form of a new commandment, love one another. So they will not have his bodily presence, but there will be his spirit to guide.

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There will be no visible way of seeing how Jesus reacts as far as looking at his eye and seeing the twinkle in his eye or the smile on his face or the frown that may be there. Those things will not be. You have to depend upon the spirit that I have.

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That's the way life is. We keep on living even when a bodily presence is removed. We continue to make life meaningful as best we can with the resources that are available to us. and Jesus says to them

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I'm going away but if I go away you have a place for in the Father's house are many rooms I go to prepare a place

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too often we think of spaces in some cemeteries But the emphasis here is not on spaces, it's on a place, the Father's house. The Father's house. Some years ago, in the outskirts of Dallas, they were making some expansion and it was

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It was necessary, they thought, to destroy the cemetery that had been used there by some earlier settlers. And there was a great outcry from those people because they were concerned about those spaces. But spaces may change, parents may change, but there is a place. In the Father's house where there is no change.

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And that's the difference in our being prepared to live on at a higher level. We know, we know how temporary and how passing the things of this world are. But as we grow older, we become more and more aware of the significance of that which is eternal and that which goes on and on and on. That's what Jesus is expressing to his

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disciples. It's something that goes through sickness, through disappointment, through the adversities of this life, we are challenged over and over again to live on. Sure you were hurt, sure you were disappointed, but to learn to live again is what Jesus comes to this earth to show us how to do, how to live again.

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So there is a place where resources are made available. That's the good news of the gospel, that Jesus comes among us. And the one who was born in a barn says to us, "In the Father's house there are many rooms." If it were not so I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you

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So it's living at a different level Living at a different level You pass through shifting scenes My mother

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Spent her last days in a rest home And when I would go to see her, it was always somewhat painful, because she didn't remember who I am. And I'd be talking with her, "Do you remember Marvin?"

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Oh, she remembered Marvin, but she didn't know who I was when I was talking with her. And all of the memories about how we shared with every program of any significance,

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my mother was always in the audience. I could always depend on her being there. And whenever I had some achievement, after I was in the pastorate,

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I'd go back and I would share with her. And she would, if I had problems, I shared that too. And she always listened. But now, when she reaches this point, we both have to learn to live again.

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That's life, to learn to live again. But Jesus comes that we may be guided by His Spirit, not His body, because His body is gone, removed from this world. He comes to show us how to do that in the Father's house. Don't stay away, we sing. Don't stay away.

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My Lord said there's room enough, room enough in the kingdom, in heaven for you. So don't stay away. Now the problems that we encounter have to do with that transition. There was a book written some time ago called "Future Shock."

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You know how you take a plant and you uproot the plant and you put it over here and it loses all of its leaves. It goes through a tremendous shock. And you know people are like that.

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times there are different situations that cause us to lose our leaves. We go through a tremendous shock. But the meaning of Easter is that we can live again. Live again. There's room enough in heaven so that when we complete our stay in this world, we can go to heaven in this world we can move to a higher level

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and life goes on in other words that's not the end some static situation no it goes on and on in other words there will be eternal

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exploration in God to be with him we say in a world without end to live again. Sure you may have had a situation where the children didn't work out the way,

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you still learned to live again. Maybe a divorce, but to learn to live again. That's the challenge. Reverend Kipling tells the story of an explorer who came in his travel to the end of a terrible to the end of a tremendous mountain range. And he settled there at the foot of the mountain

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and he was content. For him that was the end of the world until he heard a voice that came to him like that of a nagging conscience saying,

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"Something lost, go and find it. Something hidden behind the ranges, something lost and waiting for you. So he went and he discovered the source of new rivers and the sights for a new city when he moved on. so life goes on and there is a voice that speaks from us to us from eternity

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saying move on make new changes and adjustments move on so behold there is life beyond the ranges. Don't stop here. Move on. This is not a parking place. We're to move on. So this is what Jesus tells them right on the edge, so to speak, of the crucifixion. experience in which he was misunderstood, falsely accused, unjustly condemned, he

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moves on. He ends up in a grave. Roman soldiers are stationed there to see to that he doesn't get up but early on Easter Sunday morning he gets up and he moves on and he says tell my disciples to meet me in Galilee so at every level no matter what it is no matter how many times you are defeated no matter how

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many times you may be disappointed move on. Life goes on and and there is one who comes to this world he's the bridge Jesus is the bridge from this world to the next world because this is not the end. There are always changes and new levels of experience live on. That comes to us in the words of a familiar hymn they used to

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sing when I was a boy. There's a sweet and glorious thought that comes to me I'll live on. Yes I'll live on. Jesus saved my soul from death and now I'm free. I'll live on, yes I'll live on. When the body's slumbering in the cold, cold slave I'll live on, yes I'll live on. There to sleep with Jesus till the judgment day

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I'll live on, yes, I'll live on. When the world's on fire and darkness veils the sun, I'll live on, yes, I'll live on. Men will cry to the rocks and to the mountains run,

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I'll live on, yes, I'll live on. In the glory land with Jesus, I'll live on, yes, I'll live on, through eternal ages singing. Home sweet home, I'll live on, yes, I'll live on. I'll live on, yes, I'll live on. I'll live on, yes, I'll live on. Through eternity, I'll live on. And I'm so glad that Jesus is with us. not his bodily presence but his spirit is with us that there's nowhere we can

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go where he's not there no matter how low we may fall he lifts us up places our feet on solid rock and gives us a song to sing in the wilderness of our lives. Thanks be to God that he enables us to live on. Darkness may come, disappointments and all of the things that the demonic forces of this world

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may be able to do, but Jesus Christ enables us to live life at a higher level. Brothers and sisters, that's good news. That's good news. And we can thank God that He gave Jesus Christ

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to come to this world to save us and to bring us to the Father's house. Father's house. And I like that about the Father's house Because many of the houses in this world cannot be depended on.

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In fact, all of them in one day would be destroyed. But the Father's house, the Father's house, it's a house that has room for everybody. No matter what your color may be, no matter what your status may be economically, The Father's house has room, yes, room enough for all God's children.

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That's a good word. In the Father's house there are many rooms and that's where all of us hope to be, in the Father's house. As we come now to the hymn of invitation, we extend the privilege of the church, the privilege to accept Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, to accept Him. room at the cross

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All the crossroads of life there's the cross there's room And there's room for everyone who will accept and trust in him and there's preparation made For your reception at the end of the journey

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We're going to celebrate in just a few moments that a glorious experience We just get a foretaste of it of the banquet that the father has prepared Jesus tells a story about being being ready for it The prodigal son killed the fatted calf

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But there's a great feast prepared for those who complete the journey to the father's house There's room at the cross You'll trust him that the door is open. We invite you to come right now

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To the father's house we're just agencies the churches are agencies for the kingdom So as we sing we invite you to come By letter by Christian experience or profession of faith To hook up with the God who loves us and who cares for us and who redeems us through Jesus Christ.

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[ Music ] ♪ Is a shelter in which we can hide ♪ ♪ And graceful grief is sufficient for me ♪ ♪ And peace is a fountain of my mercy ♪

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♪ And room at the cross for you ♪ There's room at the cross for you. Though millions have gone, there's still room for one. Yes, there's room at the cross for you.

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♪ For you ♪ ♪ Oh, will you tell Calvin our prayer ♪ ♪ And the pride from her sins pay and stare ♪ ♪ Does failure still wait ♪

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♪ To open your gate ♪ ♪ And crowned with a smile ♪ ♪ Before it's too late ♪ ♪ There's room at the cross for you ♪

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♪ There's room at the cross for you ♪ ♪ Though millions have come ♪ ♪ There's still room for one ♪ ♪ There's room at the door for you ♪

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♪ The hand of my Savior is strong ♪ ♪ And the love of my Savior is long ♪ ♪ Through sunshine and rain ♪ ♪ Through cold, warm and rain ♪

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♪ The love of God's helping ♪ ♪ Through winters and rains ♪ ♪ There's room at the cross for you ♪ ♪ There's room at the cross for you ♪

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♪ Oh fill yourself up ♪ ♪ There's still room for one ♪ ♪ Yes there's room ♪ ♪ I will call for you ♪

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- Let us pray. Lord God, You have promised to prepare a table for us in the presence of our enemies. So we come to you for food, for strength, for healing, in the midst of all of the vicissitudes of our lives.

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And we thank you that this table is symbolic of your strength, of your presence, as we journey through the wilderness of this world. We ask your special blessings upon the bread which represents the broken body of our Lord and the cup which is symbolic of his shed blood.

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Forgive us of our sins. Help us commune together in a fellowship of love until that day when we shall sit at the great table, the welcome table that you have arranged in the Father's house. Amen.

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