YP Sing Address—E. Erlandson
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Let's pray our God and Father, we thank you for the privilege of this place and the privilege of lifting our voices up to the the privilege that belongs to those that are redeemed. We thank you for this. We thank you for each one in the room when we commit the next few minutes to the and the message that.
Thou hast for us.
We pray for help in bringing it forward in a simple way that can be understandable to each one. Just pray for help in this and for understanding for each one. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
The last two.
1St A bit of a story. The 1St.
The first night of the Singh.
We close the sing with Steve telling us that, you know, we needed to go and tell everybody what they had missed. And I promptly walked back to the other hall there and the first person I bumped into, I'm telling him that he ought to have been at the sink because he missed the sink. Well, turns out he was the one tasked with asking people to speak at the same. So that kind of backfired on me and the room is now fuller.
I'm speaking at the same. Thanks, Steve. You're welcome.
But the last two songs that we sang reminded me.
Of something that I wanted to say at the beginning of this little talk that I probably would have forgot.
What the Lord's put on my heart is a message to believers.
And if you're not one of them?
It's not going to resonate in your heart.
It may not make sense, and it may not Draw Something up if you're not.
Washing the blood if you've not taken Christ as your personal savior.
Soon thy heart left cold and silent, and the Savior's pleading cease.
Don't leave this room without answering the pleading of your Savior.
And the second last one.
The course went turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the life of his glory and grace. That course means a lot to me.
The things of this earth have an attraction to me, and I don't think I'm alone in that. But turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful, wonderful face, and the things of this earth will grow strangely down. And the light.
Of his glory and grace. And I think that maybe is a good way to lead into.
Where is the Lord? Put on my heart, I trust.
On the way here I had a something I was thinking about.
And that's not what we're going to talk about.
There was a comment and one of the first meetings.
And I don't remember it exactly, I probably didn't write it down exactly right.
It's written on a different paper. The moments they came under the shelter of the blood, there was a complete change. I was Speaking of the.
Hebrews in Egypt, when they applied the blood to the doorpost, when they applied that blood to the doorpost, their lives were changed.
And that for some reason that phrase brought to my mind 2 words, position, privilege and responsibility.
And.
As our meetings have gone on, those two words have just resurfaced and resurfaced. And and so that's what's on my heart to just speak a little bit about privilege and responsibility and how they're different for each one of us.
The privileges and responsibilities of a young man.
Different from those of an old man.
00:05:04
The privileges and responsibilities of the.
A single person are different than those of a married person.
There are certain.
Privileges that a single man or woman has, that those of us that are married, we don't have anymore.
And you can be thankful for those, be thankful for both of them in whatever.
Place you are in your life.
So my desire is just to bring those two words before you, to make you consider them.
And how they apply in your life and.
I went looking for some verses and now we could turn to verses all night.
That, that, that bring out privilege and responsibility. And I and I, I remember as a child, my dad would tell me about privilege and responsibility and he likened them to the, the rails of a train track and how they ran. They never left each other. They always went together. And so it is what regardless of what stage of life we're at.
Those two tracks.
Together and then.
So the comment was made in another meeting. Faith is taking God at his word. It's that simple. And that was a help to me because as humans we tend to overthink things and we overcomplicate things.
And it really is that simple. Faith is taking God at His word. And so my, my hope is to just keep this as simple as possible. I've thought of three things where we can see the privilege and the responsibility, three things that we all have.
And I just want hopefully to.
Stir up some thoughts in your hearts and your minds about what your privilege and the corresponding responsibility is in those three things, and maybe that will be.
Carry on and into the rest of your life and it'll maybe come before you. As we go through the, the meetings that we're having. It's just in the the talks about the, the Tabernacle, everything we see there, privilege and responsibility. And it's beautiful to see it and to be reminded of it. So the first thing I thought of was this book. We've all got it. We've all probably got.
Multiple.
Bodies that belong to us.
And so the obvious privilege there is, it's God's word and it's it's the the blueprint for our lives. If we choose to apply it to ourselves, it's the blueprint for our lives and will keep us from untold trials and sorrow.
If we apply it to our lives so that I would say that the spiritual.
A privilege is having this God's Word as the blueprint for our lives.
But then there's the practical aspect of the privilege that this is never before.
In history, has there ever been a time or a people that have had this book so accessible? Never.
We're so privileged to live in that time.
What are we doing with that?
So on the responsibility side.
Make the time to read it. Ask. Make the time. Ask the Lord for His help as you read it.
And when I say make the time, you have the time, but you have to make it.
And in in considering this and the privilege that's ours to have this word, to have God's word, I was just struck with how.
Accessible it is, and probably all of us have numerous Bibles and.
There's something that that I want to draw out of that.
00:10:04
I want to encourage you to use your Bible now. Great to have our phones with the Bible app on it and and that's super handy through the day and it's been a help to me and conversations and work.
At work because I'm good at remembering two or three words of a verse and then I need help to find the rest of the verse and the and the the where it's used and and how it's used in in the context of it.
Use that. Use the technology, but pick it up and hold it in your hand.
John talks about.
Whom we handled with our hands.
There's something perhaps handled. There's something important about picking it up, feeling the weight of it and and getting to know where on the page a certain verse is.
In our assembly at home, we're fortunate to have a an old brother that.
He won't remember the the.
The number of the verse, but he knows where it is in the page. And that's from handling his Bible and and being familiar with it. And I'm thankful and I have, I have.
I've benefited from the fact that he knows where the verse is.
In the page or on the page.
And not to believe at this point, but.
The point was brought home to me the most recently I I've had the privilege to.
Inherit, I guess both of my grandfather's Bibles and.
I don't have a word for the privilege that it is to hold their Bibles and see their Marks and their little notes.
I I don't have a word for that.
There's evidence of a God in the heritage, there's privilege and there's responsibility associated with it. But I just want to encourage you to make use of the technology. Use it in the day. Use it when you're moving about and you might not have your Bible close by, but when you have your Bible close by, pick it up and read it.
The second thing I thought of was what in.
In my opinion is a close second to God's Word as far as truth and comfort. And that's this book right here. A little flock.
Like I say, in my opinion it's a close second to God's word.
As far as the truth that it holds and the comfort and encouragement that it can be.
And.
So that, and that's one part of the that's the spiritual privilege and the, the, the practical aspect of, of this book and the privilege of it collective worship and praise.
That's about as close to heaven as we're going to get on this scene.
To be familiar with this and and the more familiar you get with it, the more you're going to appreciate it.
I have a habit of just turning the pages over when when I find a dog, you're in the page because I like to there's comfort in in finding that later and and writing that him out. And so I just randomly went looking for dog ears and there's four or five of them.
Will sing of the shepherd that died, that died for the sake of the flock. His love to the utmost was tried, but firmly endured as a rock of him, and his love will be sing his praises our tongues shall employ, till heavenly anthems we bring, And Yonder bright regions of joy.
While we tell the wonder story of the Savior's cross and chain sing, we everlasting glory be to God and to the Lamb. Hallelujah, give you glory to his name so.
00:15:06
God's Word and the little flock are two things that I think we all share as.
Privileges that are of the highest order.
And we all have a responsibility associated with those privileges and those responsibilities look different for each one of us. I'm not going to tell you what they are, but I think that you each know what it looks like for you or, or give some thought to that. I'd encourage you to do that. And then the third one and the last one was is Christian fellowship. So a time like this.
And this one, as I thought on it and I wanted to write down a spiritual aspect.
Of the privilege and a practical aspect of the privilege, I couldn't break it apart.
There it's so intertwined. We have, we have our meanings where we're we're built up spiritually and and we, we, we get spiritual growth, grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior if we're paying attention.
And outside of the meetings we have, we have our activities and our our interaction one with another and that that's where the relationships are built one with another.
And those things are just completely intertwined, or they ought to be. And I thought of I thought of the person.
Hebrews were all writes about not forsaking the assembling the results as a matter of some is.
See, there I go, I can start it.
We're going to read it because there's something there.
He was 10/25. Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together as a matter of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
I couldn't help but think of the Apostle Paul if he were here today.
And got a glimpse of the world that we're living in.
How he would stress the second part of that verse, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. This could well be the last opportunity we have of this sort. And are we making the most of it, the privilege of it?
And what's our responsibility? And there again, your responsibility is different than mine, but it's to.
Exhort one another to encourage one another to lift one another up.
To be established in these things that were.
I think Josh, a couple times you mentioned we're restating something and we cannot and should not apologize. And I'm not saying you are, but for restating these things, they're they're heavenly things and we need to encourage it to one another in them. So.
We started on Monday night. Jonathan spoke about pilgrims and strangers.
And then David last night worship and service.
And tonight, privilege and responsibility. And I would challenge each of you in the next few hours to write down a privilege and the responsibility associated with it.
For your own consideration and enjoyment. I have learned that.
If I write something down, there's a better chance I'm going to think about it and get it done.
And enjoy. So maybe do that for yourselves if you.
Make the time.
The privileges and the responsibility, just one of them. We have so many it's.
When you really start thinking about it, it just.
Makes you give thanks.
But write write one down for yourself and if you want share it with with a friend. That adds A level of accountability there but.
Yeah, think about it and, and how it applies to you in your life. And, and I encourage you to do that because we are some of the most privileged people in this world and the responsibility that comes along with it is something we need to own and the Lord will reward us in it.
00:20:02
So with that, give thanks for the food as well. OK, that's great.
Our God and Father, we thank you for this time and we just pray that each one of us might consider that which Thou hast done for us and brought us into and our portion in it, both in the privileges and in the responsibilities and how these things apply to our our lives and our walk.
And we pray that these considerations might be used for the encouragement of our own hearts and and those around us. And now we just thank you for the food that will partake of. And we thank you for that provisions for our needs so abundantly.
We pray too for the little guy that was hurt this afternoon. Just pray for healing and comfort for him. In Jesus name, Amen.