Road of life 7-2-23

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Episode Transcript

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Welcome the Blessings in Christ. I'mScott Roberts. Blessings in Christ is also
the Church of Christ preaching the gospelof our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Of he that believeth and is baptizedshall be saved. The Church of
Christ of scriptural name Roman sixteen sixteen, scriptural and origin Collossians one eighteen,
scriptural and doctrine, First Timothy foursixteen, and scriptural and practice James one

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and twenty two. Our lesson todayis the road of life, and we
need to ask ourselves which road arewe on? You know, Jesus told
us that there are two roads thatwe can walk in the road of life.
In Matthew seven thirteen, he says, inter yee in at the straight
gate, for why it is thegate, and broad is the way that

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leadeth to destruction. And many therebe which go in thereat, because straight
is the gate, and narrow isthe way which leadeth unto life, and
few there be that find it.So our lesson is the road life.
We must choose which road we willtake. One leads to heaven and one
leads to eternal separation from God.And if we are on the right road.

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How faithful are we are? Wecontinuing on our journey and doing the
best we can, looking to theauthor and finisher of our faith, to
Jesus Christ. So we hope thatyou are on the right road. Please
enjoy the lesson today and please likeus on Facebook. Thank you. Today
is the road of life, andwhen we become a Christian, we has

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start a journey on our way toheaven. And we know that just believing
in Jesus Christ will not save us. We must obey the Gospel in Acts
chapter two. You know, theywere told what must we do? And
they were told by Peter and theapostles that repent and be baptized every one
of you in the name of JesusChrist for the remission of sins, and

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ye shall receive the gift of HolySpirit. So we begin a journey.
You know, many years ago,I know James Mills and I are real
big music people. In fact,I think we're getting a band back together
in July, hopefully Lord will andthat's one of my favorite days of the
year, and not just because themusic, but to get to spend it
with James and Landing. But anyway, many years ago they're one of the

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most popular songs back in the seventiesI'm showing my age here was called Stairway
to Heaven. And I know ledZeppelin was probably not a very Christian group,
but it was a famous song.But in that song they actually he
says something. He says, youknow, there are two roads you can
go by, and there's still timeto change the road that you're on.

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And I'm sure when they made thatrecord they weren't thinking about the Christian road.
But we're going to change that songtoday and we're going to say that
there is a Christian road turn ifyou went to Matthew chapter seven. We'll
be here a lesson today, andonce again this is called the Root of
Life, the Journey of Life.I actually have two sermons at home in

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the archives. I got into mycomputer into the trying to clean up a
lot of old files, and there'sactually a couple of lessons. The Old
Pass one was an old chart lessonthat could actually correspond to this lesson,
but it's called the Root of Life. And Matthew seven. In verse thirteen,

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it says Jesus said entered the endand the straight gate. For why
it is the gate and broad isthe way that lead it to destruction.
And many there be which go inthereat stop there for a second. In
the world today, we don't realizehow great of a number many would be

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in this wide gate that the worldfollows. There are perhaps billions and billions
of people that don't even have anyreligious affiliate at all, And there are
just as many that are following theirown religion, their own ideas, the
doctrines and the commandments of men.And many people only serve themselves, their

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own desires, their own goals,and they never once come to the cross
and deny themselves and want to becomea follower of Jesus Christ. So very
few people will actually obey the planetsalvation and become a member of Christ Church,
the Church of Christ Verse fourteen,Matthew seven. Because straight as the

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gate and narrow is the way whichleadeth unto life, and few there be
that find it. You know,when I was a boy, I never
thought how few people would actually obeythe gospel and want to be a member
of the Lord's Church. The worldis full of false doctrine. The world

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is full of evil, and everyday it gets worse and worse. Sometimes
it seems like almost every person isfollowing this wicked, wide way which leads
to destruction. But there are fewpeople that want to obey the planet's salvation,
and it doesn't. And then wemust be dedicated, faithful unto death,

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living that Christian life Verse fourteen.Straight as the gate and narrow is
the way which leadeth unto life,And few there be that find it.
So it's very it's discouraging how fewpeople will actually take the road that leads
to heaven. Verse fifteen. Bewareof false prophets which come to you in

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sheep's clothing, but inwardly they areravening wolves. Ye shall know them,
buy their fruits. Do men gathergrapes or thorns or figs of thistles?
Even so, every good tree bringethforth good fruit, but a corrupt tree
bringeth forth evil fruit. A goodtree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither

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can a corrupt tree bring forth goodfruit. And once again, the doctrine
that we follow the word of Godis from God himself. It is the
precious word of God that we liveby. And a bye bye. We
don't follow the doctrines the commandments ofmen. So therefore a good tree will
bring forth good fruit, and anevil tree will bring forth evil fruit.

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So we know the fruit of whatis being taught to us. We will
follow. And once again, ifwe are on the street and narrow road,
then we have hope of an Indianup in heaven Verse twenty one.
Not everyone that sayeth under me,Lord Lord, so enter into the Kingdom
of heaven. But he that doeththe will of my Father, which is

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in heaven. Many will say tome in that day, Lord Lord,
have we not prophesied in thy name? And then thy name cost out devils?
And then thy name done many wonderfulworks. And I will profess unto
them. I never knew you departfrom me, ye that work iniquity.
Our lesson today is called the roadof life. What road are we on?

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This is a really good lesson.I'm just so thankful that we have
our young people here with us today. I wish Landon we could hear this
lesson. And that is of course, you can choose which road that you
want to travel. And of courseour kids today are are highly educated.
There's more teaching tools now than everbefore. There are so much there's so

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much information that you would think thatit would be impossible to be lost,
but yet there are there are somany people in the world that are lost
because they are ignoring the word ofGod and following the doctrines and the commandments
of men. What road will wechoose? Will we choose the road that

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leads to eternal life? We're goingto compare or our Christian journey with a
trip. One of my favorite memorieswith Landing, and I've been blessed.
I've had so many memories with him, but would be vacations and we always
had a saying road trip, roadtrip, and Landing's face would just light
up, and I said, we'regoing down a road trip and it would

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be so much fun just to getto spend time and to go wherever.
You know, we had chosen.And I know everyone in the audience here
has went on road trips, andit has went on vacations and going to
fun places. And of course oursisters Lola, June and Ella had the
best road trip of all. Theygot to go see their mom and dad.

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And it didn't matter how long itwas, didn't matter if it was
five hours or however long. Youended up in good old Raglan, West
Virginia, and climb that hill andthat was Mom and Paul's house. So
God bless you. But what isour destination? What is our journey?
We were going to compare our Christianwalk with the root of life. On

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the road, there are many bumps, hills, dangerous curves and other hazards.
There are also distractions as other drivers, billboards, passengers in the car,
the radio in your cell phone.You know, one bad thing about
the generation that we live in nowis there are so many distractions that we

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have in the car. And I'lltell James, I'll make you laugh.
And this didn't happen ten years agowhen we had the band together going to
Cincinnati. There probably wasn't a minutehis cell phone wasn't going off. You
know. Of course, he runsa business and he has three of wonderful
children, and Jamie was keeping tabson him too, But there was never

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a moment that you know, I'mnot saying that he was he was on
his cell phone, but I'm sayingyou could hear it. You could hear
it going off in the car.And the cars now will tell you.
You know, you can actually talkinto your car so you don't have to
handle your phone. But there areso many distractions. And you know something
else in our travels now are thebillboards used to be they would kind of

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stand off. Now they've moved thebillboards right up to the road, and
they're electronic. Now it's just likewatching UTV. If you can't see a
billboard now then you can't see andit didn't used to be like that.
There are so many distractions. Theysay that probably you know, more than
half of the drivers on the roadreally aren't even looking at the road.

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They're looking at their cell phones,or they're doing different things that they're they're
not supposed to be doing. Thereare so many distractions, more distractions than
ever before on with the drivers.In fact, the insurance will tell you
there's a lot of accidents probably causedby distractions. Continuing on, we are

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often tempted to turn off the roadand for a new approved route that has
promised to be quicker and easier.We live in a day where people don't
want to take the long road.They want to shortcut, they want to
super highways. They want to findan easier way to get to their destination
than what was established before. Atother times, we are attempted to turn

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back when the road seems to challengeing. I can remember going on trips where
there were flooding rains and you wouldcome to water in the road and you
were tempted. Of course, theysay, never to drive through that water.
You turn around and go back.Much is the same with the road
of life. The Irish rider,poet and physician Oliver Goldsmith once said,

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life is a journey that must betraveled, no matter how bad the roads
and accommodation. Think about it inour spiritual life. No matter how many
billboards, how many potholes, howmany distractions there are, or how bad
the roads are. You know,it seems like no matter where you are,

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there's potholes and the roads are cracked, and it's really hard to find
a good, good road. Wewere coming back from Cincinnati and James had
Mercedes there and he hit the biggestpothole you've ever seen. And the first
thing he thought is, boy,I sure hope I don't have to buy
a new rim. And I thoughtthe same thing. And that happened to

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me on my gold wing when Iwas traveling with the motorcycle. And of
course I'm not a very skinny guy, so I'm on the bike and I
probably had a hundred pounds of luggageand I hit a bridge going through I
think it was Charleston, West Virginia, coming back from North Carolina, and
I hit the biggest bump. SoI go in to have my bike check

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and I had bent the rim onthat Honda gold Wing. And I won't
tell you what it costs to replace, but it was pretty bad. Continuing
on the road of life isn't alwaysstraight and smooth for a Christian God never
promised it would be. There willbe problems that we face on a daily
basis that create those bumps, hills, and dangerous curves. There are temptations,

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such as people and worldly things thatare distractions to us. There is
a temptation to compromise, compromise ourbeliefs, compromise our faith, to go
to an easier road than what we'reon. Would God be satisfied in us
wanting an easier life or an easierjourney? Will we still reach our destination

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when we travel on actual road.We do have help we can take used
to be road maps, but nowI guess we have GPS on our cars
and on our phones and it worksand I can tell you. I know
when Landon was moving different places uparound Bowling Green and Toledo getting all of
his degrees. He would just giveme the ads and you the phone would

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tell you where to turn. Nowif you missed your turn, you had
to resynchronize that program. But itgot me to where Landon was. So
hopefully we are good map readers,or we listened to our GPS. If
all else fails, there's even tripleA. If we have car trouble.
There's nothing worse, not a worsefeeling than if we break down. And

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it has happened to me before.And I remember many years ago we bought
a new Monte Carlo and we tookit for a road trip and I had
the sisters with me, June,La Looa, and we were coming through
somewhere around Cannonsburg maybe Kentucky. There'sa brand new car, and it stopped.
And who do you think came arescued this J W. Hawko so

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BLUs his heart. We had arescuer there and had really good fellowship.
We got to car fixed and wegot on our way. So we do
have help if there aren't any problems. We have a charted path all laid
out in the Bible, the inspiredWord of God. Anyone can read and
understand. With the help of theHoly Spirit. We have each other.

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We have the precious Word of God. So the question is have we started
our journey? Which road will wechoose? There are many different roads that
we can take in life, butwill we take? Listen to this the
right road. The right road isobeying the plane of salvation and becoming a

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member of the Lord's Church. Wemust hear the Gospel Roman's ten of verse
seventeen, so that faith comes byhearing and hearing by the word of God.
We must believe Jesus Christ to bethe Son of God John three,
verse sixteen. For God so lovethe world that he gave his only begotten
son, that whosover believeth in himshould not perish, but have everlasting life.

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We must repent. We must repentof the life that we were living
before, living self, living forsin, living for the flesh. But
now we want to live for God, live for spiritual things, and put
Christ first and be a follower ofChrist, like that beautiful lesson James brought
last week. When some of thedisciples had left Jesus and Jesus said,

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will thou also go? And Petersaid, Lord, to whom shall we
go? For thou hast the wordsof eternal life? Who are we going
to follow? What road are wegoing to take? I want to follow
Jesus, no matter how difficult,no matter what I have to give up,
no matter how rough of a journeyit is. I want to be

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on the right road. Act seventeenand thirty. For the times of ignorance,
God winked up, But now commandethmen everywhere to repent. We must
also confess our faith in Christ firstJohn four fifteen. Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is a son of God,God dwelt in him and He and God.
And finally we must be baptized intoChrist Marks sixteen sixteen. He that

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believe it and his baptized shall besaved. What road will we take?
After we obey the plan of salvation? We become a member of the Lord's
Church. The Lord's Church is referredto as the Church of Christ Roman sixteen
sixteen because Christ build it, andhe called it his own. When he

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set upon this rock, I willbuild my church. Matthew sixteen eighteen.
He purchased the Church with his ownblood, Acts twenty in verse twenty eight,
Jesus is ahead over all things,which is of the Church, which
is his body, one body a. Phisians one, twenty two and through
twenty three, of which there isonly one body, one Lord, one

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faith, one baptism, one hopeof your calling e. Phisians four fourth.
The Church's Christ's body, and wethe members here, the members of
the Lord's Church, make up thebody of Christ. And Jesus is a
savior of the body Efhisians five andverse twenty three. We read and Acts
two Adverse forty seven. We don'tjoin a church. We're not voted to

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be a saint. We are addedto the church by God himself, after
obeying the plane of salvation. Actstwo Adverse forty seven. The Lord added
to the church daily those who werebeing saved. But who are those that
are saved and who are put onthat road to heaven? And Jesus said

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in Mark sixteen and sixteen, hethat believeth and is baptized shall be saved.
So therefore we must get on theright road. And it's sad that
many people will take the wrong road. How many of us have taken a
trip and Dad was known for this. Dad would take a shortcut. And

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I remember once, bless his heart, he got lost and mom, Mom
had aself and then said, guesswhat, your dad took one of his
shortcuts. And we don't know wherewe are and we've finally gotten back on
the right road. Are we goingto go the wrong direction? Okay?
And our Christian life, once weget on the right road and we have
obeyed the plane of salvation, wemust line ourselves up to the center of

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the road. How many of usand everybody that's a driver here will agree.
There are drivers out there that liketo swerve and they're going back and
forth. And of course Autumn's hereand she could tell us when she takes
that driving test she's going to stayright in the middle of the road.
In fact, when you have thesefancy cars, they will actually tell you

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when you're not driving where you were. And just a point of interest on
no shanderplane knows this. When you'reriding a motorcycle, you really don't ride
in the middle of the lane.There's actually two lanes that are within that
lane. You're going to be oneor other, and if you're in the
middle, it's kind of bumpy.It's not smooth. So bikes that are

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in the lane, you'll have probablyone on the left, one on the
right, one on the left,one on the right, And that is
the proper way to ride your motorcycles. So that's just an FYI. Stay
in the center of the road,as Christians. Are we staying in the
center of the road or are weswerving in our Christian life? We're going

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to cause an accident for ourselves orwe're going to you know, run into
somebody else if we don't stay inthe center. Hebrews eleven thirty nine through
forty, and these all having obtaineda good report through faith, received not
the promise God providing some better thingfor us, that they without us should

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not be made perfect. Also effvisionsone ten through eleven, that in the
dispensation into the fullness of times,He might gather together in one all things
in Christ, both which are inHeaven, which are on earth, even
in Him in whom we haven't obtainedan inheritance, being predestined according with the

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purpose of Him who worketh all thingsat the council of His will. We
must be obedient. We must stayin his center line. Revelation twenty two
and fourteen. Blessed are they thatdo His commandments, that they may have
right to the tree of life.We need to obey all of God's commandments.

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Stay in that center lane, staywhere you should, don't swerve first
John two, three three six.And hereby do we know that we know
him if we keep his commandments.He that saith I know him and keepeth
not his commandments is a liar,and the truth is not in him.

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Continuing on, here God revealed tous how to live a Christian life.
We are not to seek the thingsof sin, where we are to seek
spiritual things Filippies four, verse eight. Finally, Brother, and whatsoever things
are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things
are pew pure, whatsoever things arelovely, whatsoever things are of a good

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report, If there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think
on these things. So we've lookedat what road that we're taking. Will
we stay in the center lane?Now? The next thing is what kind
of gas are we going to putinto our car? And I'll tell you
when I rode the bike to Colorado, you didn't have a lot of choices,

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And I think I was in Burlington, Colorado, and there was only
one gas station and it didn't looklike very good gas. And I put
that in there, and it's notgood when you're out in the middle millwhere
by yourself and you're on that goldwing. It was missing. It's never
done that, And I thought Ibought by gas. I've never prayed more
in my life. Whenever is onthat Are we going to buy the good

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guys? Are we going to getthe super gass? What is going to
fuel our trip on the road trip? And that is worship? Are we
going to worship God with all ofour hearts? So we're going to love
God with all of our hearts.What is going to fuel our journey?
And of course a living our Christianlife is not being a Christian or starting

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that journey because we have to becausewe want to make our destination. And
how many of us, and I'msure we're all guilty of it. You
want to get there and a lotof times you're just hitting that gasped a
little bit too hard. You lookat that phenomena and you're going pretty fast.
You gotta be careful. Worship isour love. We want to get
to our destination. What type offuel is our heart and our worship?

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Have we given God all of ourheart? And do we put him first?
John four twenty three through twenty four? But the hours cometh, and
now is when true worshipers shall worshipthe Father and Spirit. And in truth,
God is a spirit, and theythat worship him must worship Him and

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Spirit. And in truth are wegoing to love God with all of our
hearts? What he is going tofuel our journey Deuteronomy six and verse five.
And that shall love the Lord thyGod, with all thy heart,
all thy soul, and with allthy might. So therefore worship will enable
us to to to give us theenergy, the spiritual love, to put

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God first and to give us theenergy on our trip. We also need
to study God's word every single day, and this, of course would be
our maintenance. The cars today needa lot of maintenance, especially those of
you that you know, you knowthat have the turbochargers and of course the
fuel injection. Uh. If youdon't do maintenance on your call, are

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you're going to break down? That'svery very true. On your motorcycles,
the Honda gold Wing, you hadto take it to the Honda place,
and whatever they wanted to charge you, you paid because you only Honda could
work on that bike. We muststudy God's word, Paul told Timothy's second
Timothy two ad verse fifteen. Studyto show thyself approved unto God. A

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workman that needeth not be ashamed,rightly dividing the word of truth Colossians three
at verse sixteen, Let us letthe Word of Christ dwell in you richly
in all wisdom, teaching and ammolishingone another, and psalms and him spiritual
songs, singing with grace in yourhearts to the Lord. So just as

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we have to do maintenance or we'regoing to break down, we need to
do maintenance on our Christian life.Faith comes by here and hearing by the
word of God. Study to showourself approved unto God. Continuing on here
in our journey a road of life. One of the most important things is
how do we interact with other drivers. And a lot of times people are

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very nice to other drivers. AndI remember Bob Hoddle used to say,
don't make eye contact with some ofthese drivers. And unfortunately there are a
lot of crazy drivers out there.But we need to be courteous and I
know that Dad would always he wasnever a like a type a personality drive
and he always would let other peoplego first. And you know you use

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hand signals. You need to becourteous and we all need to get along
when we drive, or there's goingto be accidents. That in our spiritual
journey is fellowship with other Christians.Do we interact well with other Christians?
Do we show that brotherly love?Are we a positive influence on others in
the church fellowship? If we don'thave good fellowship with other drivers, so

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to speak, we're going to havea very difficult trip and we're going to
have one accident after another. Wemust be courteous and be a good driver
and always realize there's a lot ofother cars on the road. And our
Christian life, we need to haveunity, we need to have love,
We need to encourage one another.And I'll say this, everybody here is

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so so inspirational to me. Ilove you with all my hearts. I
couldn't think of a better congregation.That means everything to me. And I
really if we all make it toheaven, I want to be with you
forever. I love you that much. First, Curtis one of verse tim
Now I beseech you by then,by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that you all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among

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you, but that you perfectly joinedtogether with the same mind and the same
judgment deficients two eighteen through twenty two. Through him, we both have access
by one spirit under the Father.Now, therefore you are no more strangers
and foreign foreigners and fellow citizens withthe saints and of the household of God,

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and are built upon the foundation ofthe apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ
himself being a chief cornerstone, inwhom all of the building fitly framed together
groweth into a holy temple of theLord, in whom you are also build
together for the habitation of God.Through the Spirit. We need to have

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fellowship, growing in love, growingin unity, growing in works, growing
in worship, in every single thing. Continuing on here, We've only got
a couple more minutes, and I'mwant to get to a couple more points.
Unfortunately, there will be curves,hills, bumps, rain, snow,
ice, There's going to be problems. So we better be good drivers.

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We better focus on the road.We better drive slow and better obey
all of God's laws. And youknow every winner, and it's usually somebody
in a big suv that decides they'vegot four wild drive and they're going to
drive seventy mile an hour when there'sice on a road, and bless their
hearts. That's usually the suv that'sin the ditch. And of course we

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pray for him and want the best. But I know everybody here drives by
that car and says I told youso. So there will be curves and
bumps. And when we become aChristian, don't expect our life to be
perfect, because that's where faith comesin. Use every opportunity of the discouraging

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or the slow times or temptations tohelp us to grow in the faith.
Effasi in six and verse quel beforewe wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, powers, againstrulers of their darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places firstfeet or five, and say it be

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sober, be vigilant, because youradversar of the devil has a roaring lion
walketh about seeking who he may devout. But you know what God will help
us through us in such a wal