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heard a thousand stories of one. They think you're like, but I heard the tender whisper of love in the dead of night. And you tell me you're pleasing that I'm never alone.

You're a good good father. It's who you are. It's who you are.

It's who you are. I'm loved by you. It's who I am.

It's who I am. It's who I am. You're a good good father.

It's who you are. It's who you are. It's who you are.

And I'm loved by you. It's who I am. It's who I am.

It's who I am. Oh, and I've seen many searching for answers far and wide. But I know we're all searching for answers.

Only you proide. because you know just what we need before we say a word. You're a good good father.

It's who you are. Yes, it is who you are. It's who you are.

And I'm loved by you. It's who I am. It's who I am.

It's who I am. You're a good good father. It's who you are.

Oh, it's who you are. It's who you are. And I'm loved by you.

It's who I am. It's who I am. It's who I am.

You are perfect in all of your ways. Perfect in all of your ways. You are perfect in all of your ways to us.

Come on. Can we sing that out if we believe it? You're perfect.

You are perfect in all of your ways. So perfect. Perfect in all of your ways.

>> Oh yes, you are. You are perfect in all of your ways. to us.

You are perfect in all perfect in all of your ways. You are perfect in all of your ways. You are perfect in all of your ways to us.

And your love so uniable that I can hardly speak. Your peace so unexplainable that I can hardly think as you call me deeper still as you call me deeper still. You call me deeper still into love.

You're alive. You're a good good father. It's who you are.

It's who you are. It's who you are. And I'm loved by you.

It's who I am. It's who I am. It's who I am.

You are good. Good father. It's who you are.

It's who you are. It's who you are. heart and applied by you.

It's who I am. It's who I am. >> One more time.

You are good, good father. It's who you are. It's who you are.

It's who you are. And I'm loved by you. It's who I am.

>> It's who I am. It's who I am. Test, test, test.

This is red, so we might need batteries. Batteries. uh thank the Lord for his presence, what he's doing in our midst.

Um we want to take just a moment to be intercessors or to pray for people around us and our families, our communities, our workplace, not just for our folks in this room, but uh we want to take our needs to the Lord. This is our time when we take prayer requests to the Lord. As we're doing it, we want to pray for brother Gan.

He's at the hospital right now. He's had for the last several weeks um some heart issues and shortness of breath. Uh he's kind of wasn't sure exactly exactly what it was.

But just kind of deal for his heart. We just want to ask that situation and any other needs about the uplifting Let's take these. Thank you for this privilege.

Lord, I know that you care about the needs that we brought to you today. Asking right now, brother, Lord, help his body, Lord, bring healing to wisdom to the doctors. Lord, we trust you.

We trust you. We trust you with healing like only sister she's facing. Lord, thank you for her faith, her encouragement that she gives all of us.

Lord, bless her, her you can minister to every need that we brought to you today. We trust that you're working in our midst that you hear our prayers. Those that are in need of salvation, those that are in need of encouragement, Lord, those that just need you to be there for them in whatever moment, we're asking that you work in Jesus name.

Just a moment we'll um we'll greet one another. Before we do, uh you'll probably notice that Caitlyn's family is here with her tonight. So, uh we're excited that uh she's gonna be baptized tonight and her family is gracious enough to come and support her.

And um I just want to take the opportunity to say on behalf of our church to to her family, you know, we're not perfect people. We're going to do our very best, our very very best uh to to help her in her spiritual growth and development, to be fair to her, with love and compassion and kindness and we want you to feel safe in that. We're going to do our very best.

We're grateful that you come to support us. It's very kind kind of you. So grateful for Kayla.

Yeah. God bless you. But if if you want to just take a moment, greet one another and uh I'll preach a semi short sermon because we have a baptism and then we'll we'll celebrate.

So y'all can greet Supremely favored are those who enjoy it. Holy scripture exhausts every earthly figure to delineate its sacred charms, its ineffable delights. Yes, inspiration itself exhausts its metaphors without compassing its mystery because it is impossible for human language to express the sweetness of God's grace or the solace of our acquaintance with him.

And just so much as it is sweet to know that fellowship, so it is sad not to know or experience it. But alas, how frequently is this communion unfelt and unproved? Those are sad words, aren't they?

that something so beautiful would be unfelt and unproven. I'm going to read to you uh a text from the book called The Song of Solomon. And the Song of Solomon is is a short tiny book in the Old Testament that is really um it's really a love story between a lady called Shulamite and um most likely Solomon is the the love interest in that story.

And it's becomes a metaphor uh for the relationship between Christ and the church is really what the book reads. It reads like poetry. Um you'll hear it at a lot of weddings uh scriptures.

You in fact you might hear the text that I'm going to read to you tonight at at weddings. It says by night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loved. I sought him but I found him not.

I will rise now and go about the city. I'll go in the streets, in the broadways. I will seek him whom my soul loveth.

I sought him, but I found him not. The watchman that goes about the city found me, to whom I said, "Have you seen the one whom my soul loves?" It was but a little that passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loved. I held him and I would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother's house and in the chamber of her that conceived me.

Beautiful text. And I just want to speak to you those words from the text. The one whom my soul loved.

I was reflecting thinking about really just a beautiful time of baptism. thinking about my baptism and how restless my heart was uh before I found the Lord. And this scripture has just been in my mind, something I've been chewing on.

And uh I want to just speak to you from those words, the one whom my soul loves. Our deepest desire that we have is to love and to be loved. There is no greater desire.

If you want to if you want to get at the heart of the human heart of what it really is, the human heart desires to love and to be loved. And our relationship of course with Christ is one of the greatest privileges that any of us could ever imagine. For but for most of us, it's hard for us to envision our life without him.

Is it not? We forget how dark things were without him. Yet Mary Magdalene's words in John 20 and13 are a reminder and a glimpse into the human heart that has lost Jesus.

Mary Magdalene her life was drastically changed by Christ. And after her life was changed by him and after she had restoration in her life, she had to watch Christ be crucified. She witnessed that horrible, awful event.

And at the tomb, they weren't sure if he was coming back. They were confused. There were ideas about who Christ was.

It was all mixed up. And at the tomb, she was looking for Jesus. And she stood there weeping.

And she says, or they say to her,"Woman, why do you weep?" And she said unto them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him. Could you imagine that? Could you imagine finding the greatest most greatest thing your heart can ever desire and suddenly it's gone.

In a heart in which Christ is absent, our heart will seek to fill it with other things, won't it? I know this to be true from my own experiences. The human heart has a god-sized void that can only be filled by Jesus.

Shulamite said, "I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets, and in the broadways. I will seek him whom my soul loves.

I will find I sought him, and I found him not." When you realize that you have a void in your heart, you will do some dangerous things to fill it. She wandered the streets at dark. She wandered them aimlessly, looking in these cold, dark streets, risking her own life and her own well-being because the longing in her heart outweighed the risk that she would take to have it filled.

This is a staggering parallel to the life without Christ, the world that we see it today. Men and women are stumbling around in darkness looking to fill the void that they have inside of their life. And they try in vain to fill it through relationships.

And because they put so much stock because they need this relationship to be their savior. They want this relationship to save them. They will smother it.

They'll kill it. Failed relationships come because they're trying to get from something from the relationship that they can only get from God. You try in vain to fill it through careers and success, perhaps finding satisfaction through the accomplishment that you get.

But what people find out is there's never enough. That's why everybody in the United States is climbing ladders. Let me find the next ladder that I can climb.

People are trying to fill it in vain with community because they recognize that they're absent relationships. So they try to go find like people that think like them. And that's why we have a very siloed society because everybody's going and trying to find the group that thinks and talks just like them.

Go to forums, go hang out with like-minded people at sporting events, whatever that might be, but they're trying to do it. Try to fill it through political affiliation. People try in vain to fill it through substance abuse.

You take a look at our country. This is if you look around, you're going to say to yourself, "Well, that's a problem where I come from. It's a problem where everybody comes from now.

That's what I used to say about West Virginia where I came from and it was like this there for a while when I was in my 20s. I was going back. I graduated with 70 people.

My graduating class was 70 people. I went to a tiny school. Every year I was going back for a friend that overdosed every year in my 20s.

It was crazy. People people are trying trying to fill some sort of void inside of their area inside of their hearts. People try to fill it through dead false religion without any relationship with God.

And this is perhaps the worst because people what people believe is it's I tried the Christianity thing and it didn't work. What they tried was not really Christ. They never received real life.

They never received real joy. And they they think they tried it and all they got was just some sort of dead false relationship with God because they were misled. And the devil uses this lie to propagate that Christianity is broken.

But the truth is is all of these things that I just pointed to are signs that people are trying desperately to fill a God-sized void in their heart. Some of those things will give you happiness. Some of those things will give you fulfillment.

But none of them none of them will give you your heart's deepest desires. And I would like to make the proclamation today that unless you're filling your heart with Jesus, every single one of these things will end badly. Put your faith in relationships and they can let you down.

the most important relationships in your life. Put your faith in them, they can let you down. Our country has become so jaded by failed relationships that they have absolutely given up on marriage.

People just don't get married anymore. Divorce rates are down. You know why divorce rates are down?

Because people just don't get married. That's the truth. In 2011, Census Bureau statistics revealed that marriage is at an all-time low in America.

51% of adults are married. Just 51%. It's a 2011 statistic.

People are afraid of commitment because people have seen commitment failed. I can tell you that as a child of divorce, I looked at at I was terrified at the idea of marriage. Terrified of it because I had seen with my own eyes the failures of it.

I had seen the pain of divorce throughout all of my family. This is rinse repeat what people are seeing in our country. But the truth of the matter is you will never be a good groom to your wife until you first become a good bride to Christ.

Never. Careers and success seem fulfilling while you're pursuing them. That is until you find out that you can't fulfill your deepest desires with career.

You can't fulfill it with success. And most of us never know this because we're always thinking that the top of the ladder is right there. And if I just get to it and because you've never reached it, you really don't know.

But there are some people that do know. There are Cynthia Himl uh wrote for the New Yorker. She she said this.

She said the minute a person becomes a celebrity is the same minute he or she becomes a monster. Now these are her words not mine. Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Barbara Stysand.

They were once perfectly pleasant human beings with whom you might lunch on a slow Tuesday afternoon. But now they have become supreme beings. And their wrath is awful.

It's not what they had in mind. See, when God wants to play a really rotten practical joke on you, he grants you your deepest wish and then giggles when you suddenly realize that you want to kill yourself. Again, these are her words.

If I can be famous, people will adore me in my nose, Barbara thought. If I can be famous, I can get my chin reduced and life will be a breeze, Sly reasoned. If I can be famous, I can have a baby with Demi Moore and all my dreams will come true, Bruce decided.

The night each of them became famous, they wanted to shriek with relief. Finally, now they were adored. Invincible magic.

All their fantasies had been realized, yet the reality was still the same. If they were miserable before, they were twice as miserable now. Because that giant thing they were striving for, that fame thing that was going to make everything okay, that was going to make their lives bearable, that was going to provide them with personal fulfillment and haha happiness, it had happened, and nothing had changed.

They were still them. The disillusionment turned them into howling and insufferable human beings. End quote.

See, that's the unfortunate end of the people that actually figure out the reality. They're the ones that that reach. We're all climbing trying to reach the goals.

They they got them in their hands. And when they held them in their hands, they realize it's cotton candy. It's nothing.

I'm saddened today by people that don't know Jesus. I am. I'm saddened today by people that reject him.

I don't resent them. I I resent their ideas. But I don't resent them.

I don't envy the sin that they've experienced. I don't look at them and think, "Well, they get to have all the fun out there." And I don't. I know the truth about sin.

I know it's destroying their heart. And I know that they are missing out on the sweetest thing in the world, the treasure, the fairest of 10,000 for us. the bright and morning star, the sweet rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley, the rock and sinking sand, the oasis in dry places.

So, so if you are in this place today and you have tried to fill that void in your heart, I I just want to remind you just in case you have crept back and started reaching for other things for satisfaction and we as Christians can do that. I want to remind you those things will all end badly idols come into our hearts because we forget that and we start to grab a hold of things and hope to satisfy in our hearts what only Jesus can satisfy. And I have found that to be true over and over again in my life.

Occasionally, occasionally, I'll step away from God and I'll hope to, okay, maybe, maybe this will bring me a little bit of happiness right now and I'll seek it and I'll find out quickly. I'll put it in my mouth and eat it and there's no nutritional value. It might taste good, but it disappears.

It doesn't satisfy the longing soul. As a kid, I tried religion. It could not fill it.

I had a good family. It fell apart right in front of my face. I drink alcohol, huff gasoline, smoke cigarettes.

I was wandering about in a dark world, stumbling around looking for the one whom my soul loved until I ran into a watchman and they told me about Jesus and I repented of my sins. The Lord filled me with the spirit. I was baptized.

Covered all of the guilt and the shame that I had in my life. I got to go down in that water and was buried with Christ in baptism. When I came out of that water, there was a newness in my life and I felt life in a way that I had never felt it before.

And that's exactly WHAT JESUS SAYS WHEN he says, "I will give you life and life more abundantly." Sin satisfies for a moment, but it will not fill your heart deeply the way he will. So, I need to let you know today, you may be discouraged, come in wondering if you drifted far away from God. You might be like you're in the desert and you've it's been a while since you've really sought God and sought his face and you might even forgotten and think, I don't even know how to get to God anymore.

I want to know want you to know today the people that seek Jesus will find him. He is not hiding from you. He's not up in heaven creating distance saying you work hard hard so you can find me.

The moment that you decide you want to be close to him. He is ready and available to be close to you. Jeremiah says it like this.

The Lord spoke to his PEOPLE THROUGH THE PROPHET Jeremiah and they had drifted away from him and they had chosen other gods and they were constantly chasing other gods because there's always this heart that has an appeal for those things that give you quick fixes. That's the idols of the Old Testament. They're constantly chasing those things trying to grab a hold of them for some sort of satisfaction.

And they had done that and it had taken them deep into sin and had taken them into the Babylonian captivity. The Lord spoke to them through the prophet Jeremiah. And ye shall seek me.

These are words to the prophet that the prophet spoke to them that they would later read while they were in captivity. Ye shall seek me. Imagine popping open this letter.

You're in captivity. Your life is miserable because you sought things you thought would bring you satisfaction. And you're in this place of captivity thinking that there's no hope, thinking that you had drifted too far away from God.

And you get to hear these amazing words. And ye shall seek me and find me when you shall search with me for me with all of your heart and I will be find found of you. I'm not hiding from you.

I will turn away your captivity and I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places whether I have driven you. and I will bring you again into the place whence I cause you to be carried away into your captivity. They were captives to the Babylonians.

They had been raped and pillaged, taken away from their land. And all the blessings that God had given them, all the blessings that he had given them should have been taken away from them with no hope whatsoever. They had squandered it.

Human logic says that God would be angry. Human logic says God's just going to let you there to die. But instead, God calls out to them and says, "I will be found of you if you desire to find me.

I'll deliver you from your captivity. I'll give you all of your heart's needs. I will restore to you what has been lost." That's the God whom my soul loves.

And the first time I saw him, first time I saw him, I I had heard about Jesus, but I had not seen him. I had heard about him. She was wandering around on these dark, dangerous streets, and she looks and she sees him.

There he is. There he is. The one that I've been longing for.

I found him. Something happens when you see Jesus. People hear about him all the time.

You look at any baseball game and there's a John 3:16 sign up in the background. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. The gospel is is presented to people all the time.

That's hearing him. But hearing about Jesus won't change you. Seeing him will seeing him will and I will never forget the first time I saw him is it is still like a dream to me.

I it the world was so dark. I can't describe to you how dark the world was. And I saw him and it was just like a blast of light coming in.

I know what I know what Saul meant when he said it was like scales had fallen from my eyes. know the disciples saw him and they threw down their nets and traded their entire livelihood just because they saw him. John the Baptist saw Jesus and said, "BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD THAT TAKES AWAY ALL THE SINS OF THE WORLD." He knew this was the one.

Zakius climbed a tree so he could see Jesus. And when he when he saw Jesus, he didn't just see Jesus. He saw Jesus seeing him.

When the Sarapheneician woman saw him at the well, he was sitting on the whale waiting for her. The God that created everything was sitting there waiting for this insignificant, invisible woman who nobody cared about. Here's a God that created the universe sitting on a whale waiting for her.

She saw him. She ran back to her town and said, "Come and see. You got to see this guy.

I can't just tell you about him because if I tell you it's not going to do it, you got to see him. never forget when I saw him. I didn't care about anything else.

I didn't care what what way my life would be changed. There was nothing that I wouldn't do. He had just forgiven me so much and I knew it.

We serve God for a while. We start to get our life together. We start to walk for the Lord a little bit.

We start to get really, really proud. it starts to become a little bit of arrogance that can start to creep in and we're like, "Well, God kind of owes me. I mean, I'm doing all this stuff for him." Completely forgetting when you're when you first come to God, none of that's happening.

You know, the truth about yourself. You know, you desperately need the savior. Don't you remember that?

Don't you remember when you could think about all that he has done for your life? how God died for your sins so you could have life. What about all the things that he is doing for you right now?

All the things that he is doing right now as as I'm speaking, he's providing everything that we need for life. The air in this room comes from him. Our ability to breathe right now comes from him.

The food that God gives us, the Lord provides the earth with all of the food. He provides us with water. All that comes from him.

At any moment, he can decide that life on earth should end. And it will. He's doing all that.

Not just for us, but for the just and the unjust. Everyone. He's supplying the entire world.

Even those reject what God's going to do for us someday. He's going to call us home to a place that he is preparing for us. That still moves me in my soul.

Still moves. I can think about it for a moment. I meditate on when I wake up in the morning think so much joy and satisfaction the Lord still does because I found the one that my soul loves.

There's nothing else in this world you could fall in love with that can stand the kind of love that you need to be able to love with. You can't love your wife the way that you love Jesus. You can't.

She can't satisfy you the way he can. Your husband can't. You're going to fall short.

Only Jesus can stand your love for all of Can I remind you today that Jesus is our price. And I'm saddened to say that there are preachers all around our country that try to serve you message that says you you serve God, your life is going to be so blessed with wealth, prosperity, admiration from others. You can be a good person and everybody will think you're a good person.

In other words, you will receive all of the rewards that everybody else is seeking to fulfill in other things in this world. You don't need Jesus to have success in your career. You be highly successful.

You don't need Jesus to have good relationships. There are people that don't know anything about Jesus, don't care about Jesus. There there are people They dislike Jesus and they're great at relationships.

They have common grace. God built them in the image of God. And that common grace puts them in a place to where they can use their skills to have good relationships.

You don't need the Lord to be famous. You don't need the Lord to have money. But none of those other things will satisfy your soul.

Only Jesus is enough. Only Jesus is enough. And I'm grateful that I know him.

I'm grateful to be with his people, come together, and to worship him on a weekly basis. And right now, we're gonna get ready to baptize Caitlyn. So, if you don't mind to take her to get ready, Before we do, let's just pray and ask the Lord to bless the remainder of our service.

And let's give the Lord thanks that we know him. God, thank you. Lord, my heart's overwhelmed just meditating and the privilege of knowing you, Lord, thinking about the darkness in my life without you.

I'm just so grateful for all the blessings that you give us every single day. Lord, thank you for being worthy of our worship, worthy of our praise. Lord, never, never, Lord, I never tire of the life that I feel when I'm close to you.

I never tire, oh God, from the joy and the satisfaction that I feel when I'm with you. God, help us to not be forgetful, Lord, and not forget all the things that you've given us and not to forget, Lord, that you are the true source of life. As we put you in your proper place, Lord, above everything else, Lord, everything else becomes better.

Our love for everything else becomes proper. It's in its proper place. Help us to see that, to recognize it every single day.

And bless our church, Lord, as we seek you. Bring revival to our hearts. And help us, oh God.

Give us what we need, Lord, every single day. Give us what we need. Save our city, Lord.

Save our country. Save our world. But most importantly, just in this place right now, Lord, to start with us.

Save us. save us from ourselves, our sins, and let this place be a place where people can come, have their relationship with you restored. Oh God, we're grateful for that privilege.

Ask that you bless our time together in Jesus name we pray. Lord, we're grateful for Caitlyn, our family, Lord, coming together on this day. Pray that you bless them, bless them with confidence, Lord, in you and what you're doing.

our church to support them and our feet in Jesus name we pray.