You Don’t Have to Stay Stuck

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- Well, hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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I'm so glad you're joining us online today.

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Hey, my name is Andy, the community pastor

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for Crossroads Anywhere, which is

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a community of people gathering for church

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in person and online all over the globe.

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If you're new to Crossroads

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or watching us for the first time, man,

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we would love to get to know you.

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I would love to get to know you

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and help you get connected and involved

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in the right ways around Crossroads.

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You can do that simply by texting

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the word "Anywhere" to 301301,

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and myself or someone from my team

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will be in touch with you.

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Now, some things that you can expect from our time today.

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First, we're going to worship together.

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So join us by singing along wherever you are

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or just listening.

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Second, I'll be back in a little bit

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to let you know of some of the specific ways

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that you can get engaged with our church

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and grow with us this year.

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And then third, we're going to hear from

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our senior pastor, Brian Tome, as he helps us

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kick off the year with our new series,

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Leave Lies Behind.

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As we worship together right now I hope

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and I pray that something in these songs

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moves you and brings you closer to God.

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- This is a song of invitation.

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If you were here last week with us you heard it then.

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If you're at Revival with us a while back,

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you heard it then.

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This is a testimony of a changed life,

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the anthem of awakening right here.

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- This is our prayer, stating a desire,

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taking a step towards hope, a step towards God.

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- Lord, we sing this promise again.

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- So, God, we say thank you.

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We say thank you for giving us good things,

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good things that we don't know are good things.

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God, we turn our eyes to You.

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We say thank You for the very breath that we have.

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If we've never gotten anything else, God,

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we woke up with fresh air in our lungs.

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That's a miracle, God, and I just say thank You.

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Thank You. We rest on You, but we trust You.

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You're amazing. Thank you.

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In Jesus name, we pray. We pray together. Amen.

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- We don't want more friends, we want real friends.

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Friends who make us feel like we belong.

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Imagine being able to be yourself

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and still be accepted. No judgments. No fine print.

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Groups are a safe space to be who we are

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and grow together.

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Life is better together. Join a group.

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- Well, last week, if you tuned in,

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our senior pastor Brian Tome talked about

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how to grow and how to stay persistent

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with our goals and whatever goals you might have

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for the year, whether it's going to church more,

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reading your Bible, whether it's financial

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or health or losing weight or eating better,

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whatever, I can guarantee that you will go

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much further with your goals if you do them in community.

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And if you're new, you might wonder,

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how could I ever get to know other people

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at a church so big and even online no less?

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Now, the reality is that we've got so many groups

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for all ages and life stages to help you connect.

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So if you're a man or a woman or a mom or a dad,

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we've got a group for you.

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If you're a senior, a young adult or a student,

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we've got a group for you.

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If you're a recovering addict or in grief

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or newly married, we've got groups for you

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and so many more.

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Now is the best time to join them,

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so just check them all out at

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Crossroads.net/anywhere and pay special attention

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to find an online group that you can join

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no matter where you live.

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And hey, a quick reminder as well.

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If you're in around here and consider

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Crossroads your home, you can be a part of

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fueling all of the ministry that happens

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through this place with your financial gift.

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You can be a part of the team of faithful givers

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or you can just check out what we believe

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about money by heading to Crossroads.net/give.

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We, and I mean us, are a generous church.

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Here's one of the ways that showed up this past December.

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- The last time we spent Christmas together was 2016.

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So it's -- it's been a little while.

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I'm not really the type of guy

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that gets out of a calendar and marks on --

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Circles the day and waits and counts the seconds,

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but I did that for this.

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- 2021, because '22 I came here.

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So 2021 was the last time I spent

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an actual Christmas with them.

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The thing I missed the most about family

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is family time, being around each other,

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having memories, doing things together,

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cooking, laughing,

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listening to the typical Christmas holiday music.

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Not being able to see your family so often

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as you want in an open environment like it was today.

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It takes something away.

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When you have this type of environment

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and set up, everything is just perfect.

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Me wrapping the gifts I almost shed a tear

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because the memories that it brought back,

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that was bittersweet, but I loved it.

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To see them so excited when they opened the gifts

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made it all worth it.

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I mean, even though I'm here, it's -- it's --

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It's a blessing. I love it.

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- You know, you look around these days

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and it can -- be it can be, you know,

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depressing so you know, to see people

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like yourselves or anybody who --

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Who does a little something to, like,

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you could change an inmate's life because

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he comes down to this room for this day,

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for this Christmas and see his kid.

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The gift you saw me give him today was quite special

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because in these visits for the last so many years,

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they let us go out there in that little yard area.

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We got this little ball and we play football in the yard.

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And he's learned to catch the ball,

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how the downs work and he's watching football now.

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And it's, like, "This, take it home.

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Put it in your room because I'm coming

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and we're going to do this in our yard."

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- For Crossroads to reach out and do everything that they did.

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I think it's a blessing from God.

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I wish all those people a happy and Merry Christmas,

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and I hope that this thing continues on

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and it grows bigger because people need this,

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the families need it, and us on the inside we need it.

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So when we all come together

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and it's because of you all, it's -- it's amazing.

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If the rest of the year was downhill,

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this finished my year out at the top of the hill,

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at the top of the mountain.

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So it was lovely. It was amazing.

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- This is my very last Christmas in prison.

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I go home in a couple of months.

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I was fortunate enough to be in this for the second year.

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To be able to sit there and say, "Hey,

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that was already a year ago, but there won't be a third."

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You know, so that was that -- was what a cool one for me.

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- Oh, my gosh, it's so good.

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You know, every time I'm in a prison

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visiting someone like that, I always think,

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"You know, me on my worst day could do something

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that would get me in there."

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You know, like any of us, catch us

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on the wrong day doing the wrong thing.

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And what hits me is the topic

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I'm going to look at tonight, too,

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is it's just the grace of God, the favor of God,

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the mercy of God, the love of God,

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and the healing nature of God,

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which we're going to see if

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maybe you get a dose of that today.

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Let's pray before we go any further.

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God, I want everyone, no matter what site we're in,

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no matter what coffee shop, bar we're in,

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house we're in, wherever we are

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to get a taste of your goodness,

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of your healing and of your grace.

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Help me to be clear, to be compelling and to be accurate.

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And God, thank you for being such a God

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that's so transcendent and so beyond that

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it's hard to even describe Your character

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and who You are.

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Help us to grasp it and just maybe get healed today.

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And I pray these things according to

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the character and identity of Jesus. Amen. Amen.

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So grace, what is grace?

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Grace is one of those words that very few people understand.

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Grace is not the prayer that you say before a meal,

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although you may call that grace.

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That's not the kind of grace I'm talking about here today.

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Grace is not the way you move with style

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and grace across a dance floor,

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though you might be graceful,

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but that's not the kind of grace I'm talking about.

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I'm also not talking about grace periods.

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You know, if you've got a credit card,

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if you've got a house payment,

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if you've got a home equity credit line,

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it's about everybody has a grace period.

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I'm not talking about that because

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that's really not grace.

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That's just a delaying judgment period is what that is.

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You know, you have a period of time

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where if you don't get your payment in

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they're not going to turn you into

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the bad credit bureau, or you're not going to

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get punished too much,

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but interest is still accumulating.

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And if you don't pay it off at the end of that,

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boom, you know, you're you're done, bad stuff happens.

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No, grace. Grace is is this amazing gift from God

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that we don't earn, we can't understand,

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and it is generous and is overflowing.

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Maybe the most potent message in the Bible,

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or the most potent verse in the Bible

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that goes beyond the fake or the real news,

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fake or real news, comes from

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the book of Ephesians 2.

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News. News that is good is called gospel.

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Gospel is a word that's in the Bible,

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but it actually wasn't invented the Bible.

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The word gospel is an ancient term.

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It existed for a long, long time.

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It just meant good news.

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So, for instance, at the Battle of Sardis,

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when Greece -- Excuse me, the Battle of Marathon

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when Greece won that battle, there was

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a messenger who was going to bring good news.

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He was known as an evangelist,

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somebody who brings good news.

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He ran 26.2 miles back to the Greece Council

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and proclaimed, "We have won. We have won."

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And then he fell over dead.

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And that's the beginning of the marathon,

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the very first marathon.

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But he came and he proclaimed what was known as gospel,

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"Good news. Greece has prevailed. We have won."

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So the gospel of Jesus Christ is this:

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good news, there's a God who loves you

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that's beyond you, there's a God who can forgive

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all of your pains for all of your sinfulness,

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all of your mistakes.

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There's a God who is for you

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and has abundant treasures for you.

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This is good news.

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Let's read about it in the book of Ephesians 2.

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It's a bit long.

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I think I'm going to go by for ten verses here or so.

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But let me just read this and then explain it to you.

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Here's what it says. Chapter two, verse one.

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Here it goes.

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And you were dead in the trespasses and sins,

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in which you once walked,

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following the course of this world,

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following the prince of the power of the air,

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the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,

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among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh,

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carrying out the desires of the body and the mind,

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and were by nature children of wrath,

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like the rest of mankind.

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But God, being rich in mercy, because of

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the great love with which He loved us,

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even when we were dead in our trespasses,

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made us alive together with Christ - By grace.

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(There's the word) By grace you have been saved --

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And raised us up with Him and seated us with Him

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in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

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so that in the coming ages he might show

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the immeasurable riches of His grace

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in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus

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for by grace you have been saved through faith,

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and this is not of your own doing.

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It's the gift of God,

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not a result of works that no one can boast.

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For we are His workmanship,

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created in Christ Jesus for good works,

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which God prepared beforehand,

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that we should walk in them.

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This is horse choking. It's a lot. This is, man.

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This is if you had -- If you need 12 verses,

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12 verses to understand the good news

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and get into the depths of it,

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this is probably the best 12 verses in the Bible

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in my opinion. Let's take a look at it.

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First of all, he says, all of us, here's the news,

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in our natural selves we are dead in our trespasses.

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Dead. None of us like to hear that.

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We go, "Oh, no, I'm a-- I'm a very nice spiritual person."

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Maybe you are, but naturally, in of yourself,

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you're dead in your trespasses.

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Our sinfulness separates us from God.

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That may be why we have as many maladies as we do.

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And it's not just you. It's not just me.

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It's everybody because we're following

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the course of this world.

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It's the course of the world to go away from God.

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It's the course of the world to denigrate ourselves

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and others and be about ourselves.

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And it's not by accident either, because

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in the world and there's actually --

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There's an actual organizing principle behind it.

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We have the prince of the power of the air.

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This means that, and by the way,

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I'm not expecting you to believe all of this right now.

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Some of it sounds really weird and really crazy.

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But let me just ask you this, wouldn't it make sense

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with all the problems we have,

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with all the illnesses we have,

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with all the mental health, with all the anger we have,

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with all the angst, with all the lack of peace,

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wouldn't it make sense that there is

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a spiritual organization that's behind it all?

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The Bible says that there is. It's called demons.

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It's called principalities, powers.

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Their CEO, his name is Satan or Lucifer.\

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And we can't see these, but we can see

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the effect of him, the prince, the power of the air.

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And we are by nature children of wrath.

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And here's the thing. Here's the thing.

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Here's the best little but you've ever seen right here,

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verse number four, but -- but, all of this is true,

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but God. But God.

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We sit in the bad news.

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We sit in the way that we are natural.

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And then it comes, but, but God.

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What about God? What about God?

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Well, He's rich in mercy.

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Rich because of the great love that He has

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with which He has loved us, even though

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we were sons and daughters of disobedience,

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even though we are outside His plan

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and doing our own thing and dead in our trespasses,

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He loved us. Why? Because it's grace.

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It's grace that's caused us to sit with Him

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because he has immeasurable,

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immeasurable riches of His grace.

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God's always got more for you.

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He's got more love for you.

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He's got more forgiveness for you.

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He's got more mercy for you. It's immeasurable.

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Some of us don't go before God because

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we're trying to meter it out and just save it.

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"Well, I can't ask for too much stuff

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because I got to save it for later on.

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Just -- just I got to. I got to be

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so God's going, 'Oh, man. There's my -- here's my man Ron.

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My man Ron's praying to me. Woo.

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I better listen because Ron never prays to me.'"

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That's like thinking, you're assuming

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the fake news that God is limited

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and God is annoyed by you. No, He loves you.

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And He doesn't lack resources. Immeasurable.

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He might not give you and I,

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He doesn't give you and I all that we ask.

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But it's not because He lacks the resources,

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immeasurable resources.

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For by grace, for by grace we've been saved,

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not our own efforts. That's the --

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That's the fake news. It's the false news.

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Your own efforts, your morality, your spirituality.

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See this passage lines up, lines up, lines up

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the difference between death and life.

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The whole first half is death.

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This is spiritual death.

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And I'm not talking here, I'm not talking here

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about when your heart expires at the end of --

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At the end of your life death.

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I'm not even talking about death,

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like, eternally speaking.

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I'm talking about death that comes to us

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with all of our issues, with all of our stress points,

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with all of our neuroses, with all of our fears,

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with all of our anxieties,

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with all of our divorces, with all of our --

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Of our battles, with all of our cynicism,

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with all of our skepticism,

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with all of our disjointedness,

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just the whole cacophony of sounds and discord

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that we have in our culture.

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It's a sign of the death that's described.

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And if you want it, you can step into

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the life that comes, but God,

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you can step into that.

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I wonder today how many of us

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want to step into something different?

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How many of us want to have something different?

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How many of us -- How many of us want a healing?

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Now, I'm not just talking about a physical healing,

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though that happens.

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I'm also talking about a spiritual healing.

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I'm talking about a relational healing.

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I'm talking about a mental healing.

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I'm talking about an emotional healing.

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Jesus is known as a Savior. He comes to save.

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He's also known as healer

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and he heals all of those things.

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I don't know if you've noticed this or not,

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but I don't know who you are,

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but I promise you, you need healed.

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I promise you, because our natural self

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is still broken to this day.

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All of us need healing,

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and those of us who don't think that we do,

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it's a sign that we're actually spiritually dead.

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We haven't come up to the but God yet.

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We haven't come up to Him yet because

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we're deluding ourselves with

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our perceived grandeur and goodness and spirituality.

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All of us need some form of spiritual healing

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or physical healing, and both require two things.

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They require asking and they require acting.

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Asking and acting.

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Now, when we talk about grace,

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if you've been around church for some bit of time,

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you've come across some preacher who's given you

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the perfect acronym for what grace is,

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and I think it's a good one.

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Grace is, say it with me if you know it,

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God's riches at Christ's expense.

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God's riches at Christ's expense.

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I like that. I think it's accurate. That's true.

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I mean, Jesus does things for us

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that we can't do on our own.

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And the funnel comes through Jesus life and death.

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God's riches for us, immeasurable riches

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at the expense of Christ.

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But I think that also is needy of a bit more explanation.

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Grace can also be seen as anything God can do

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that I can't do.

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Anything God has that I don't have.

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Anything that God can resource,

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that I can't resource.

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Anything God can love that I can't love.

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Anything God can do, anything that I don't have

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the powers in and of myself.

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Now, there is a grace that comes to us

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that we will not work for.

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A lot of grace, in fact, Grace comes to people

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who are atheists and agnostics

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and maybe still very bitter towards God.

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But God still, as the Bible says,

00:37:08

caused the sun to rise and the rain to fall

00:37:11

on the just and the unjust alike.

00:37:13

This is grace.

00:37:15

So God will give you grace, some form of grace

00:37:17

no matter what you do.

00:37:19

And if you want a sort of healing grace,

00:37:21

if you want to increase the likelihood

00:37:25

of you getting healed, of your heart getting healed,

00:37:29

of your marriage getting healed,

00:37:30

of your relationship with your kids getting healed,

00:37:32

of your relationship with your best friend getting healed,

00:37:35

of your memories, your memories of what happened

00:37:38

to you when you were six years old

00:37:40

and you can't stop thinking about it,

00:37:42

if you want that to be healed,

00:37:44

if you want to be healed the pains

00:37:46

that people don't have solutions towards,

00:37:49

you need to look for a grace, a healing grace

00:37:55

that's beyond human understanding.

00:37:59

Now, book of John chapter five.

00:38:02

You're going, "Brian, you're going for a while here,

00:38:04

and you haven't even given us any points yet."

00:38:06

I know. I'm going to give you 3 pretty quick points.

00:38:09

I just got to hit this from so many different angles

00:38:12

that there is a God who wants to heal you,

00:38:15

any kind of healing, and you've got

00:38:17

to get on the right path.

00:38:18

You've got to adhere to the real news,

00:38:21

not the fake news of this bland spirituality

00:38:24

that God helps those who help themselves

00:38:27

or God is far and removed,

00:38:28

He doesn't really care about little people

00:38:30

like you and I. No, that's not true.

00:38:32

He's got immeasurable grace for you.

00:38:34

We have to get this solidified

00:38:35

until I give you three action points.

00:38:38

But let me share this in the book of John 5

00:38:40

we see one of Jesus's amazing healings that He does.

00:38:44

He does a bunch of healings.

00:38:45

They're all -- they're all really powerful.

00:38:47

This one. I just continue to be stunned by

00:38:52

and challenge myself with.

00:38:53

Here's what it says in John 5:5 and following.

00:38:59

By the way, before I get here, okay, here's the background.

00:39:02

I've been to this place a bunch of times,

00:39:04

a bunch of times in Israel.

00:39:05

You can go to this place and it's a pool.

00:39:08

It's called the Pool of Bethesda.

00:39:10

And in this pool, and it's still there.

00:39:12

They've excavated it down, oh, I don't know, 30 feet.

00:39:14

You can crawl down.

00:39:15

You can actually get to the water,

00:39:17

the original water level, at least

00:39:19

where this was in Jesus's time.

00:39:20

They built it up over the centuries

00:39:22

and all that sort of stuff.

00:39:23

But as the story goes, as they believed,

00:39:26

there would be paralyzed and blind

00:39:29

and people who need physical healing

00:39:31

all around this thing.

00:39:34

And then every once in a while,

00:39:35

the water would bubble and stir.

00:39:38

And they believed that it was an angel

00:39:40

that was coming down and stirring the water.

00:39:42

And they believed that the first man in God healed.

00:39:45

And so all these people would hang around the outside.

00:39:48

Now, I do believe in angels.

00:39:50

I do believe in demons.

00:39:53

I do believe in all that.

00:39:54

I'm not sure that this was going on.

00:39:56

This is what they believed.

00:39:57

They believed in angel did that.

00:40:00

Maybe. Maybe not.

00:40:02

Most likely, it was an underwater spring

00:40:04

that out of nowhere, every once in a while

00:40:05

would will bubble up and people would say,

00:40:07

"Oh, it's an angel, this angel."

00:40:08

And maybe at some point someone fell in accidentally

00:40:11

and said they got healed.

00:40:12

We don't know that, but we do know is

00:40:14

there's a bunch of people around this thing

00:40:16

wanting healing and Jesus decides to go to this place.

00:40:22

Maybe he goes to this place because he knows

00:40:25

there's people there who are hungry and want it.

00:40:29

I should stop here right now.

00:40:31

You could sit here and listen to

00:40:33

everything else I have to say from here on in

00:40:35

and you can look at this as an academic exercise

00:40:37

of do I believe this? Is he crazy? This is weird.

00:40:41

How is he parsing these verses? How is he --

00:40:45

Is he some weird snake handler up there? Is he?

00:40:47

You could do all those.

00:40:48

And there's a time and a place

00:40:50

to ask yourself all those questions.

00:40:51

There really is.

00:40:53

But if your mind is just going to be

00:40:54

on that versus this, which is what you should be,

00:40:58

you have no chance of healing.

00:41:00

And where your mind should be right now is,

00:41:03

do I want healed? Do I want healed?

00:41:11

Do I have any level of belief

00:41:13

that today I could get healed today?

00:41:18

Jesus talks about having faith like a mustard seed.

00:41:21

Do I have a smidgen of belief

00:41:24

that maybe just today I might get healed?

00:41:28

Maybe Jesus goes to this place because

00:41:31

there's people there who have a smidgen of belief,

00:41:34

even if it may be misplaced,

00:41:36

that they very well could get a healing.

00:41:39

And here's what it says:

00:41:41

In these lay a multitude of invalids,

00:41:45

blind, lame and paralyzed.

00:41:47

I love that word like invalid. I don't know,

00:41:50

that's probably not politically correct. Invalid.

00:41:53

It's like you and I being invalid.

00:41:56

Some of us actually, it's one of the ways

00:41:58

that we need to heal. We feel invalid.

00:42:01

You feel like you're not necessary before God.

00:42:04

You feel like you're not valued.

00:42:06

You feel like your life has no meaning whatsoever,

00:42:12

that you're just a peon upon.

00:42:14

There's no special love that God has for you.

00:42:17

Let me tell you what, you need a healing.

00:42:20

You need a healing not in your self esteem,

00:42:23

though that would be good too.

00:42:24

You need a healing in the understanding

00:42:27

of your worth before God.

00:42:30

You are not invalid. You are not.

00:42:33

You are a child of God,

00:42:35

whether you're walking in it or not. Let's keep going.

00:42:43

Invalids. Invalids, blind, lame and paralyzed.

00:43:11

It was like, I mean, he's lame. He can't walk.

00:43:14

So maybe he just has himself by the edge

00:43:16

and he's going to try to roll in.

00:43:18

But somebody who needs, you know, their arm healed,

00:43:21

they can do a full out sprint

00:43:22

and they keep beating him.

00:43:23

That's what he's saying here.

00:43:39

Now, this is a guy who, at the beginning of which

00:43:43

has all kind of excuses.

00:43:45

"I can't do it. Someone else beats me down.

00:43:47

I got this, I got that, I can't."

00:43:50

He's got all these reasons for why he can't do it.

00:43:54

Why, why he can't make it in, why he --

00:43:56

It's not going to happen for him that day.

00:43:59

And Jesus maybe is trying to see

00:44:01

are you just a victim, always looking for reasons

00:44:05

why God may not move in your life?

00:44:06

And He just asks him a question that seemingly

00:44:09

is innocent, but at the same time very insensitive.

00:44:13

"Do you want to be healed?"

00:44:15

It's the same question God would ask you right now.

00:44:18

Do you want to be healed?

00:44:22

Some time ago, I was at a wedding

00:44:25

and I was at this table.

00:44:27

And this woman who I knew was starting

00:44:31

to tell me about her story.

00:44:33

And she started about just the pain she had

00:44:37

experienced in her family of origin

00:44:39

and going on and on about these things.

00:44:40

My heart started to go out towards her.

00:44:42

I thought, "Oh man, this is horrible what's happened."

00:44:45

And then the more she talked, the more I noticed

00:44:48

that there was, like, a -- there was a cadence,

00:44:50

almost like she had rehearsed this,

00:44:52

like the words flowed really, really well.

00:44:58

And I realized she's not just sharing with me

00:45:00

for the first time, this is a part of her story.

00:45:04

This is like her identity.

00:45:06

This is who she is.

00:45:08

And she actually rehearses this with people pretty often.

00:45:16

That's what we do. some of us who don't want healing.

00:45:19

We just want to take this on as our identity.

00:45:22

And when I say, "Do you want healed?"

00:45:24

A lot of us just don't want to be healed. We don't.

00:45:26

We are very happy with where we are right now.

00:45:29

Very, very happy.

00:45:31

We're like a -- we're like a little toddler

00:45:33

who's not potty trained yet

00:45:35

and sits in his poop all day.

00:45:37

We're like, "Well, it stinks, but it's warm

00:45:38

and at least it's mine."

00:45:42

Our pains, our trauma, I say like this, our trauma

00:45:46

because, you know, trauma used to be reserved

00:45:48

for people who went to the military

00:45:50

and lost their legs.

00:45:53

Now, if I got something I can't get over,

00:45:56

it's called trauma, and maybe it is.

00:45:58

I'm not going to fight over the word at all.

00:46:00

But here's what I'm going to say.

00:46:01

I'm going to say this: Do you have the hope

00:46:04

and expectation you can be healed

00:46:06

and move beyond that, or is that your troll?

00:46:09

See, if you don't want to get healed

00:46:10

and you actually like the pain you have,

00:46:12

you couldn't separate yourself from pain.

00:46:14

It's like a little troll who's smelly and stinky,

00:46:17

but he's your little toy and you pet him

00:46:19

and you pull him out, "My own little troll.

00:46:21

I will love him and hold him and tell him

00:46:23

my own little troll, my own pet little pain,

00:46:25

my own pet little trauma." This is --

00:46:28

And you have to make the decision

00:46:30

whether or not you want to get rid of that guy.

00:46:33

A lot of us, truth be told, we don't

00:46:36

because it's a source of warmth for us.

00:46:38

It's kind of who we are.

00:46:40

And so as this woman was going on talking

00:46:42

about her thing going on for a while,

00:46:44

I just read this verse, I think earlier in the day

00:46:48

or at some point recently.

00:46:49

It was marinating on my mind and I said to her,

00:46:52

I said, "Do you want to be healed?"

00:46:56

In fact, another translation says

00:46:57

what I actually said to her, "Do you want to be well?

00:47:00

Do you want to be well?" And she stopped.

00:47:02

And she she was just like looking at me confused.

00:47:08

I said, "Do you want to get to another place?"

00:47:13

And she said, "You offended me. You offended me."

00:47:17

I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, don't want to offend you.

00:47:19

I was just wondering,"

00:47:20

and I tried to explain what I meant.

00:47:21

And she said, "You offended me."

00:47:23

I said, "Okay, I'm really sorry. Could we --"

00:47:26

"You offended me. You offend -- You offended me.

00:47:29

You offended me, you offended me."

00:47:30

And basically what she was saying was,

00:47:32

"No, I don't want to be well.

00:47:34

No, I don't want to be healed."

00:47:37

Friends, you have to be very honest with this

00:47:39

because Jesus asked this question:

00:47:41


00:47:44

Do you want to be over your alcoholism?

00:47:47

Do you want to be over your bitterness?

00:47:50

Do you want to be over your substance abuse?

00:47:52

Do you want to be over your ex?

00:47:55

Do you want to be over the bitterness you have

00:47:57

towards God because X wasn't given to you by God?

00:48:01

Do you want to be over the pains of your childhood?

00:48:04

Do you want to be -- Do you want to be healed?

00:48:09

I hope so because if you don't, you have no hope.

00:48:13

Boy, that sounds really ugly and dark to say,

00:48:16

but if Jesus didn't see some look

00:48:19

in this guy's eyes, like, "Yeah, I want,

00:48:21

I do, I do, I do," He wouldn't have gone.

00:48:23

He needs to know do you want healed?

00:48:27

In the New Yorker recently, they said:

00:48:36

Meaning it's now our identity.

00:48:40

And this guy answers his question with his eyes,

00:48:46

"Yes, I do." He must have, because

00:48:48

Jesus looks at him and says, "Rise,

00:48:50

take up your pallet, take up your mat and walk."

00:48:53

So how do you get well?

00:48:55

How do you get healed, whatever it is?

00:49:00

Three things. Number one, name your problem.

00:49:04

Name it. Name your problem.

00:49:09

One time Jesus says to a guy, he says,

00:49:12

"What is it you want me to do for you?"

00:49:14

He wants to hear him name I want my sight restored

00:49:18

or other reasons he did, name it.

00:49:21

I'm not saying you have to go, like,

00:49:23

"Okay, I generally believe I need healing."

00:49:26

What is it you need healing for? Name it right now.

00:49:32

Call it out. Put a name on it.

00:49:36

All of us, again, need healing in some form or fashion.

00:49:41

All of us are broken.

00:49:43

I am an unbelievably selfish person.

00:49:47

I am an unbelievably self-centered person

00:49:50

that I'm managing it well.

00:49:51

I'm gradually getting better,

00:49:54

and I do a really good job enabling other people

00:49:57

to think I'm not as self-centered as I am.

00:50:00

I need a healing in that area.

00:50:01

I'll give you just I'll give you stuff

00:50:03

over the last three days.

00:50:06

First, I had a person who wanted me

00:50:09

to hang a shelf for him and I decided to do it.

00:50:11

And I just had a bad attitude the whole time.

00:50:14

This was a horrible, like, I didn't have the right tools.

00:50:16

How come the person was over here before didn't do it?

00:50:18

I just and I knew as I was thinking about this,

00:50:20

I'm going, "This should not be bothering me

00:50:22

as much as this does.

00:50:24

I know how to do this stuff

00:50:25

and I could probably do it twice as fast as most people."

00:50:28

But yet I was [grumbles].

00:50:29

And then the other day, you know,

00:50:31

we had the big snowstorm, Snowmageddon.

00:50:36

Snowmageddon came in, an Arctic blast came up.

00:50:39

You know all these phrases that Kroger pays

00:50:41

the local news people to use so that

00:50:44

we buy more eggs and milk and batteries

00:50:47

when we haven't even touched our batteries

00:50:48

from three snowmageddons ago. You know?

00:50:53

I went down to our neighborhood.

00:50:55

We'd have to drop our our garbage off

00:50:57

into a dumpster and went down.

00:50:59

And you got to open up these, like,

00:51:01

this wooden gate thing.

00:51:02

And there's very, very clear, like here,

00:51:04

no parking arrow over here.

00:51:07

Very, very clear no parking arrow over here

00:51:09

between this spot no parking because

00:51:12

you got to open up the thing to go in there

00:51:13

and do the deal, right?

00:51:15

Of course, I got all my garbage. I got to go.

00:51:18

I'm like, yeah, take that door.

00:51:20

And I'm like, just jamming up

00:51:22

against that bumper a couple times.

00:51:24

I looked at it. It didn't scratch it.

00:51:26

Good, but felt good doing it anyway.

00:51:28

I'm going, "Why did I feel the need to do that?"

00:51:30

Like, I'm really angry at somebody

00:51:32

who isn't in our neighborhood and just thought

00:51:36

the rules didn't apply to them

00:51:38

or maybe they didn't see the signs, right?

00:51:44

Yeah, yeah.

00:51:45

It bothers me more than it should, way more than it should.

00:51:49

Name your problems. What are your problems?

00:51:54

And I'm not just talking about physical stuff here.

00:51:57

I'm talking about all stuff.

00:51:59

I'm talking about,

00:52:00

I'm not talking about just emotional, spiritual.

00:52:02

I'm talking all stuff, including physical stuff.

00:52:04

America's chronic pain is off the charts.

00:52:08

I don't think we've ever had a culture

00:52:10

that has more chronic physical pain than now,

00:52:13

and I haven't lived all that much longer

00:52:16

than a lot of us.

00:52:17

I've only been around for 59 years,

00:52:19

but it just seems that there hasn't been

00:52:21

as much chronic pain as there is right now.

00:52:23

The Washington Post says this:

00:52:42

Pain, massive pain.

00:52:47

We have to name our problem.

00:52:48

We have to name what it is.

00:52:53

One of my physical pains is I have -

00:52:55

I've had chronic tennis elbow for over a year now

00:52:59

and I never even play tennis.

00:53:03

I don't even play wussy ball. I mean, pickleball.

00:53:06

I don't even -- I don't even do that.

00:53:10

You know, you know, pickleball, you know,

00:53:12

the people play a lot of pickleball,

00:53:14

they're too lazy even to say ball.

00:53:16

They just call it pickle.

00:53:17

Come on. Just -- just say the whole thing.

00:53:20

I think pickleball is great. It's wonderful.

00:53:22

Maybe I'll do it someday. I've done it before.

00:53:24

It's very, very, very fun game.

00:53:25

But all I'm saying, I don't -- I don't --

00:53:27

I'm not doing that but however reason it's there

00:53:30

and I -- just it's bothering me.

00:53:33

And I realize that I've just been sitting around

00:53:36

waiting for it to magically get better.

00:53:38

Actually put on the Crossroads app,

00:53:39

had people pray for me.

00:53:40

I probably had hundreds, thousands of people,

00:53:42

I don't know, a lot of people praying for me.

00:53:44

Just thinking, just thinking that's good enough.

00:53:46

But no, it's not.

00:53:48

You got to do the second thing.

00:53:49

And that is you have to step toward healing,

00:53:53

step toward healing, go to a new place,

00:54:00

do something different.

00:54:05

Jesus has 41 healings that I read

00:54:09

in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 41.

00:54:12

34 of them happen only when someone

00:54:16

moves towards Him and asks, or a friend does.

00:54:19

As of the remaining seven, as I count,

00:54:22

about five of them, He doesn't heal somebody

00:54:25

unless they still go do something,

00:54:26

like go wash their mud off,

00:54:28

wash their face off with the mud that He put there

00:54:31

down a little, a little pool and do that.

00:54:34

Just this morning, reading in my Bible reading plan

00:54:37

in Matthew 9, five things in a row. Boom.

00:54:42

Paralyzed guy brought by his friends

00:54:43

when Jesus saw his faith.

00:54:45

Political ruler asking for a healing

00:54:47

for his dead daughter.

00:54:49

A woman who is menstruating for 12 years,

00:54:51

who reaches over and basically dives

00:54:54

and touches the hem of His garment.

00:54:56

And He stops and says, "Who touched me?"

00:54:58

And a mute man who's brought by friends.

00:55:01

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

00:55:02

He's looking to see who wants it.

00:55:05

He's looking to see who has enough faith

00:55:08

to move and to act and step toward healing.

00:55:12

So I was wrestling with this. I was like,

00:55:14

"Gosh, you know, I've just been sitting around

00:55:18

just hoping and expecting some miracle,

00:55:21

or just suck it up the rest of my life."

00:55:23

And it could be, I could suck it up

00:55:24

for the rest of my life and God could heal me.

00:55:28

And I could go to YouTube and I could research

00:55:33

what people do to get over tennis elbow.

00:55:36

There are these basic exercises, my gosh,

00:55:39

I did it for one day. I was 20% better.

00:55:42

Like 20% better after one day of,

00:55:45

like, doing this stuff and soup can and crazy.

00:55:50

A lot of us, we want healing, but we don't want do anything.

00:55:53

We don't want to go to anyone.

00:55:55

We want to ask for anybody's help.

00:55:57

Hey, you are a chosen child of God.

00:56:00

If you're in a relationship with Jesus,

00:56:02

if you receive it, if you haven't done that,

00:56:04

this is a great day to start.

00:56:05

It's a great day to get more grace.

00:56:08

That is your identity, okay?

00:56:11

Your identity is not where you went to school.

00:56:16

It's so weird. I'm in Cincinnati.

00:56:18

Let me tell you, those of you who aren't in Cincinnati.

00:56:20

Cincinnati is freaking weird.

00:56:22

Like, you meet someone at a party,

00:56:24

"Like, where'd you go to school?"

00:56:25

And you're thinking they're trying to, like,

00:56:27

compare Ivy League degrees or something like that.

00:56:30

No, they want to know where you went to high school.

00:56:33

Or even worse, grammar school, elementary school.

00:56:37

What is wrong with you people?

00:56:40

And it's because somewhere along the line

00:56:43

they picked that up, that was their identity,

00:56:45

that was in first place, their identity of who they were.

00:56:51

One of my trolls that I had around.

00:56:54

And if you have been around Crossroads for decades,

00:56:56

you know I've talked about stuff of my family of origin,

00:56:58

but if you've only been around for five years,

00:57:00

you know I'm not really talking about it anymore.

00:57:02

I've got a whole history of things

00:57:04

that was bothering me and this.

00:57:06

And I realized, "Brian, you can't keep reliving this,

00:57:09

even if you're you think you're over it,

00:57:11

just bringing it out and talking about it."

00:57:14

You're you're -- not you're not walking away from it.

00:57:18

You're not. You're not moving away.

00:57:19

You have to step towards healing.

00:57:21

When I step towards Jesus, when I step towards healing,

00:57:26

I'm at the same time walking away from the past.

00:57:30

When I step towards this speaker,

00:57:32

I'm walking away from the chair.

00:57:35

If I step towards the table,

00:57:37

I'm walking away from the speaker.

00:57:41

This is what Philippians 3:13 speaks to:

00:58:00

I press on. I forget what lies behind.

00:58:03

Friends, if you want to be healing,

00:58:05

you got to press on and you got to put behind

00:58:08

the crap people have done to you,

00:58:09

the failures you've had, that is behind.

00:58:12

And the longer you stay there and look at it,

00:58:14

the farther you're going to be away from healing

00:58:16

and oneness and a kind of grace that you can't even fathom.

00:58:20

Am I ringing any bells, or do you want --

00:58:23

Or do you just want what all the children of wrath

00:58:26

do in our culture by that passage?

00:58:28

Do you just want to be under the rule

00:58:29

and under the dominion of the minions of the evil one

00:58:33

who's got a structure set up for you and I

00:58:35

to be the way we are?

00:58:36

It's not by accident that we are all this way.

00:58:39

It's not. There's a system at hand,

00:58:42

and you have to choose whether or not

00:58:44

you want to rebel against that system

00:58:46

that does not work, and walk towards Jesus

00:58:49

and walk away from that system of victimhood,

00:58:52

that system of I have no power,

00:58:54

that system that says God doesn't care about you,

00:58:57

that says He doesn't love you,

00:58:58

He says that you're not important,

00:59:00

He says he doesn't have time for you.

00:59:02

That whole system that says this won't work,

00:59:04

that God is always talking about,

00:59:06

don't ask somebody for prayer because it'll never work.

00:59:09

And if you want to just stay where you are,

00:59:11

that's the 2025, if you want to keep having

00:59:14

the things you have, just stay believing

00:59:15

the things you're believing.

00:59:17

But if you want something different,

00:59:18

you're going to have to do something different.

00:59:20

And you're going to have to think something different.

00:59:23

You're going to have to move into a different place.

00:59:29

I interact with people who are divorced all the time,

00:59:31

and I'm like, "Gosh," some of them I said,

00:59:33

"Geez, you've been divorced a long time ago

00:59:37

and I know you, you walk with God.

00:59:39

You made it right. You had your problems,

00:59:41

you had your regrets, and you repented.

00:59:43

You ask for forgiveness.

00:59:44

But why are you still living it?

00:59:46

Why are you still beating yourself up over it?

00:59:48

Why do you still apologize?

00:59:49

You talk about, 'Oh, I've been divorced.'

00:59:51

Why does your voice go down like this?

00:59:53

Why is it going down? Why?

00:59:54

Why does shame immediately come?

00:59:55

We're talking 20 years ago.

00:59:58

Do you not know that you are forgiven?

01:00:01

That there is an immeasurable grace

01:00:03

that God doesn't define you that way?"

01:00:08

We're all broken, but we have to see

01:00:10

that Jesus restores and heals,

01:00:12

and I have to embrace that identity

01:00:14

or keep living the old one.

01:00:16

For much of my life I was a slacker.

01:00:18

That's why it took me so long to get my four year degree.

01:00:21

It's why -- I was a slacker for a long, long time.

01:00:23

And it was one of the things that

01:00:25

God started changing in me is my work ethic,

01:00:29

and that got handled sometime

01:00:30

before I came to Crossroads to start Crossroads.

01:00:33

But once I came on, I was for, gosh,

01:00:37

20 years in the office, first one in, last one out.

01:00:41

Every day, first one in, last one out.

01:00:42

And it wasn't because I was the most productive.

01:00:44

It wasn't because there was that much work to do

01:00:46

with all the evening meetings.

01:00:48

It was because I was trying to prove to myself

01:00:51

and to others I'm not a slacker.

01:00:54

And what I was saying to myself and to God

01:00:57

was I'm believing that old narrative.

01:00:59

I'm not believing You.

01:01:02

And in the midst of so much this stuff that I did,

01:01:04

I was just punching a card

01:01:06

and and make myself feel good for how hard I was working,

01:01:09

but it wasn't commensurate with fruit.

01:01:12

That wasn't happening, but I kept being busy.

01:01:17

It was a sign of me not walking away.

01:01:20

Third, and finally, do something that Jesus does.

01:01:24

Do something that Jesus does.

01:01:28

It's a sign. It's a signal.

01:01:31

In John 5, as a story goes on, there is

01:01:37

this guy gets ambushed by all the religious people

01:01:40

because he's healed.

01:01:41

And they're saying, "You got healed.

01:01:43

This was the Sabbath. That was work.

01:01:44

You can't work in the Sabbath even with something miraculous."

01:01:47

They're jealous of Jesus so they're pouncing on him.

01:01:49

"Who did this to you? Who broke the rules?"

01:01:51

All this stuff.

01:01:52

And this guy actually makes an incredibly bold,

01:01:55

bold statement, as you can imagine.

01:01:57

Like Jesus says, "Just rise and go. Rise and go."

01:01:59

It's like he's got to do something.

01:02:01

He rises, man, my gosh, he's moving. It's amazing.

01:02:07

And here's what says in John 14:

01:02:14

You're well, see. See, you're well.

01:02:16

Wouldn't it be great if Jesus says that to you someday?

01:02:19

See, you're well. See?

01:02:22

You don't think about it anymore, do you? See?

01:02:24

That thing isn't bothering you anymore. See?

01:02:47

I too am working. What does he do?

01:02:50

He starts being like Jesus.

01:02:52

He starts telling people.

01:02:54

He starts standing up and risking being humiliated

01:02:58

and actually killed by saying,

01:02:59

"I align with that guy.

01:03:01

Yes, He's the one who healed me."

01:03:03

He does something different.

01:03:05

He does something Jesus would do.

01:03:07

And this what Jesus says here.

01:03:08

He says, "I always do what My Father's doing."

01:03:10

If you want to know how to grow,

01:03:11

look and see what Jesus is doing

01:03:13

and then go be a part of it.

01:03:14

Take on His attitudes. Take on His love.

01:03:17

Take on His actions. Take on His faithfulness.

01:03:20

Take on His boldness.

01:03:21

And when you see it happening, go and be a part of it.

01:03:28

We're going to have at all of our sites,

01:03:32

we're going to have people come forward

01:03:34

who are trained people in prayer

01:03:36

who are prayer ninjas.

01:03:37

They love to pray, and they've got

01:03:39

a pretty high hit rate on it.

01:03:41

And if you want to be healed,

01:03:46

if you want to be healed,

01:03:48

we had I don't know if you picked it up

01:03:49

last week in that video we had,

01:03:50

we had 200 and some verified medical healings

01:03:54

in the last 12 months.

01:03:56

You know, the one I talked about a couple weeks ago,

01:04:00

the guy restoring his, you know, his saliva.

01:04:05

Went to another doctor, doctor was like,

01:04:06

geez, another one.

01:04:07

The second one did a scoop like, "Wow. Yeah, it's for real."

01:04:10

Now he's got a problem, he's got his taste back

01:04:12

and he's eating so much,

01:04:13

now he's dealing with poop issues

01:04:14

because he hasn't had to poop for so long.

01:04:16

Now he's like, so he's laughing about it.

01:04:17

He says, "I'll take these problems.

01:04:19

I'll take these problems."

01:04:20

Hey, man. Hey, man, let me tell you something.

01:04:22

It's real, it's real, it's real.

01:04:23

It doesn't mean it's going to happen to you.

01:04:25

It's called a miracle. It doesn't happen all the time.

01:04:27

There's no special formula.

01:04:29

But, man, I tell you, you got to want it,

01:04:30

whatever it is, you got to want it.

01:04:32


01:04:34

Do you want to get over your bitterness?

01:04:36

Do you want to get over your selfishness?

01:04:38

Do you want to get over the pain and the heartache

01:04:42

and the cancer and the tennis elbow?

01:04:44


01:04:47

Well, you're gonna have to take a step forward.

01:04:49

You're going to have to come.

01:04:50

You're going to have to put your back on leaving

01:04:52

and come forward and get prayer.

01:04:54

All of our sites, come on down.

01:04:56

Come on prayer people, come forward right now.

01:04:59

Come on, right now, online we will be praying

01:05:01

and chatting for you.

01:05:02

We have a whole bunch of people who are trained

01:05:04

and are really good at it.

01:05:05

We are praying for you via chat.

01:05:08

And let me just pray right now

01:05:10

and then the rest of the time is yours.

01:05:12

Come forward and have an opportunity

01:05:14

to get healed or something else, it's up to you.

01:05:17

Lord, I'm thankful that You are a God that's beyond us

01:05:21

and is amazing and is a lover

01:05:23

of people with immeasurable grace.

01:05:26

God, I'm asking for more grace to come

01:05:28

on these prayers that are going to be giving.

01:05:30

I'm asking for something mysterious and beautiful

01:05:35

and powerful to happen that can't be strong armed.

01:05:39

Give these people who are praying

01:05:40

wisdom and the grace to be wise and to be potent,

01:05:45

and give us the humility as we try to honor You.

01:05:48

God, would you show yourself to be healer this weekend?

01:05:53

And I pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.

01:05:57

- We're so glad that you joined us for church today.

01:05:59

And before you go, just know there are

01:06:02

hundreds of people who are ready

01:06:03

and would love to pray for you right now,

01:06:05

whether it's for physical healing or for grief,

01:06:08

or for something that you're working through

01:06:10

or processing, or maybe you just need someone

01:06:12

to pray for peace or encouragement for you.

01:06:14

The best way for you to do this is simply

01:06:16

head to crossroads.net and click on the chat button.

01:06:19

Whether you're watching this in real time

01:06:21

or weeks, months, or even years later,

01:06:23

we always love to pray for you.

01:06:26

Our online prayer team is available just about any time,

01:06:28

and I'd actually love to take a moment

01:06:30

to pray for you right now.

01:06:31

Father, You know what we need.

01:06:35

You know what we need even before we've said a word.

01:06:37

God, thank You that You know us completely

01:06:39

and that you want to meet us in the places of our need.

01:06:43

Father, I ask that You bring peace,

01:06:45

that You bring comfort, that You bring strength

01:06:48

in just the way that we need it.

01:06:50

In Your Name. Amen.

01:06:52

Hey, thanks so much. We'll see you back here next week.

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