How to Gain the Power to Last

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- This could be one of

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the most memorable experiences you will have in your lifetime.

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A chance to see true transformation.

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- Yeah. Sometimes we don't know what to do

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other than just run to the Father and say,

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"Papa, help!" [applause]

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- Even though we were born wild,

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we were also designed to live free.

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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As you just saw, we are one week away

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from one of the most unique

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and powerful experiences I have ever seen at a church.

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Todd Pierce, a former rodeo champion,

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will be training a wild horse on our stage live

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and using it as this powerful metaphor

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for how God leads, trains, and loves us.

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Each service is unique, it's unscripted

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and will be streamed live.

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Crossroads is one church meeting at multiple sites

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and across the nation, and even globe,

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meeting online and in homes, coffee shops,

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breweries, dorms and even prisons.

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And as a community across the globe,

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we're going to do something together right now.

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Life is busy, crazy and hard enough as it is

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that we all just need moments to pause

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and to be reminded of what's true and what's not,

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to be filled up, not drained.

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And right now, we have a chance

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to not just listen to some music,

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but to connect with God through these songs,

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to be reminded about who God says that He is

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and who He says that we are.

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So whether you're alone or with a group of people,

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whether you're in your car or your living room,

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sing these songs with us

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to connect with God right now.

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- I lift my eyes up off everything in front of me

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and put my eyes on Him, the Maker, the power of all.

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- Come on, church, sing it one more time.

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- If you believe this, we sing this from our being.

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- Come on, sing this out with everything you got.

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- Let's sing forever His kingdom come.

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- Where do you want to see His Kingdom come in your life?

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- God, we thank you so much

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that Your Kingdom can come in our lives.

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God, that the Kingdom of God is not at all

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what we think it is, but it's reversed, God,

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that we can worship You, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

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God, we are so grateful for who You are,

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for what You're doing in our lives.

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God, we pray that forever Your Kingdom

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would come in our lives.

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God, that we start to think differently,

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we start to act differently because

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we have Your Kingdom in our lives, God,

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we can operate in the Kingdom of God.

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We love You so much. In Jesus' name, Amen.

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- And He's so, so good.

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It's so good to sing to Him with you.

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If you're online, we're glad you're joining us there.

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And we sing those words, we worship Him,

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for me, that means I try to give my whole life to Him

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and I don't want any part of me hidden from Him

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and so everything is what He gets.

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And that shows up at this place,

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this website called Crossroads.net/give.

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If you're here and you're part of Crossroads,

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you can meet me there and worship there

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if you're brand new,

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then don't worry about that right now.

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I got something for you if you're brand new

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and if you call this place home.

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I don't get to do this kind of thing often.

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But this weekend we get to give you

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a great, great gift.

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Our music team has been working

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for the last several months writing new songs,

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testing out new songs on the weekend,

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seeing how they connect with you.

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Songs like Anything That's Good,

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songs like Kingdom of God that we just sing.

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All those songs are available

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on our new EP this weekend, completely free to you.

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You don't have to buy them. Nothing like that.

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On every platform, wherever you get your music.

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Here's why we do this, and I hope you hear me.

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We write songs, we sing our guts out

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all to connect you to Jesus,

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all to help you connect with

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the One who made you, who gives life.

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So get that music. Listen to it Monday, Tuesday,

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Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

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Take it with you wherever you go

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and keep connecting with Him.

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That's what we want, so check that out.

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Right now turn to somebody as you grab your seat

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or make your way back to your seat.

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Say, "Hey, I'm Spotify, nice to meet you.

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Apple Music. Whatever you got."

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- Yeah. Let's go! You gotta love that song, right?

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It just has the feel of what we're talking about

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in this series, a feel of power.

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And I know that there's people in here,

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we're all over the spiritual spectrum.

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Some of us are all in, and we're like,

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"Every word of that song, that's the God we believe in."

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And other of us are like,

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"I've never seen that God before.

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I'm not so sure He exists."

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And I just want you to know, no matter who you are

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and how you walked in this place

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or tuned in to this video,

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you can end this experience different

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because see that God of Power

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doesn't just hold on to it for Himself.

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That would be reasonable. That would be okay.

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But that God of power says that we, you and I,

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can have access to the same power.

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Let me read you from Ephesians 1, it says:

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That's the power and the point of today.

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The point of this series is that we're in,

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is that you and I can tap into that power

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in our lives and see it in its fullness.

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Now, one of the greatest displays of power

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I've ever witnessed in my life

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was on a 4th of July, a number of years ago.

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No, it was not the fireworks,

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that's what you would assume, not the fireworks.

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It was actually earlier in the day,

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a friend of mine came over.

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And just to protect his anonymity

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for the purpose of this story,

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because you might judge us later on.

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I don't him to receive that.

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We're just going to call him G. McElfresh,

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which that might be too obvious.

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Let's just go. Let's go. Greg M.

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So me and Greg M., we were hanging out.

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The plan was just spend 4th of July together.

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Families, get everybody together,

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you know, do the classic stuff:

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tubed meat, ice cold beers, fireworks at night.

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But when he got to my house, he said,

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"Hey, man, I got something --

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Something we could light up before the fireworks."

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And it's not what you're thinking.

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A stick of dynamite.

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An actual stick of dynamite.

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And, you know, we were responsible adults, right?

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And by the way, let me just say too,

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you guys are already judging us.

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I want you to know this was a long time ago, okay?

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We were much younger, much stupider.

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This is like 2022, probably, like -- [laughter]

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We've grown a lot. So just just relax. Just relax.

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We just started, like, "What should we do with this?"

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We did what any responsible American male would do,

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we made a plan to blow up a bucket.

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We were like, "If we could put this

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under a Home Depot bucket, maybe the Home Depot bucket

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could go to the moon like Apollo 11.

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This is worth a shot."

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And I know some of you are like, "Okay, what?

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Did you really do this?

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And did you think this through? Did you wear eye protection?

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Did you have ear protection?

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Did you clear out the grass

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so you wouldn't burn your yard up?

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Did you call your local county to see if you needed a permit

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before you detonated something?

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Kyle, did you check the statute of limitations

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with said county before you started telling us

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this story to make sure

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you're not incriminating yourself?"

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The answer to all of this is, no, we did not.

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We did none of those things.

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We put it out in a field in front of my house,

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put the bucket over it, lit the fuze,

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and then we ran. I mean, just ran.

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Because, you know, like, what's going to happen

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when dynamite blows up?

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I don't know, I've never seen it before.

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So we hunker down, we run far away, hunker down.

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And then we just wait and we wait and we wait.

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And the moment where we're pretty sure

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the fuze isn't maybe lit,

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the whole thing goes boom, explodes.

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And it was awesome.

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Now, if you've never seen this before,

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let me tell you what happens.

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The bucket did not go up.

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The bucket went apart in about a million pieces.

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It was a solid ten minutes of bucket shrapnel

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just raining down from the heavens on this field.

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There was a three foot crater smoking

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where there used to be grass.

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It was amazing. Amazing.

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Oh, let me just say, there's probably

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a parent in here, you brought your kid.

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And I'm sorry, you do Kids' Club

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or middle school or whatever.

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Let me just speak to your kid for a second.

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Kid, I'm Uncle Kyle. Nice to meet you.

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And I just want you to know

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what we did was terribly irresponsible.

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It was. It was horrible- ly awesome.

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And I just want to say our legal team

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has asked me to make a disclaimer at this point.

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I am not a safety expert.

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I'm the same guy who cut my hand apart in a table saw.

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So don't do anything that I do that's dangerous.

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That's not what I'm here for.

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The point of all that is this.

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We love those big bursts of sudden power, don't we?

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Fireworks that shoot off, explosions that go off.

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We all love that, but none of us want a life

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that's like a stick of dynamite

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or a firework bursting in the sky.

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No matter what Katy Perry says,

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that's not what we're going for.

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See, a sudden burst of power has a name,

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it's called a flash in the pan.

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And a flash in the pan, unfortunately,

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describes to many of us in our life

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and our faith and our sticktoitiveness.

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Too many of us, we have these moments

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where maybe we get baptized and it's amazing

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and everybody is celebrating and we're clapping

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and it feels incredible.

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And then a few months go by

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and something difficult happens

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or something disappointing and we start to wonder,

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was any of that real? We walk away.

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Too many of us we start into a major at college.

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We have a thing that we feel called to,

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but it gets difficult, it gets hard,

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and we struggle and we decide

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maybe it's time to to quit, maybe too early.

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Or your relationships this happens

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over and over and over again.

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The thing is, the world is pushing us in that direction.

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Because, see, the world whispers

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when things get hard, it whispers, "Quit, stop.

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You don't have the power and you probably won't.

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The best thing you can do is stop. Just stop."

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I know every single one of us

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have heard this voice in our lives.

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I know I've heard it.

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I've heard that voice in my marriage.

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We had three kids in three years.

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We were so tired and nasty to each other.

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There were absolutely moments

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where I know Sarah looked at me

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and went like, "That guy, really? Forever?"

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I felt this in my work.

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I felt a calling into ministry, and yet

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there have been plenty of moments

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where I've been frustrated.

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I had the same job for seven straight years.

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Do you really think I didn't have moments

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where I thought, "I've been overlooked?

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No one sees my potential. I'm stuck."

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I had moments where I wanted to quit.

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I've had this same thing in my faith,

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the same moments that you have,

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moments where I've prayed and I've asked God,

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"God, would you give me a miracle?

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Could I get a healing from you for my friend?"

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Instead, what I get is an invitation to a funeral.

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And you go, "Really? Is this -- is this it?"

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See, this is the thing that all of us will come up to.

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It's called the end of our own power.

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And in this moment, we have to decide

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what we're going to do.

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Now, the good news of today is that

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we're not talking in this series about

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the kind of power that's a sudden burst,

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the flash in the pan and then nothing else.

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We're talking about the kind of power

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that only comes from God, the power to last.

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It has a name. It's called resilience.

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It's a character trait that only the Holy Spirit,

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only the Spirit of God can put inside of you.

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And the key to getting it is what you fix your eyes on.

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Before we go any further, I want to pray

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that God would give us access to that power today,

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and then we'll catch you up on where we are in the Bible.

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God, thank You so much for the folks who are here,

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who are listening, who are tuned in,

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who are at all of our sites, God, bless them.

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I pray that for all of us, me included,

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we would take a step closer to You

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and tap into the power to last. Amen.

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The old man knew that the end was coming for him.

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His eyes had been fixed on the moment

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for a long, long time.

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It was an obsession that his friends

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thought was strange, a quirk in his personality

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they just did not understand.

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But the man could see it, the end coming.

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It was the first thought he had every morning when he woke up.

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It was the last image in his mind

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as he went to bed.

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It was the dream that haunted him

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throughout the night.

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The end was coming for him,

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marching steadily closer and closer and closer.

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And now he knew in that way that passes knowing

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that the end would come very, very soon.

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Now, this wasn't the place that

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he would have picked to meet the end

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if he had the pen to script his own life.

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But that was a delusion he had given up on

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a long, long time ago.

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He looked up at the stone walls

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of his cramped prison cell, smooth,

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orderly Roman concrete blocks called ashlar,

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made from volcanic ash that had fallen

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from the sky like black, fluffy snow

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and then compressed by time and pressure

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until it became something

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almost impossibly strong and hard.

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The man smiled at the thought,

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closed his eyes, and remembered the stone

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from the mountain range near his hometown

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where he grew up, the great Taurus Mountains,

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made of limestone, compressed sediment

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from ancient oceans long gone,

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packed and pressed by time until it too

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became something unbreakable,

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just like the walls of his prison cell,

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just like him.

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The man had been pressed and squeezed

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past the point of breaking, abandoned,

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shipwrecked, attacked, starved, arrested.

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More attempts had been made in his life

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than he could possibly count,

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though the scars lacing his tired old body

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tried to force him to come up with a number.

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He didn't know if he'd meet the end today,

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tomorrow, next week, but he knew

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it was right around the corner.

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And he knew the sound that would reach his ears

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long before the approaching shadow

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got glimpsed by his eyes.

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It would be the faint clink of the keys

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hanging down from the jailers belt

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echoing down the long hallway.

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The old man closed his eyes, paused to listen.

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No keys. Not yet.

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He supposed that mean he meant he'd have time

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to finish the letter he had begun that morning.

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It would be his last and a surprise

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to the world who followed his writing.

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Most of his letters have been written

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to major cities: Ephesus, Corinth,

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Philippi, even Rome.

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The Athenians probably thought that

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they would be next, and for good reason.

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But he had a much more important letter to write

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to a young man he had met

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more than a decade before, a young man

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who had to have the dream that he had,

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the dream of the end coming for him.

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Nothing was more important than that.

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Too many others had failed to catch the vision,

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failed to see the end coming,

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and because of that, they had fallen away

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and they were gone, like chaff

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blown off the threshing floor by the western wind.

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The old man turned back to the parchment,

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ink stained fingers, twirling the calamus pen

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until the words formed in his spirit,

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placed there by a power he knew

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no stone walls could ever contain.

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Yeah, these were the words. He was sure of it.

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And so he began writing. He said:

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He finished with a few personal instructions

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and greetings, he put the pen down,

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rubbed his tired eyes

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and stretched his cramped legs.

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And that's when he heard it.

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The keys.

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The end was here.

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The old man grinned,

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relief flooding through his body.

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He had actually done it.

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The jailer in the hallway

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put his hand over his keys to silence them

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and leaned in and listened,

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straining an ear towards the end of the hallway

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and the old man's cell. Was that laughter?

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And he wondered, what kind of power

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did the old man know?

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Now that old man went by the name Paul.

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He was a Roman citizen and a Jew,

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and he had been writing letters for decades

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that had shaped and changed the known world.

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Tens of thousands of lives have been upended

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by this guy's writing.

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But the last letter he ever wrote

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was to one guy, Timothy.

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It's a man he had met a long time ago,

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about a decade earlier.

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Timothy was probably 15 or 16 when he had met Paul

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in the city of Lystra in central Turkey.

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Timothy had been called into ministry.

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At this point he had been serving

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the church of Ephesus for four years.

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Ephesus is a city on

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the northern Mediterranean coast.

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Paul decided that this moment in Timothy's life,

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when Timothy is maybe 26 years old,

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at the beginning of his ministry,

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that this was the moment that Paul needed

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to call his eyes and his attention

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to the end of his life,

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to the end of everything.

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Odd. Why, why, why would he do that?

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This is the words he said to him, 2 Timothy 4:5:

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Nowadays we tend to use the word ministry

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to describe people like me.

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We say we're in ministry,

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professionally paid Christians to do church stuff.

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But that's not what the Bible means by ministry.

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Ministry is just the collection of good works

00:41:42

that you were created to do.

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All of us have a ministry to fulfill,

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every single person.

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Paul wrote this in Ephesians 2:10. It says:

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And so why would Paul write his last letter

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to a 20 something about ending well?

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Why not talk to him about how to begin well,

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how to survive the middle,

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how to really build your confidence,

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how to build your skills as a communicator?

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Why focus his attention on the end?

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Well, that's because many weren't ending well.

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This letter he wrote to Timothy,

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Paul mentioned seven people by name

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who had been going after the ministry

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God had given them, and six did not end well.

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2 Timothy 1:15 Paul writes:

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2 Timothy 2:17:

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2 Timothy 4:

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And now we know why name kids Luke

00:43:00

and not Phygelius, right there. [laughter]

00:43:06

That's one out of seven.

00:43:07

Those odds aren't very good,

00:43:08

and they're not much better right now.

00:43:10

I saw a recent study talking about

00:43:11

people who are in professional ministry,

00:43:13

study of 3000 of us, and it found that

00:43:16

only 30% of us actually end well.

00:43:19

I found another study that matched that.

00:43:20

It said that only 30% of children

00:43:22

who grew up in a household of faith

00:43:24

will have that faith survive

00:43:25

all the way through their adult years.

00:43:28

See, the fact is that all of us have

00:43:30

a ministry that we're called to fulfill,

00:43:32

but few fulfill and most don't.

00:43:35

And you and I, we will be one or the other.

00:43:38

We will. There's not a third option.

00:43:40

There's not a kind of sort of option.

00:43:41

You either do or you don't.

00:43:45

Paul decided he wanted Timothy to be one who did,

00:43:48

who fulfilled it.

00:43:49

And I believe Paul's life holds the secret for how.

00:43:53

Now, my impression of Paul changed dramatically.

00:43:55

A number of years ago I got to go on a trip

00:43:57

where I toured with one of

00:43:59

the world's leading experts on Paul.

00:44:01

We went through Turkey, we went through Greece,

00:44:03

we visited Corinth and Ephesus and Philippi

00:44:05

to understand the man and what he was doing

00:44:07

and his motivations and the truths in his writing

00:44:09

was a profoundly impactful to me.

00:44:12

Before the trip, if you had said describe Paul,

00:44:14

I would have said, "You know, he's kind of like

00:44:16

an egghead guy, I picture a classroom,

00:44:18

just like a real intellectual."

00:44:21

Well, there's a reason for that.

00:44:22

Paul was brilliant. He was super brilliant.

00:44:24

He wrote the letter Romans.

00:44:25

Romans was actually used in Harvard

00:44:27

when Harvard was founded,

00:44:28

not as a spiritual document,

00:44:30

but as a training tool for students

00:44:33

in the law school to look at how do you argue,

00:44:36

how do you debate, how do you reason?

00:44:37

Paul was 100% brilliant.

00:44:40

But if you view Paul as an egghead,

00:44:42

you miss the man and you miss the lesson

00:44:44

of his life, because being brilliant

00:44:46

was not the defining trait of Paul's life.

00:44:49

Being resilient was the defining trait.

00:44:52

Paul was born in Tarsus in central Turkey.

00:44:54

He was an ethnic minority.

00:44:55

There was about 100,000 people in the city.

00:44:57

He was a Jew. There's about 3000 of them.

00:44:59

So he was one of the 3% in the city.

00:45:02

From there he went to Jerusalem

00:45:03

to study under the Pharisee Gamaliel,

00:45:07

not Garmadon, by the way, that's different.

00:45:10

Garmadon from Ninjago, for parents out there,

00:45:12

or Gargamel from the Smurfs. Different guy.

00:45:15

Just want to be clear. Gamaliel.

00:45:17

And studies there.

00:45:19

He decides as a Pharisee that

00:45:21

when the Christians come around,

00:45:23

they are wrong and his job is

00:45:25

to persecute them and stop them.

00:45:26

And so he literally hunts down Christians

00:45:29

and has them executed.

00:45:30

One day he's going from Jerusalem

00:45:32

up north to Damascus and in the middle of the road

00:45:35

as he's on his travels,

00:45:36

a bright light comes out of the sky.

00:45:38

A voice shouts at him.

00:45:39

He's knocked down onto the ground,

00:45:41

him and everyone with him.

00:45:42

And the voice says, "Paul, I'm Jesus.

00:45:45

Why are you persecuting me?"

00:45:47

And Paul's life immediately changes.

00:45:49

Immediately changes.

00:45:51

That sudden burst of power that you and I

00:45:52

have experienced in our life and our faith,

00:45:54

when we came to faith and we first had

00:45:56

the gospel click inside of us,

00:45:57

at first felt it during a worship song,

00:46:00

or felt it in a moment.

00:46:01

That Paul has that moment.

00:46:02

It's big and it's huge and it's amazing.

00:46:06

Acts 9:20:

00:46:12

Immediately.

00:46:14

And what happens to us happened to Paul,

00:46:17

immediately he encountered resistance.

00:46:19

The big thing, the big awesome, the big moment,

00:46:22

it happens and then it gets really, really hard.

00:46:25

He starts preaching the gospel in Damascus

00:46:28

and they try to kill him,

00:46:29

literally tried to kill him.

00:46:30

So he flees, he goes back down south.

00:46:32

He goes to Jerusalem. He meets with the disciples.

00:46:34

He starts preaching the gospel there,

00:46:35

and again, it does not go well.

00:46:37

They also try to kill him.

00:46:38

It gets so dangerous that the disciples

00:46:41

actually send him in a basket out a hole

00:46:43

in the wall at night out of the city and say,

00:46:46

"You should go home to Tarsus, Paul."

00:46:49

And so he does. He goes back to Tarsus.

00:46:51

We don't know how long it's been

00:46:52

since he had been there, probably quite a while.

00:46:54

Like I said, he had left in his youth

00:46:56

to study as a Pharisee in Jerusalem.

00:46:58

He gets back there.

00:46:59

If his family were still in town,

00:47:01

they would have rejected him wholeheartedly.

00:47:03

Paul now believes something they consider

00:47:05

to be worthy of him being put to death.

00:47:07

If he had been married, we don't know,

00:47:09

his wife would have abandoned him,

00:47:11

would have left him.

00:47:13

So this expert that I toured with, he said,

00:47:15

"You know, I think the most reasonable explanation

00:47:18

of what Paul did when he was in Tarsus

00:47:20

is he likely lived as an outcast

00:47:23

in a cave outside the town, alone for eight years."

00:47:29

Can you imagine?

00:47:32

You imagine having that moment

00:47:33

when things kind of click together?

00:47:35

I just stepped into the career

00:47:36

I think was made for me.

00:47:37

And then stuff gets hard.

00:47:38

Could you wait for eight years?

00:47:41

Can you imagine getting into a relationship

00:47:43

or marriage, you step into it. It's amazing.

00:47:45

It's so great, and things get hard for eight years.

00:47:48

Would you stay?

00:47:50

Can you imagine crossing the line of faith,

00:47:51

getting baptized, saying yes,

00:47:53

or going on the Go Trip. It's amazing.

00:47:54

It's so great. Whatever.

00:47:55

And then eight years of hardship follow?

00:47:59

What would you do?

00:48:02

What Paul did is Paul stayed. He just stayed.

00:48:07

See the secret power that resilient people have

00:48:11

that the rest of us don't is they stay.

00:48:15

You know that phrase, you can complete the sentence:

00:48:18

when the going gets tough, the tough -- [inaudible]

00:48:22

No, they don't. They stay. Paul stayed.

00:48:28

After eight long years, Barnabas,

00:48:30

one of his old buddies, comes up and gets him

00:48:32

and says, "Hey, everyone's decided, Paul,

00:48:34

it's been long enough. Stuff's cooled down.

00:48:35

Come on back to Jerusalem."

00:48:37

And so Paul goes back to Jerusalem.

00:48:39

And from there, Paul's life is just, man,

00:48:41

it is #blessed.

00:48:43

I mean, everything is up and to the right.

00:48:45

There is no problems.

00:48:47

I'll read this from Acts 4:04. It says:

00:49:03

Paul's life.

00:49:06

No, that's not what happened at all.

00:49:07

He experienced hardship.

00:49:10

But this is the delusion we have, right?

00:49:13

That is something was was going to last,

00:49:15

it was meant to last.

00:49:16

If we were supposed to stick it out,

00:49:18

if we were supposed to exercise power,

00:49:19

it would be easier. It wouldn't be hard.

00:49:23

We have this illusion that this is how life goes.

00:49:25

Amazing.

00:49:26

And then it followed by an infinite amazingness.

00:49:28

No, that's not how it works at all.

00:49:30

There's a moment that that pulls you in,

00:49:33

but it's to set your eyes, to fix your eyes

00:49:36

on something that you can walk

00:49:38

through the difficulty that's sure to come.

00:49:41

Not likely, sure to come.

00:49:44

These are Paul's words about

00:49:46

what actually happened next, 2 Corinthians 11:

00:50:29

Indignant means I feel like I've been treated unfairly.

00:50:33

That's what it means.

00:50:35

Paul saying, "Do you really think

00:50:36

I endured all this and I didn't have moments

00:50:38

where I went like, "Really, God?

00:50:40

Where's my purpose driven life?

00:50:42

I thought I was supposed to follow You,

00:50:43

it's going to be -- Really?

00:50:45

You think I didn't have those moments?"

00:50:46

He goes, "Of course, of course, everyone does."

00:50:50

Everyone hears the whispers

00:50:52

of the world saying, "Walk away. Stop."

00:50:56

I've heard him in my life.

00:50:58

I've heard him in my marriage.

00:50:59

We had three kids in three years.

00:51:02

We were so tired and angry.

00:51:04

I guarantee you, there were many moments

00:51:08

when Sarah looked at me and went,

00:51:09

"That guy, forever?"

00:51:15

In my job I've heard that voice here.

00:51:17

I was in the same job for seven years in a row.

00:51:21

I was actually told at one point that

00:51:22

I was doing too good of a job to be advanced.

00:51:26

You think I didn't want to quit?

00:51:28

You think I didn't feel overlooked?

00:51:29

Of course, of course.

00:51:32

I've heard that voice in my faith.

00:51:36

I've had the moment that you've had

00:51:37

where you pray for someone to be healed,

00:51:39

you say, "God, would you give my friend,

00:51:41

would you give my loved one a miracle?

00:51:43

Would you heal them?"

00:51:44

And instead of getting a miracle,

00:51:46

what I get is an invitation to a funeral.

00:51:49

And you go, "Really? Is this -- Is this it?"

00:51:53

We all have heard this voice.

00:51:56

But the amazing thing about Paul

00:51:58

is that Paul was resilient.

00:52:00

Paul tapped into a power,

00:52:02

somehow found a power that allowed him

00:52:05

to push through all of that.

00:52:08

If you want a picture for Paul,

00:52:09

it's not a classroom, it's a mountain range.

00:52:11

This is a recreation of the Taurus Mountain range

00:52:13

that Paul would have hiked over many times

00:52:16

as he climbed through this ancient world

00:52:18

of Turkey and Greece.

00:52:19

He would have scaled mountains.

00:52:20

The reason he was hungry and tired is

00:52:22

he was on the top of a mountain.

00:52:23

The reason that he was cold is because

00:52:25

he was way up in the snow.

00:52:26

They were bandits in the passages

00:52:29

that would attack him.

00:52:30

And he kept going again and again and again.

00:52:33

By the way, it is, yes, if you've heard it

00:52:35

several times, the Taurus Mountain range,

00:52:37

like the Ford Taurus, you've seen that car.

00:52:40

Remember that car from the 90s, looked like this,

00:52:42

just like a mountain range, probably.

00:52:43

It's probably what you always pictured.

00:52:45

No, not sure why they named it that.

00:52:48

Very ambitious, Ford.

00:52:49

Anyway, nothing could stop Paul.

00:52:52

Nothing, nothing, nothing could stop Paul.

00:52:55

He actually wrote this in 2 Corinthians. He said:

00:53:09

How? Well, the world says the way to be resilient

00:53:13

is to focus yourself and your attention

00:53:16

on your problems, in your pain points,

00:53:19

in your setbacks, and to think about them

00:53:21

and talk about them and obsess over them.

00:53:23

If Paul were alive today,

00:53:25

you know what we'd do with him?

00:53:26

We'd say, "Paul, you've experienced something

00:53:28

many times called trauma.

00:53:30

And you're going to go spend

00:53:31

the rest of your life in therapy,

00:53:33

that's what you're going to go do.

00:53:34

So we'll see you later.

00:53:36

We'll throw you a birthday party or something at the end of it.

00:53:38

But like that, like, clearly you're too broken,

00:53:40

Paul, that's too much." But that's not what Paul does.

00:53:43

There's actually not a single verse in the Bible,

00:53:45

not a single thing in anything that Paul ever wrote

00:53:47

that sounds like focus on your problems.

00:53:49

Because when you stare at something,

00:53:50

you become that thing. Do you know that?

00:53:53

1 John says that we will be like Him,

00:53:55

for we shall see Him as He is,

00:53:58

meaning we'll be like Jesus one day,

00:54:00

because we'll have stared at Him for so long,

00:54:01

we'll see Him as He actually is,

00:54:03

and in that moment we'll be transformed.

00:54:05

What you stare at is what you become.

00:54:08

If you stare at your problems,

00:54:09

your life will become a series of problems.

00:54:11

That's not what Paul does.

00:54:13

Instead, what Paul does is

00:54:14

Paul fixes his eyes on one thing: the end.

00:54:19

Now the end is actually a name for Jesus,

00:54:21

I don't know if you knew that.

00:54:22

Connect a couple dots here for you.

00:54:24

Hebrews 12 says: Let us run with perseverance

00:54:26

the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes

00:54:29

on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

00:54:32

Revelation 21:6 says: I am the Alpha and the Omega,

00:54:35

the beginning and the end.

00:54:36

See, when you focus on the end,

00:54:38

when Paul is in the prison cell and he's dreaming of the end,

00:54:40

he's thinking about the end.

00:54:41

He's writing to Timothy about

00:54:43

fulfilling his ministry, about ending well,

00:54:45

Paul is imagining Jesus.

00:54:47

That's why he's happy when he shows up.

00:54:49

It's why he's excited, the end is here.

00:54:52

See, Paul said, the best thing you can do

00:54:54

to fulfill your ministry is to

00:54:56

imagine the end of your life.

00:54:57

There's like a finish line, so to speak.

00:54:59

And just across the finish line is Jesus

00:55:01

going, "Come on, you can do it. Come on.

00:55:03

You're almost there. Come on, let's go."

00:55:04

And you imagine yourself crossing that line

00:55:07

in stride and him saying, "Great job."

00:55:10

You fix your eyes on the end.

00:55:15

Now that's something of an abstract thought,

00:55:17

a little bit difficult to picture in your mind.

00:55:20

I think Paul knew that.

00:55:21

And so Paul, in this letter to Timothy

00:55:24

and throughout the rest of his writings,

00:55:26

has three dominant metaphors for us to grasp

00:55:30

and to fix in our mind.

00:55:32

He wrote to Timothy about them in 2 Timothy 2.

00:55:34

He said: No one engaged in warfare

00:55:36

entangles himself with the affairs of this life,

00:55:38

that he may please him

00:55:40

who enlisted him as a soldier.

00:55:42

Also, if anyone competes in athletics,

00:55:44

he's not crowned unless he competes

00:55:46

according to the rules.

00:55:47

The hardworking farmer must be first

00:55:49

to partake of the crops.

00:55:51

Consider what I say, and may the Lord

00:55:52

give you understanding in all things.

00:55:55

Soldier, the athlete, the farmer.

00:55:58

Paul's all time top three favorite metaphors.

00:56:02

I'm going to go through them, and my guess is

00:56:04

that one of these is going to stick out to you in your life.

00:56:06

Now, they're meant to be things that

00:56:08

we can attach to throughout our life

00:56:09

in different seasons.

00:56:10

But one of these is going to jump out to you today,

00:56:12

and I want you to remember the image.

00:56:14

I want you to fix it in your mind.

00:56:15

And we're going to have a conversation

00:56:17

with God about it at the end.

00:56:19

First is the farmer.

00:56:21

The farmer fixes their eyes on the finish line

00:56:23

of the harvest and the Lord of the harvest,

00:56:26

one of the other names for Jesus,

00:56:27

at the end saying great job!

00:56:30

And because of that, they have the ability

00:56:33

to wait and work.

00:56:36

Paul said the hard working farmer

00:56:38

must be first to partake of the crops.

00:56:39

The farmer is first.

00:56:41

They wake up first, they go to bed first,

00:56:44

they get into work first.

00:56:46

And you think about a farmer most of their life,

00:56:48

most of their energy when they're tilling

00:56:49

and they're planting and they're weeding

00:56:52

and they're working on machinery

00:56:53

and they're fixing stuff, most of the time

00:56:56

throughout the whole year,

00:56:57

you know what they see in the ground?

00:56:59

Nothing. Nothing. It's just a bunch of dirt.

00:57:04

See, the farmer has to have the mentality,

00:57:06

has to imagine what it will be like

00:57:09

when the seeds burst out of the ground

00:57:10

and grow up and produce fruit,

00:57:12

and they can actually have a harvest.

00:57:14

They must, must, must focus on that

00:57:16

every single day.

00:57:18

Otherwise they just wouldn't work.

00:57:20

The power of the farmer is the power to not give up.

00:57:24

Galatians 6, Paul wrote:

00:57:34

Maybe there's a season in your life

00:57:36

where you don't see any fruit.

00:57:39

It's nothing above the surface, just dirt, nothing else.

00:57:42

Maybe it's your career, your marriage.

00:57:43

Maybe it's your faith, I don't know.

00:57:45

But if that's where you're at, my encouragement

00:57:48

to you is to fix your eyes on the farmer,

00:57:50

to take the mentality of the farmer,

00:57:52

to ask God to give you the power of resilience

00:57:55

that the farmer has.

00:57:57

And next is a soldier.

00:57:59

The soldier fixes their eyes on victory

00:58:02

and on the champion of our faith,

00:58:04

another name for Jesus, the leader

00:58:07

and commander of angel armies, saying good job.

00:58:11

And because of that, the soldier uniquely has

00:58:14

this ability to please their commanding officer.

00:58:17

Paul wrote, no one engaged in warfare

00:58:19

entangles himself with the affairs of this life,

00:58:21

that he may please him

00:58:23

who enlisted him as a soldier.

00:58:25

See, the soldier isn't about pleasing themselves.

00:58:27

They don't wake up every day and go,

00:58:29

"Man, what do I want to do?

00:58:30

I think I'm just going to hang out."

00:58:32

No. What do they do?

00:58:33

They drill and they practice and they work

00:58:35

and they obey commands, whether they think

00:58:37

it's going to be good for them and safe for them or not.

00:58:40

That's what a soldier does.

00:58:41

This is the image that God put into my mind

00:58:44

at the very beginning of my ministry,

00:58:45

not my professional ministry,

00:58:46

not when I entered in to work at Crossroads

00:58:49

or anything, but when I actually said,

00:58:50

"God, I believe you have good works

00:58:52

prepared for me and I want to do all of them."

00:58:57

About that same time in my life,

00:58:58

God gave me this picture of a soldier

00:59:01

out of another of Paul's writings,

00:59:02

Ephesians 6, Paul wrote:

00:59:15

I just pictured this soldier

00:59:17

at the end of their life.

00:59:18

Not a young soldier,

00:59:20

not a soldier who's never seen battle,

00:59:21

but a soldier who's seen battle after battle

00:59:24

after battle, has the scars to prove it

00:59:27

and yet gets the end of their life,

00:59:30

walks up to their commanding officer,

00:59:32

looks up in their eyes and said,

00:59:34

"I'm still here. I'm still standing.

00:59:36

I'm ready for the next assignment

00:59:38

or you can call me home to eternity.

00:59:40

I'm good either way. I'm still standing."

00:59:43

It's the only reason I didn't quit.

00:59:45

It's the only reason I didn't walk away,

00:59:47

because I had that fixed in my mind,

00:59:49

burned in my spirit, placed there by God,

00:59:52

the image of the soldier.

00:59:54

Maybe you're at a point in your life

00:59:55

where you're tempted to please yourself.

00:59:59

Maybe you're living a life

01:00:00

you know pleases yourself.

01:00:02

Maybe you don't even believe in God yet,

01:00:03

but there's something in you that

01:00:05

you know that you're doing,

01:00:06

a pattern that you're doing,

01:00:07

something that you know is destructive,

01:00:09

you know isn't helpful just to please yourself.

01:00:13

If that's where you are, you have

01:00:14

a conversation with God about the soldier.

01:00:18

Last is the athlete.

01:00:19

The athlete fixes their eyes on the prize

01:00:22

and the champion of the faith at the end

01:00:25

putting the crown of victory on their head.

01:00:27

And because of that, they have the ability

01:00:29

and the power to enter into strict training.

01:00:33

Now, speaking of athletics,

01:00:34

the Olympics are coming back this summer.

01:00:36

Paris Olympics, cannot wait.

01:00:38

I love watching the Olympics. So good, so great.

01:00:41

Now I would be more excited though

01:00:43

if they would do my idea.

01:00:45

And I don't mean to brag or anything,

01:00:49

but I think this is the best idea

01:00:51

I've ever had in my whole entire life.

01:00:53

Now here's the idea. Starts with the problem.

01:00:56

The problem is we all watch the Olympics, right?

01:00:59

And we see these world class athletes

01:01:01

who we know are so fast and so strong

01:01:04

and so talented compete against each other.

01:01:07

And the problem with that is that

01:01:08

what we really want to know is

01:01:10

how much stronger and faster and more talented

01:01:13

are they than us.

01:01:14

But we can't tell,

01:01:16

they're running against each other.

01:01:18

And so my idea, what I want to see is that

01:01:21

in each and every Olympic event

01:01:23

we add an average guy lane. [laughter]

01:01:26

That's what I want.

01:01:29

Now, average, not prepared.

01:01:31

If you're prepared, you're not average.

01:01:33

I'm not talking about that.

01:01:34

It'd have to work like this.

01:01:36

The loudspeaker goes on right before the race.

01:01:38

It's like section 302, row 49, seat D.

01:01:42

I think your name is Darryl.

01:01:45

Darryl, are you there?

01:01:50

Darryl's two and a half Mich Ultras in.

01:01:52

He's smashing nachos into his face,

01:01:54

just like we would be doing.

01:01:55

And Darryl is us, you know what I mean?

01:01:57

Darryl is the kind of guy who's like,

01:01:58

if the remote's all the way

01:02:00

on the other side of the couch,

01:02:02

we'll just keep the channel where it is.

01:02:04

That's Darryl.

01:02:06

Darryl's got to go down there like,

01:02:08

Darryl, you're running the 800.

01:02:09

Get in there, man. Let it rip.

01:02:11

He's pulling his hammy, you know, 100m in,

01:02:13

he's like, ugh. Gotta hobble, Darryl.

01:02:15

We don't -- we don't quit, Darryl.

01:02:16

Keep going, Darryl.

01:02:18

Think about the high dive. Right?

01:02:20

It's like nine stories tall.

01:02:22

People will be building houses up there.

01:02:24

They would just refuse to jump off,

01:02:25

and then we would know it because

01:02:27

it'd be so much more impressive.

01:02:28

So if you have a connection to NBC or whatever,

01:02:31

pass along my idea and just tell them

01:02:32

you're welcome. Okay.

01:02:35

Point is, no athlete reaches the Olympics

01:02:39

being average. That's not who gets there.

01:02:42

Average people don't get there.

01:02:44

In fact, I don't mean to have low self esteem,

01:02:48

okay? But I got to be honest with you guys,

01:02:50

I don't think I'm going to

01:02:51

make the Olympics this year.

01:02:53

I just don't think it's in the cards.

01:02:56

I mean, I work out two, three times a week,

01:02:58

sometimes four.

01:03:00

I drink drink Diet Coke,

01:03:03

occasionally a light beer.

01:03:06

Made a friend with a vegan,

01:03:07

you know, just for health reasons.

01:03:11

I'm trying to take care of myself,

01:03:13

but I don't think that's going to be enough.

01:03:15

When the Olympics come on we'll see

01:03:16

all these little mini biopics about the athletes

01:03:18

and how they grew up, and they interview

01:03:20

their parents and their coaches

01:03:21

and those pictures of them as a kid.

01:03:23

But what we will never see in any of those,

01:03:25

I promise, is a picture of ten year old Johnny

01:03:28

on the couch, bowl of Cheetos on his stomach,

01:03:30

just flipping them in the air.

01:03:32

You're not going to hear a parent or a coach say,

01:03:34

"yeah, I got no idea how Johnny made the Olympics.

01:03:37

He's the laziest kid I know."

01:03:39

It's not going to happen.

01:03:41

People who do average stuff

01:03:43

do not make the Olympics,

01:03:44

do not get crowned with victory.

01:03:47

My question for you is there anything

01:03:49

in your life that looks like strict training

01:03:52

when it comes to you and God?

01:03:54

Paul wrote this in 1 Corinthians 9:

01:03:56

Do you not know that in a race all runners run,

01:03:58

but only one gets the prize?

01:04:00

Run in such a way as to get the prize.

01:04:02

Everyone who competes in the games

01:04:04

goes into strict training.

01:04:07

They do it to get a crown that will not last,

01:04:09

but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

01:04:11

What looks like strict training?

01:04:14

If that's convicting to you,

01:04:15

ask God to fix your mind, fix your eyes

01:04:17

on the end the way that an athlete would.

01:04:19

The picture of victory and crossing

01:04:21

the finish line, the champion of faith

01:04:22

placing the crown on your head.

01:04:24

Ask Him to give you the power of resilience.

01:04:26

The athlete.

01:04:28

Now all three of these have the same general picture:

01:04:33

Fix your eyes on the end.

01:04:36

And this is Paul's secret.

01:04:37

This is what enabled him to go through

01:04:40

difficulty after difficulty

01:04:42

and setback after setback, and never once stop.

01:04:46

This is how.

01:04:48

Now, the good news is that

01:04:50

God wants to give you this power.

01:04:53

He does.

01:04:54

This power isn't reserved for people

01:04:57

who've done it all right.

01:04:58

And I want to be very clear, too.

01:05:00

This is not a self-help message.

01:05:02

This is not a thing that where I'm saying,

01:05:04

"Man, all you got to do is just work up

01:05:06

the resolve inside of yourself.

01:05:07

Just really promise God that this time

01:05:09

it's going to be different.

01:05:10

Really promise God that this time

01:05:12

you're not going to do that thing.

01:05:13

Really promise God that you're going to do

01:05:15

everything you can to follow Him."

01:05:16

Don't do that. Instead, say to God,

01:05:18

"I don't have the power it takes.

01:05:21

Would you give it to me?"

01:05:23

You know, Jesus says in Luke 11 that

01:05:25

everyone who asks, receives.

01:05:28

Receives what? The power of the Holy Spirit.

01:05:31

You can ask God for it.

01:05:33

You can ask him for it.

01:05:35

You messed up, maybe you gave up a long time ago.

01:05:37

Maybe you've already quit and you're thinking,

01:05:39

"Man, it's too late.

01:05:40

This would have been great to have

01:05:42

this message when I was Timothy's age,

01:05:44

25 years old. That'd be great. Too late for me."

01:05:45

No, it's not.

01:05:48

Maybe you got knocked down,

01:05:49

but you can get back up.

01:05:51

You're not at the end yet.

01:05:53

You can still fulfill the ministry

01:05:55

that God has called you to.

01:05:56

You can, if, if, if you ask Him for His power.

01:06:01

That's what we're going to do right now.

01:06:03

I know the alarm bells are going off in your head,

01:06:05

and you're thinking like,

01:06:06

"I got to get to mulching, Kyle.

01:06:07

I mean, it's a really important weekend in my life.

01:06:10

I got to really go mulch."

01:06:12

I'm just going to say let let mulch

01:06:13

wait for two more minutes.

01:06:15

If this message is just something

01:06:17

that you came and it was fine

01:06:19

or you enjoyed it or whatever, and that's it, doesn't matter,

01:06:21

doesn't do any good. Wasted your time.

01:06:24

We need this message to go from our heads

01:06:25

into our hearts and have a conversation with God.

01:06:28

We're going to take just two minutes

01:06:29

and do that right now.

01:06:30

Close your eyes.

01:06:33

I want you to call to mind the picture

01:06:35

that sticks out to you the most.

01:06:38

Maybe it's the farmer.

01:06:40

Maybe it's the soldier.

01:06:42

Maybe it's the athlete.

01:06:45

Whichever it is, have a conversation with God

01:06:49

right now about that image.

01:06:55

There's something you want to apologize for,

01:06:57

you can apologize. Ask forgiveness.

01:07:01

Good news is, when you ask for forgiveness,

01:07:02

God's answer is always, "Yeah, I forgive you."

01:07:07

And then ask God for the power

01:07:10

of the farmer to wait.

01:07:15

Ask God for the power of the soldier

01:07:18

to seek to please the commanding officer

01:07:20

over themselves.

01:07:22

Ask God for the power, the power of the athlete

01:07:27

to run the race with endurance

01:07:29

and to enter into strict training.

01:07:31

Let me pray for you.

01:07:35

God, I thank You that You do not hold on

01:07:37

to Your power for Your own, but You give it to us.

01:07:40

That the same power that coursed through Jesus

01:07:44

can course through us.

01:07:45

Would You give us that power, God?

01:07:47

For everybody who's asked, say yes

01:07:50

and fill us with Your power

01:07:52

to fulfill the ministry that you've called us to.

01:07:55

Amen.

01:07:58

- Jesus was so clear that life wouldn't be easy

01:08:01

and that we wouldn't be alone,

01:08:03

that His power, that His Spirit,

01:08:05

that His presence would help us

01:08:06

experience greater levels of resiliency

01:08:08

and endurance to finish all the good things

01:08:11

that He puts in front of us

01:08:12

and to help us overcome the challenges

01:08:15

that we inevitably face.

01:08:16

That's what we want for you,

01:08:18

and that's our whole goal as a church,

01:08:20

to help you grow and move forward

01:08:22

on your journey with God.

01:08:23

A couple things to that end.

01:08:24

If you need encouragement

01:08:26

or even a miracle, guess what?

01:08:28

We have our monthly night of prayer

01:08:29

coming up May 2nd, and we believe

01:08:31

that miracles still happen.

01:08:33

Literally every month we see God show up

01:08:35

and bring encouragement, wisdom, freedom,

01:08:37

and even healing miracles

01:08:40

as we meet together on Zoom. So be bold.

01:08:42

How many miracles have we seen in these things?

01:08:44

Hey, you literally can't count them!

01:08:46

Head to Crossroads.net/anywhere

01:08:48

to sign up and to RSVP.

01:08:50

And as we like to say around here,

01:08:51

we are a community, not just content.

01:08:54

We are something you belong to,

01:08:55

not just something that you watch.

01:08:56

And we want you to come join us in Cincinnati,

01:08:59

where our church started,

01:09:00

for an incredible weekend of great food,

01:09:02

new friends from across the globe,

01:09:04

time with Crossroads leaders, and encouragement

01:09:06

to be the church wherever you are.

01:09:08

We believe in this so much that

01:09:10

if you have sign up in the next week,

01:09:11

you'll be entered to win free airfare

01:09:13

to help get you here for it.

01:09:15

Head to Crossroads.net/anywhereweekend

01:09:17

to sign up.

01:09:18

And one final reminder,

01:09:20

don't miss Born Wild next week

01:09:22

as we see what a wild horse

01:09:24

has to teach us about ourselves and God.

01:09:27

Thanks for watching.

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