God Calls You to Action

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- Good morning. Hello, everybody. Hi.

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Good to see you all

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at all of our Crossroads buildings and online.

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If you're checking us out, love you.

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Thanks for spending some of

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your Independence Day weekend with us.

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My name is Paco.

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I am what's called a content director here,

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which means typically on the weekends

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I'm in the background helping our teachers

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do their thing and sharpen their messages.

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And part of that, too, is to help sort of plan

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the calendar for the year and whatnot.

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And one of the things that we did

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intentionally this year on this weekend

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is we gave our speakers the weekend off because

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we value fun and we value family around here.

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And we said, you know what?

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Let's give them the week off, man.

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I'll pinch hit and it'll be fun.

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It'll be a great time because

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I'm going to have a blast today.

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And I hope you're going to have a blast today.

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And I hope this weekend has been a fun time

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for you and your family.

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And thanks for spending a little bit of it

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here with us.

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I came to Crossroads in 2012.

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My wife and I were newlyweds

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and we didn't know what we were doing. We had no idea.

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We were trying to get married, stay married,

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and 12 years later, praise God,

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because of this community, because of this church,

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we are still married.

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We have two kids and one on the way

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and we are just geeked about our third baby.

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We're about to be outnumbered in the house

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and we're middle aged millennials with a minivan.

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Yes, we do have a minivan. Life happens fast.

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Like one day you're this, and the next day

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you're just an older person, right?

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And speaking of life happening really, really fast.

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The other day, I was doing the thing

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that middle aged people do on their days off.

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I was walking around my house

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looking for problems to solve,

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and I had my Gorilla Glue,

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and I was like, "Let's go."

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And I turned the corner outside of my house

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and I looked up and I saw this.

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You're going to see it in a second too,

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I promise you are. It's going to happen.

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There it is. That is not a rope.

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That is a snakeskin. Yes, yes.

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So I did what anyone would do in that moment,

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I said a prayer, and I prepped myself mentally

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and physically and emotionally and I got ready.

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And I immediately jumped on YouTube to find out

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everything I could about why a snake would be in my attic.

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And what I found out was, this is a problem,

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snakes in attics, because there's some sort

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of a food source for a snake up there,

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most likely mice or some other rodent.

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I also found out there's a specific bait

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that you have to use to get rid of the food source

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so that the snake goes away.

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And you might want to know this.

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This is a pretty common problem in our area.

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You might have a snake in your attic.

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I'm just going to let you know.

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Thanks for coming to church.

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The snake is happy as well.

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Yeah, so I did all that and I did the YouTube thing,

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and then I did the next logical thing after that.

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Right. Said another prayer, got ready

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emotionally, physically, spiritually

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and called the animal remover company.

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I was like, "You get over here like

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as soon as you can, get here now."

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And they got there as soon as possible.

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And praise God for YouTube, because there was --

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After YouTube, there was zero chance

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I was going up there after watching

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90 minutes of YouTube.

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I love YouTube, I do, I really love YouTube.

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Youtube is the reason why so many parents

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make it through summer without going full

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DMX on your children.

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You know what I'm talking about?

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Like you're coming home from the store

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and you're like, I'm about to lose my mind,

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up in here, up in here.

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And right before you're about to go

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all out up in here, you turn,

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give the phone to the kid and you say,

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"Just watch the YouTube clip.

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Please watch eight minutes of Bluey or something,

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please, before I lose my mind."

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Youtube is fantastic.

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I couldn't imagine, I just couldn't imagine

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parenting in any other era.

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Like, I couldn't imagine parenting while

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phones still had cords connected to them.

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That'd be like wild to me.

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I love technology, I love the information era.

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I love the era that we're in because

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we have access to so much, so much, like, data.

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We get, we can get anything we need at our fingertips.

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And now, because of AI, that's even in hyperdrive, right?

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I could be an expert on, like, five subjects before breakfast.

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It's a fantastic time to be alive.

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But one of the things that I've been noticing

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when it comes to the information era, right,

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being able to get this info so quickly

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is people often take information

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and sort of dismiss it, right?

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It's like, this is just like,

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what am I supposed to be listening to?

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It's just too much.

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And so we sort of shut off from the world,

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or we shut off from all the data and all the tech,

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and we're like, "I'm just not going to deal with it."

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And then others of us, what we do is we start

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to substitute information with expertise.

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You see, we get the information about something

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and we think that because we know it,

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now we're experts in it.

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And in the same way, me knowing a lot about

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how snakes get in attics

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does not make me an animal remover.

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In the same way, us knowing about God

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and knowing about the Bible and knowing

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what church people should do on a Sunday

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doesn't make us followers of Jesus.

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And so the information era has its pros,

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it also has its cons.

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And then on top of that,

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there's a lot of voices in the world, right?

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There's a lot of voices.

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And I love that, like, the YouTube era

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and the creator economy and all that,

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I love all that.

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But there are so many voices,

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which one do we listen to, right?

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Which one do we actually go forward with?

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Francis Chan has a quote.

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He has a quote that says this.

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He says: we need fewer voices and more examples.

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And I think he's right. I think he's right,

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especially when it comes to people of faith,

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people trying to walk out their relationship

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with Jesus, I think there's a lot

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of really great preaching in the world

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and in technology, but I wonder

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how much practicing comes along with it.

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Because you can know a lot about something,

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but miss the entire point.

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You can have a lot of information,

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but never have the full power of something.

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When I was younger, you know, late teens,

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early 20s, I was a part of a Bible study.

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And my friend Jonas sort of was the leader of the Bible study.

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And the guys in that study, a lot of them

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are still really close friends to me today.

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And we're all just trying to figure it out.

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You know, we're doing our thing.

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And one day I'm at the Bible study

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and the topic was kindness to neighbors,

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how to be kind to your neighbor.

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And great, cool, whatever.

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I'm there, I'm doing the thing.

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And then at the end of the study,

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what you would do is you typically go around

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and everyone would say, like,

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here's a key takeaway, here's something

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I'm going to do, you know, something like that.

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And so it got to me and I was in my feelings that day.

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And so I was brutally honest and I said,

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"This is a waste of my time."

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I said, "Kindness to neighbors, like,

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that's the easiest thing ever.

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Why would -- what? Kindness to neighbors?

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What? Are we third graders?

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This isn't deep enough, man.

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I came here for like some depth.

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I came here to grow.

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I came here to, like, get better.

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You give me a kindness to neighbors talk?

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Come on, man."

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And my friend Jonas, I love him to death.

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He smiles and he hears me out.

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And then after I was done with my rant,

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he looks at me and he goes, "Thanks for sharing.

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Do you even know your neighbors?" "Hold up."

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"Do you know their names?" "Psh."

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You know you're in trouble

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when you don't have words for response,

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you just have beatbox noises, right?

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[beatbox sounds]

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You start turning to Biz Markie for a quick second there.

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He was poking at something that I didn't realize then,

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but I realized now is I knew a lot about God.

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I knew a lot about God, but I wasn't

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actually doing anything with it.

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I wasn't actually taking that

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and actually walking it out.

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I was holding out for the right info.

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I was holding out to be wowed by something new,

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and I wasn't actually stretching out

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and going to a new place

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and actually walking out my faith.

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And when it comes to navigating a life of faith,

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we have two options.

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When it comes to growing our relationship

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with Jesus we can either hold out

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or we can stretch out.

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We can either hold out for the right wow,

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the right info, or we can stretch out.

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And so if you're here today, I just have

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a simple message for you.

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It's a simple message of power and of hope.

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And I want to pray before we go any further. Okay?

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Let me pray. God, thank You for today.

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Thank You for Your Word. You're so good to us, God.

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Thank You for the opportunity to explore You more

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and to just grow closer to you.

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God, we want to go deeper, we want to know You more.

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We want to have a deeper,

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more abiding relationship with You.

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So would You do the thing that only You can do today?

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In Jesus's name, Amen.

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Okay, so when we hear the message, like,

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"Okay, God wants you to go deeper." a lot of times,

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especially in our Western culture,

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what we equate that to is like doing more, right?

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God wants you to go deeper,

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God wants more relationship with you

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because He wants you to do more stuff.

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And you can easily hear a message like this

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and go, "Oh, this is about working 20 hour workweeks,

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and this is about 20 hour work days,

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not work weeks. That's part time.

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20 hour work days.

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This is this is about me grinding harder.

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This is about me serving more and volunteering more.

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And this, this, I see where this is going, right?"

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And I just want you to know,

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this is the exact opposite of that, okay?

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Because you don't work to get God's approval.

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There's nothing you can do to make God love you more.

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There's an old Baptist preacher

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that I enjoy listening to, and he talks

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to people about their faith, and he goes,

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"How's your relationship with God going?"

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And they often go, "Well, I'm just working my way there."

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And he goes, "Oh, that's great.

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You're never going to make it.

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If you think you're going to work your way to God's love,

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you are never going to make it.

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Sorry to burst your bubble."

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In Ephesians 2:10, the writer puts it in a great way.

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Here's what it says:

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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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You see that there? We are His workmanship.

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We are God's workmanship.

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He's not our workmanship.

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He's created us in Christ Jesus

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for good works that He planned long ago.

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See, there are no self-made anythings.

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The only self-made anything is God.

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And guess what? You and I aren't God.

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And so we are created for something

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that He has put us here for.

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You didn't do any creating.

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You didn't do any making.

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You and I didn't do any sealing

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or saving or sending. That's all God's job.

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God saves us, He seals us, and He sends us.

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But then what's our job? Right.

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So what's our job in this whole thing?

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Well, let's read it again.

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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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Our job is simple: walk in them.

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God has created us.

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He's put us here for this moment

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so that we might walk in the things He has for us.

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That's our job. Our job is to simply walk.

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We can't do God's job

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and God's not going to do our job.

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He wants us to do that. And that's great.

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That's like a really great message

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to have in your brain, right?

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But like, how do you actually put that

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into your heart and into your world?

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I could be like, "Okay, so hey, guys,

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go do your job. See you next week.

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Have a great one."

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Like, that would be like an easy cop out.

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But we got to get to like underneath that a little bit

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and go like, "Why isn't that not happening

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with many of us?

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Why are we not doing our job?

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What are the things that are causing us

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to hold out instead of stretch out?

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So I want to spend just a few minutes

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just talking about some of those things,

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because it's important that we call those things out

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so we can identify them.

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And one of the big things that I've noticed

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that causes people to hold out from doing

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the thing that God has called them to

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is this idea of perfection.

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Like, we have this idea in our head that,

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like, I will step out, I will go for it,

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I will stretch out.

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But like the environment has to be, like, perfect.

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It has to be 68 and sunny, right?

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Your spouse has to not get on your nerves.

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Your kids better sleep all night.

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And also if they microwave fish

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in the office one more time.

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But yeah, I get that.

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Like you want decent environments

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to actually go out and do it.

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But if we're waiting for a perfect environment

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to get started, we're never going to get there.

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We're never going to get there.

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The world is imperfect, people are messy,

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and things go wrong.

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And for a lot of us, the idea of performance

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is the thing that's causing us to hold out

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and not actually stretch out.

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You know, you go to take a shot, you go to do the thing, and then

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you immediately start looking around going,

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"What's everybody else up to?

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Am I measuring up to the thing in my shot?"

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You start worrying about all the outcomes

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before you even go for it.

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And then what happens, right?

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You start getting a little anxiety.

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You start getting a little like, no, thanks, I'm good.

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I just rather not do anything.

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Performance causes us to hold out,

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especially when we're looking side to side,

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seeing how we match up to everybody else's thing

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instead of focusing on the thing that God has for us.

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And then for a ton of us, I know that

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the thing that causes us to hold out is our past.

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It's like you go to take a step out,

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you go to take a step, and then you hear

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a little voice saying, "Are you really going to try this?

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You know how bad you messed up last time?

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You know how broken you are?

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You know that thing that you -- Yeah.

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You, really? You, you sure?

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You sure you want to be disappointed again?"

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See, our past can be the thing

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that causes us to hold out.

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And these are real things that we all deal with.

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And I just want to make sure that

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we call those out and I want to make sure you know this.

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Unless you are this guy with this on your body.

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[laughter]

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Some of you get it.

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Some of you are going, what's the problem?

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It's regrets spelled wrong.

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Thank God for spell check too, right?

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Unless you have one of those on,

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you are what theologians call normal.

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If you have performance past

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and perfection issues that hold you up

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and cause you to hold out,

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you are what's called normal.

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There is no one perfect.

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There is no one flawless who has walked the earth

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and no one flawless who will walk the earth

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other than Jesus Christ.

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And Jesus is looking at you not saying,

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"Oh, yeah, let me call it all the stuff

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wrong with this guy.

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Let me call all that stuff wrong with her.

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Let me call it all their issues."

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Jesus looks at you saying, "Hey, I love you.

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Hey, I still think you're My workmanship.

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Hey, I still created you new in Christ Jesus.

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Hey, I still got plans for you."

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He says this in John 3. I want you to --

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I want you to soak it in with me here.

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Jesus isn't looking at you with condemnation

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if you're imperfect.

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Jesus isn't looking at you with disgust

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because you got flaws.

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Jesus is looking at you saying, "Hey, I came to save you."

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He said, "Hey, I love you. I'm calling you."

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And He's standing here going, "I just --

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Come on, walk in Him. Come on, come on, walk in Me.

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I got stuff in store for you

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that you couldn't even ask or imagine

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in your brain. Come on, come on."

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So when we look at our imperfections

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and we look at the reasons why we hold out,

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we got to remember God is not angry with you.

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God is calling you to something deeper.

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God has more for you.

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And we're going to spend a few minutes

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looking in the book of Luke in just a second

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about a situation where some people

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have that decision to make, they have a decision.

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Are they going to answer the call for Jesus

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with Jesus to go deeper?

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Are they going to stretch out

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or are they going to hold out?

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And the story we're going to read

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is coming from Luke 6.

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And I want to set some standards for you,

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set the stage for you real quick because

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this comes on what's called the Sabbath day. Okay?

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This whole story takes place on what's called the Sabbath day.

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The Sabbath, we could do a lot of weeks on the Sabbath.

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Sabbath is pretty, pretty awesome.

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And it was created by God

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and a one on one on the Sabbath created by God.

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It is for our benefit.

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It is a time, a day that God sets apart

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for us to rest in Him, for us to commune with Him

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and be close to Him.

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And in ancient Israel, there were certain rituals

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that you would do on the Sabbath

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to sort of honor God and also make sure

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that you signal to everyone,

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"Hey, we're not doing any work today.

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We're not doing normal stuff.

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This is a day reserved for our relationship with God."

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And back then they had these things

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called synagogues that you would go to,

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and on the Sabbath it would be relatively full

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because no one was really working. Right?

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So there's a lot of people there.

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So this scene that we're going to get into

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takes place on the Sabbath.

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And it happens sort of at the central point of

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culture back then, which is a synagogue.

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All right. It takes place in Luke 6. Here we go.

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So Jesus is teaching in the synagogue, doing His thing.

00:16:28

There's probably a large crowd there.

00:16:29

And in the crowd He sees a man

00:16:31

who has a hand that is withered.

00:16:34

Now withered essentially here translates to

00:16:37

this hand is not grown out to the way it should be.

00:16:39

This hand has got issues with it.

00:16:42

The muscles and ligaments don't work on it properly,

00:16:44

and we don't know why it's withered.

00:16:46

We just know it's withered and we know it's not functioning.

00:16:50

We don't know much more about the man either.

00:16:52

We don't know where he's from.

00:16:54

We don't know how his hand got withered.

00:16:56

Was he born this way? Did an accident happen?

00:17:00

Did did he get hurt?

00:17:01

We don't know if he's there panhandling.

00:17:03

We don't know if he has a good life.

00:17:05

We don't know if he has a family.

00:17:06

We don't know anything about him.

00:17:08

But what we do know is this.

00:17:09

We do know that in in 2024, praise God,

00:17:12

we have a lot of social nets in place

00:17:14

to be able to help people that have physical ailments.

00:17:17

So, you in 2024, if you have a physical disability,

00:17:20

there's a lot of really great opportunities

00:17:22

and jobs and programs that you can plug into

00:17:25

to be able to help you if you have

00:17:26

a physical ailment like this.

00:17:28

And people with physical ailments

00:17:29

in our tech driven society can live

00:17:32

pretty fruitful lives and be integrated fully into society.

00:17:35

That wasn't the case back then.

00:17:37

It was all farming and cattle

00:17:39

and fishing with nets,

00:17:41

all requiring big strength in both hands,

00:17:44

working with rocks, being a soldier.

00:17:46

All of that stuff required both hands to function properly.

00:17:50

So we don't know much about this guy in the story.

00:17:52

But contextually, we do know that this guy

00:17:55

has problems and one of them is his hand is withered.

00:17:59

But because of that problem, he has other issues as well.

00:18:03

That's important. Let's keep going.

00:18:04

Let's keep reading here.

00:18:06

So Jesus is teaching, man with a withered hand is there.

00:18:08

Don't miss that. Verse seven.

00:18:19

The scribes and the Pharisees,

00:18:21

the walking Wikipedia pages,

00:18:22

as my friend Chris calls them, the people who know all.

00:18:24

The people who know all the data,

00:18:26

know all the rules about the rules, right?

00:18:28

They are, quote, watching Him.

00:18:31

Jesus is teaching and they are watching,

00:18:35

only concerned with finding a reason to accuse Him.

00:18:38

I find it odd when I read the story that

00:18:40

the people who are supposed to be the experts

00:18:44

are the people most disconnected from reality.

00:18:46

You notice that? The people who have the,

00:18:48

"You should do this and it should look like this,"

00:18:51

are often the people have no idea

00:18:52

what's actually happening with people in the room.

00:18:55

And so Jesus is teaching, man with the hand is there,

00:18:58

religious leaders and experts are here.

00:19:00

When I first read this, I immediately connected

00:19:02

to the man with the withered hand.

00:19:03

I was like, "Oh, okay, I know what it's like

00:19:05

to have things that I wish were different in my life."

00:19:07

Okay, great. And you might do that too.

00:19:09

You might immediately connect to him as a person

00:19:13

that you see yourself in in the story.

00:19:14

I propose this to you.

00:19:16

We don't often know what it's like

00:19:19

to be someone until we walk in their shoes.

00:19:22

We don't know what it's like to be a manager

00:19:25

until we become a manager, right?

00:19:27

Do you ever look at your boss and be, like,

00:19:28

"My boss is an idiot?"

00:19:29

And then you get promoted and people

00:19:31

are still saying, "My boss is an idiot."

00:19:35

Uh-huh. I know for me, before I had kids,

00:19:37

I used to judge parents.

00:19:39

I used to judge y'all.

00:19:41

I used to see you guys, like, "Kids are so dirty.

00:19:43

Ugh, what are they eating? Why? Ugh."

00:19:46

And I had this ideal in my head.

00:19:48

I was like, "This is what I'm going to do.

00:19:50

Parenting in my house is going to look like this.

00:19:52

Bedtime. Same time every night.

00:19:55

Praise and worship before bed.

00:19:58

And they're going to end the day

00:19:59

affirming their mother and father,

00:20:01

telling them how godly they are.

00:20:02

That's what's going to happen.

00:20:04

Oh. Oh yeah.

00:20:05

And they're never eating processed meat ever,

00:20:07

only vegetables."

00:20:08

Well, last night at my house, bedtime,

00:20:11

basically between like 7:30

00:20:12

and whenever they run out of gas,

00:20:15

it's mostly a forced prayer.

00:20:17

Like, "Be thankful for something.

00:20:19

Be -- tell God thank you."

00:20:22

And my kids ate hot dogs

00:20:24

and chicken shaped like dinosaurs

00:20:26

like four times last week.

00:20:30

Don't judge me. No, it's --

00:20:32

You don't know what it's like.

00:20:33

You don't know what it's like until you walk in their shoes.

00:20:35

You don't know what it's like

00:20:37

until you connect with the realness

00:20:38

of what they're experiencing.

00:20:39

And so when it comes to the man with the withered hand,

00:20:41

okay, that's one thing, but when it comes to

00:20:43

the religious leaders,

00:20:44

I want to ask you this question.

00:20:46

You might not know what that's like

00:20:47

to be the religious leader and be the expert.

00:20:50

Let me ask you a question.

00:20:52

Have you ever come to church to watch?

00:20:55

Like, have you ever -- Not like you're visiting

00:20:57

and you're like, you're new around here.

00:20:59

If you're new around here, you got to check it out.

00:21:01

You got to make sure it's the right fit for you.

00:21:03

But, like, have you ever come to church

00:21:05

and just been like, "I don't want to participate.

00:21:07

I just want to, like, spectate.

00:21:08

I just want to, like, judge the worship set,

00:21:10

and I just want, oh, so and so is teaching.

00:21:12

Awe, I wish, I wish another person was teaching.

00:21:14

O you look at they go, man, they're talking about that?

00:21:16

Oh, I don't want to talk about that today.

00:21:18

You ever just come to church and watch?

00:21:21

Or how about at work, a place where

00:21:24

we're supposed to contribute and do our thing

00:21:26

and do our best.

00:21:27

You ever just come to work and collect a check

00:21:29

and just judge everything that's happening,

00:21:31

do the bare minimum?

00:21:33

Or how about at home?

00:21:35

You ever go home and you're like

00:21:36

I wish and should and do.

00:21:37

And you wonder why everyone at home

00:21:39

is in a frustrated mood because you're in a frustrated mood.

00:21:43

That ever happened to you?

00:21:45

If that has, I would say this,

00:21:47

you and I, we have more in common

00:21:50

with these religious leaders than we think we do.

00:21:52

There's a little bit of religious leader in all of us.

00:21:55

You see, both groups have a need.

00:21:58

The dude with the withered hand, his need's more evident.

00:22:00

It shows up in his physical body.

00:22:02

The religious leaders, their need shows up

00:22:04

in their attitude and the way they think about stuff.

00:22:07

So before we get to jumping off the cliff

00:22:09

of conclusions of, like, who we are in the story,

00:22:11

I just want to propose both of these people

00:22:15

need a deeper relationship with Jesus.

00:22:17

They're both holding out,

00:22:18

and they both need Jesus to show them a better way.

00:22:21

And the same is true for all of us.

00:22:23

Let's keep going. Let's keep reading the story.

00:22:26

So verse eight.

00:22:44

Scene starts getting a little weird. Okay?

00:22:45

Everyone's sort of in their own bubble

00:22:47

doing the thing, Jesus is teaching.

00:22:49

And He notices these guys have a certain attitude about them.

00:22:52

He notices the guy with the withered hand,

00:22:54

and instead of doing something

00:22:56

to make the awkward, lower it a little bit,

00:22:59

He makes it even more awkward.

00:23:00

You ever met someone who just keeps escalating the weird

00:23:02

and you're like, "I can't, I just can't."

00:23:05

He tells the guy with the withered hand to stand up,

00:23:07

"Hey, come stand here."

00:23:10

Can you imagine being the guy in the room in that moment?

00:23:12

You imagine being him and being like, "Me?

00:23:14

No, He must be --" You ever been like, hi,

00:23:16

and then it's like they're talking to

00:23:18

the person behind you?

00:23:19

Like, "Oh, no, you're talking to me? Oh."

00:23:22

That's awkward.

00:23:24

The man, he asked him to stand up

00:23:27

in front of everyone with his ailment,

00:23:29

with his brokenness.

00:23:33

We don't like awkward. We don't like tension.

00:23:35

A lot of us are always trying to find

00:23:37

that eject button when it comes to tension.

00:23:39

You know what the best eject button

00:23:40

when it comes to tension is as an adult? Your phone.

00:23:42

You ever been somewhere and you're out with couples

00:23:44

and they start arguing and you're like,

00:23:46

"Give me my phone right now.

00:23:47

I'm going to start texting or doing something."

00:23:49

We don't like awkward. We don't like tension.

00:23:52

I was born in the 1900s. Okay?

00:23:55

[laughter] This is important.

00:23:58

And in the 1900s, they did this thing,

00:24:01

they disciplined kids differently.

00:24:02

Okay, not saying it was better or worse,

00:24:04

but it was -- discipline was done differently

00:24:06

in the 1900s.

00:24:07

My mother disciplined us with a house slipper.

00:24:13

She gave us things called syllable spankings.

00:24:15

You ever had a syllable spanking?

00:24:17

Why did you do that again?

00:24:19

I said to wash the dish.

00:24:22

She starts making up words.

00:24:23

I'm like, that's not a word, Mom.

00:24:25

Dishes doesn't have 16 syllables in it.

00:24:27

Just say dishes. Anyway. Bless her.

00:24:30

So, my mom disciplined us with the house slipper.

00:24:32

And you might be thinking,

00:24:33

oh, you have a vision in your head of like,

00:24:35

oh, it was like one of those,

00:24:36

"Hey, this is going to hurt.

00:24:37

And it's going to hurt me more than it hurts you."

00:24:40

No, not in my house.

00:24:42

It was like Stone Cold Steve Austin

00:24:44

kicked in the door and was like, let's go,

00:24:45

you hear the glass, break the whole thing.

00:24:47

And she would come in

00:24:48

and she would start disciplining us, especially

00:24:50

if she gave us really clear instructions. Right?

00:24:52

So what you would do if your sibling

00:24:54

was getting disciplined is

00:24:55

you would try to relieve the tension.

00:24:57

You know how you do that. I'll tell you.

00:24:59

You start reading.

00:25:00

You just pull a book open, preferably the Bible.

00:25:03

Wow. You just start, "Whoa, this is amazing.

00:25:06

Mom, you're doing a great job.

00:25:07

I'm seeing it in here. This is awesome."

00:25:09

Why were we doing that?

00:25:10

Because we didn't know what to do with the awkward, right?

00:25:12

We didn't know what to do with the tension.

00:25:14

We don't like tension.

00:25:15

Here's the thing, here's why that's important.

00:25:17

Jesus is okay with the awkward.

00:25:21

In fact, as you grow in your relationship with Him,

00:25:23

as you go deeper and as you learn

00:25:25

to continue to stretch out, remember,

00:25:28

sometimes it's going to be awkward.

00:25:30

It's going to be uncomfortable.

00:25:31

He asked this guy to stand up who probably did not want to.

00:25:34

You know how awkward it was for religious leaders too.

00:25:36

It's getting real weird and Jesus is okay with that.

00:25:39

So don't eject when you get to the awkward.

00:25:42

So let's continue this story here.

00:25:44

The guy doesn't escape the awkwardness.

00:25:46

He stands in it.

00:25:47

And here's what happens in verse ten.

00:25:49

After looking around at them, He said, Jesus said,

00:25:52

"Stretch out your hand."

00:25:55

He's talking to the guy with the withered hand

00:25:58

who he just asked to stand up.

00:26:00

So he's already challenged him significantly,

00:26:03

and now he's asking him to stretch out his withered hand?

00:26:06

Like why would -- I don't know about you,

00:26:08

but for me, I'd be out. I'm out, dude.

00:26:10

No, you already made it weird for me.

00:26:12

You already challenged me.

00:26:13

You're asking me to do another thing?

00:26:15

You're asking me to go there?

00:26:17

You know how bad this feels?

00:26:19

You know how bad it must feel to have a withered hand,

00:26:22

and you're asking me to stretch this out

00:26:24

in front of all of these people?

00:26:26

You see how intense it would feel

00:26:27

for the man with the withered hand.

00:26:29

And he has a decision to make.

00:26:31

He has a decision to make in this moment.

00:26:33

Is he going to hold out

00:26:35

or is he going to stretch out?

00:26:38

Here's what happens.

00:26:41

And he did so, and his hand was restored.

00:26:44

Now a couple of things to note here.

00:26:46

This guy gets healed, right? His hand gets fixed,

00:26:50

but it doesn't get fixed before he stretches out.

00:26:53

It gets healed after he stretches it out.

00:26:57

Jesus could have simply and easily been like,

00:26:59

"I'm going to heal your hand

00:27:01

and you're going to wave it around

00:27:02

and show everybody how beautiful it is now."

00:27:04

But He doesn't, He says,

00:27:05

"I'm going to call you up here. I'm going to make it awkward.

00:27:07

I'm going to cause you to stretch it out

00:27:10

while it's still messed up.

00:27:11

And that's the place I'm going to meet you.

00:27:13

That's the place I'm going to show My power.

00:27:15

That's where I'm going to take you

00:27:17

deeper into relationship with Me."

00:27:18

In the middle of pushing out the thing

00:27:20

that is broken is the exact spot

00:27:24

that Jesus meets this man.

00:27:25

And He's saying the same thing to me and you.

00:27:27

He's saying, hey, whatever that thing is,

00:27:28

stretch it out.

00:27:30

Hey, whatever's happening right now,

00:27:31

stretch it out. Don't hold out. Stretch out."

00:27:35

This man has a decision to make in the moment,

00:27:37

and he's saying, "I'm going to go for it.

00:27:40

I'm going to do it." He stretches out his hand,

00:27:44

does what Jesus asks him to do

00:27:45

and his whole existence changed.

00:27:47

He didn't ask for evidence.

00:27:49

He didn't say like, "Just promise me

00:27:50

it's going to work out, Lord, promise me."

00:27:53

He said, "I got to go for it. I got to do it."

00:27:56

And so many people today are waiting on a word from God.

00:28:00

And that's good. You should.

00:28:02

You should try to hear from God.

00:28:03

You should try your best to to hear His Words

00:28:06

and to follow His Words.

00:28:07

And while we're waiting on a word from God,

00:28:10

my question to you is:

00:28:11

what have you done with the last thing

00:28:14

He told you to do?

00:28:16

If we're waiting on God

00:28:17

and we're waiting on a word from God,

00:28:19

God is saying, "Hey, what you did with

00:28:20

the last thing I told you

00:28:21

will determine what happens next."

00:28:24

And just like this man could have bailed out any moment,

00:28:28

he stands in the tension.

00:28:30

He stands in the awkward. All of them do.

00:28:32

But the guy who gets the healing

00:28:34

is the guy willing to stretch out.

00:28:35

The person who gets the deeper relationship

00:28:37

with Jesus is the one willing to stretch out for it.

00:28:40

This guy was waiting for an ah-ha moment,

00:28:41

most likely, and he gets one,

00:28:43

but he has to stretch out to do it.

00:28:48

And I was wrestling with like, what story

00:28:52

to share with you guys around this message.

00:28:54

Like, what's the story from my life, right,

00:28:56

that would be like the stretch out go for it message.

00:28:59

And here's what I landed on.

00:29:02

There was a bunch of them I could have gone with,

00:29:04

but I went with this one because I feel like

00:29:06

it's fitting for Independence Day weekend.

00:29:09

And this story starts with a history lesson.

00:29:11

Okay. Sometime between 1845 and 1917,

00:29:15

Great Britain was signing Indians from India

00:29:20

up for what's called indentured servant programs.

00:29:22

Basically, that they would go and ship them

00:29:24

around the world to different parts of the world,

00:29:26

and they would work for five years for free.

00:29:28

And then then at the end of that five years,

00:29:30

they would get a plot of land.

00:29:32

So a lot of people signed up for that,

00:29:33

and specifically in the Caribbean islands.

00:29:36

And so in about 1908, a young man in his 20s

00:29:41

signs up for this program.

00:29:42

Now he signs up for this program

00:29:44

not because he wanted to get rich

00:29:45

or he knew what he was doing.

00:29:47

He signed up for this program because

00:29:48

he felt something in his heart say,

00:29:50

there's something more, there's something more.

00:29:52

There's more vision here.

00:29:53

There's more for my family here.

00:29:54

And he's single at the time,

00:29:56

so he takes a trip from India,

00:29:58

literally halfway across the world,

00:30:00

and he lands in Trinidad and Tobago.

00:30:02

And he cuts cocoa, sugar cane and coffee

00:30:05

and he does his thing and he works there

00:30:07

for five years, he gets his plot of land.

00:30:10

And then in 1975, when this gentleman dies,

00:30:13

he has six kids and something like 30 grandkids.

00:30:17

Wow. And one of those 30 grandkids,

00:30:21

ten years later in 1985, gets the same

00:30:25

kind of like, "There's something more.

00:30:27

There's more here, something deeper here.

00:30:29

I need to figure out what it is."

00:30:30

And he gets the tug on his heart to make a move.

00:30:34

And so what he does is he saves up all the money he has,

00:30:37

and he fills out all the paperwork

00:30:39

and visits the embassy, does all the things

00:30:41

he has to do, gets his papers right

00:30:43

so that he can board a plane

00:30:45

and land in Miami, Florida,

00:30:47

in the United States of America.

00:30:49

Now, when he gets there, he has all his savings

00:30:51

and he goes to to transfer the the money. Right?

00:30:55

For the exchange rate.

00:30:56

What he realizes there is that the exchange rate

00:30:59

is not in his favor.

00:31:00

All of his savings equates to like $800 US.

00:31:03

So this guy's got $800, he's got a suitcase

00:31:05

and he's got a dream for more for his family.

00:31:07

And so in Miami, he meets some people.

00:31:08

They tell him, you got to get out of Miami,

00:31:10

you got to get to Naples.

00:31:11

He gets to Naples, Florida. He shows up on the job site.

00:31:13

He has no idea what he's doing. He's never been to America.

00:31:16

Shows up to the job site.

00:31:17

Foreman says, "Okay, you're here to work.

00:31:18

What can you do?" The guy goes, "I can work."

00:31:20

"Great. Yeah, but like, what job?"

00:31:22

He's like, "I work."

00:31:23

He goes, "Great, here's a shovel. Start working."

00:31:25

He starts digging trenches

00:31:26

and he builds relationships

00:31:28

with the other workers on site.

00:31:30

He ends up crashing on their couches

00:31:31

and crashing in their spare rooms

00:31:33

and crashing on their floors.

00:31:34

And he digs trenches during the day.

00:31:36

He peels potatoes and washes dishes at night.

00:31:38

And he takes every side job he can

00:31:40

and saves every penny he can,

00:31:42

so he could eventually send back for his young family,

00:31:44

his wife and his two young kids,

00:31:47

Now, months later, his wife shows up,

00:31:51

his daughter shows up, and his son shows up.

00:31:53

And the wife in this story, that's my mom,

00:31:58

the daughter in this story, that's my older sister,

00:32:00

the son, the young infant son, that's me.

00:32:03

You see, I stand on the shoulders of people

00:32:05

who stretched out and went for it.

00:32:08

My dad's grandfather migrated

00:32:10

all the way across the world, stretched out and went for it.

00:32:13

My father stretched out and went for it,

00:32:16

and in an environment that he didn't know anything about.

00:32:19

And I'm the beneficiary of it.

00:32:21

You see, we're all beneficiaries

00:32:23

from someone before us, stretching out

00:32:25

whatever they have, going for it,

00:32:26

even when they don't have it all figured out.

00:32:28

Sometimes you just got to stretch out and go.

00:32:30

And I'm not telling you to go travel

00:32:32

all the way across the world to stretch out.

00:32:34

I'm not saying that by any means, because

00:32:36

once I got to Florida, right, once we got there

00:32:38

and we started to get, build a life there,

00:32:40

my aunt, ten years later, she comes to the stage,

00:32:43

she moves here and she's a Christian.

00:32:46

And my aunt stretched out as far

00:32:48

and as hard as she could to make sure

00:32:50

that her niece and nephew were able to attend a church.

00:32:53

She didn't have a car.

00:32:54

My aunt couldn't read or write anything more than her name.

00:32:57

She had the equivalent of like a third grade education,

00:33:00

and she stretched out.

00:33:01

She walked everywhere.

00:33:02

And she would walk and make sure

00:33:03

that we got to where we needed to go.

00:33:05

We got the church.

00:33:06

And it was at this little church in Florida

00:33:08

that other people stretched out.

00:33:11

Guys like Jim Bob. No hyphen, by the way.

00:33:14

Jim Bob, he would pick us up from church

00:33:18

and pick us up from home and take us back and forth.

00:33:21

And he had like a white van he used to take

00:33:23

neighborhood kids to church in.

00:33:24

It was the 1900s. Okay. It was different.

00:33:28

We were fine.

00:33:29

He would do that. You know why?

00:33:31

Because he was stretching out what he had.

00:33:32

He was going for it.

00:33:34

Miss Ruby, a Jamaican woman,

00:33:36

a firecracker of a Jamaican woman,

00:33:37

used to take us to church sometimes.

00:33:39

And then afterwards, McDonald's.

00:33:42

Are you talking about the perfect day?

00:33:45

Stretching out what she had, using what she had.

00:33:47

Kevin Mendez, one time before church,

00:33:48

Kevin Mendez comes to me while I'm a teenager.

00:33:50

He goes, "Hey, Paco, come here.

00:33:52

You're going to go up here and announce the fish fry,

00:33:54

and then after it, you're going to spend

00:33:56

the rest of the time just telling people

00:33:58

what God is doing in your life."

00:33:59

And I was like, "Kev, what's a fish fry?"

00:34:01

And he's like, "It's in the name, dude.

00:34:02

They fry fish. Old people eat it. It's fine.

00:34:04

Tell them that and then tell them

00:34:06

what God is doing in your life."

00:34:07

Okay, fine. I go up there.

00:34:08

"Hey, fish fry, Saturday."

00:34:09

Two minutes and 50s left on the clock.

00:34:11

What am I going to say for two minutes?

00:34:13

I have no idea what I'm doing.

00:34:15

So I just started quoting, like, worship songs.

00:34:18

Like, Amazing Grace. Who's with me? Right?

00:34:23

Jesus loves me, this I know.

00:34:25

Oceans. Who's that?" And I just did that.

00:34:28

You know what Kevin was doing for me

00:34:30

that I didn't realize then, but I realized now?

00:34:32

Kevin was causing me to stretch out a gift

00:34:34

that he saw in me before I saw it in myself.

00:34:37

He gave me a gift that day,

00:34:38

and he continued to cause me to stretch it out.

00:34:40

And guess what I'm doing today?

00:34:42

Guess what I'm doing today in Cincinnati

00:34:44

with a young family trying,

00:34:45

I'm stretching out what I have.

00:34:46

I'm stretching it out to Jesus saying,

00:34:48

"Jesus, this is yours.

00:34:49

You got to do something with it. I got it.

00:34:51

Without it, I got nothing without you, Lord.

00:34:54

I got nothing without You. I need You, Jesus."

00:34:56

I got to stretch this thing out.

00:34:57

Same is true for you.

00:35:00

The best part about this whole thing is that

00:35:03

Jesus never asks us to do anything

00:35:05

that He's not willing to do.

00:35:09

Jesus wasn't just a good teacher and a miracle worker.

00:35:12

Jesus was the Son of God, God in the flesh,

00:35:14

and He stretches out from His heavenly throne

00:35:17

all the way to being born as a baby in a manger.

00:35:23

And then He lives a perfect life.

00:35:26

He never once held out on God.

00:35:27

He never once missed the mark.

00:35:29

He never once didn't go for it.

00:35:32

He lives a perfect life.

00:35:33

And then he stretches out physically on a Cross.

00:35:36

That's important because the wages, the payment

00:35:39

for when you and I miss, the wages and payment

00:35:41

for when you and I hold out for whatever reason,

00:35:44

the scriptures call that the wages,

00:35:46

the payment for that is death. That's not good.

00:35:49

But the gift of God is eternal life.

00:35:50

See, He stretches out in my place.

00:35:53

He stretches out when I couldn't

00:35:55

in a way that I could never do

00:35:57

and that you could never do.

00:35:59

And then He dies there on that Cross.

00:36:01

That's a pretty iconic moment,

00:36:03

Jesus on the Cross in history.

00:36:04

And they take Him down

00:36:05

and they put Him in a burial cloth,

00:36:07

and they put Him in an old tomb,

00:36:08

and they take a rock and they roll it over the tomb.

00:36:11

It's a sad moment.

00:36:13

One day passes. Two days go by.

00:36:17

And on the third day, Jesus stretches out

00:36:21

and He raises from the dead.

00:36:22

It's called Resurrection.

00:36:23

The rock comes rolling off the tomb.

00:36:25

Jesus comes walking out.

00:36:26

Now why does that matter here?

00:36:28

It matters because Jesus is not holding out on you.

00:36:30

He beat even death so He can have

00:36:32

a relationship with you.

00:36:33

That's how much He loves you.

00:36:35

He beat even death so that you would know Him

00:36:38

and know Him deeper and know Him more.

00:36:40

And He's standing here going, "Hey, stretch out,

00:36:42

I got you. Hey, I got you! Stretch out.

00:36:47

I'm not going to take you this far to leave you.

00:36:49

I'm not going to bring you to this spot

00:36:50

to make it awkward and uncomfortable for me

00:36:52

to just make it awkward and uncomfortable.

00:36:54

I got something for you. I got wholeness for you.

00:36:56

I got healing for you.

00:36:59

I got something for you

00:37:00

that you can't even comprehend yet.

00:37:03

Here's what I want to do with

00:37:05

the little bit of time we have left.

00:37:07

Everybody just hold out your hand real quick.

00:37:09

Just hold it out. Hold it.

00:37:10

However you interpret that phrase,

00:37:11

hold out your hand.

00:37:13

Now take that same hand and stretch it out.

00:37:17

Stretch it. Don't hit the person in front of you.

00:37:20

Stretch it like, no, just hold it out further.

00:37:23

Really stretch it. Stretch, stretch.

00:37:27

Yeah, there it is. Stretch.

00:37:29

Feel the difference in your body.

00:37:30

You feel the difference in your physical body

00:37:32

when you stretch it out.

00:37:33

Okay. Put them down. Put it down.

00:37:35

When you hold your hand it out,

00:37:37

when you hold it out, it's still kind of yours.

00:37:39

When you hold it out further, it's still yours.

00:37:41

When you stretch it out, you're saying,

00:37:42

"Jesus, I need you to meet me.

00:37:44

I don't have it, I can't, I need it, I need You, Lord."

00:37:49

And so it would be wild for us to have a talk

00:37:51

like this and not give you an opportunity

00:37:53

to respond and whatever context that might be

00:37:56

for you wherever you are.

00:37:57

And so Justin's here and he's going to lead us

00:38:01

in a few choruses.

00:38:03

And while you're seated, I just want you

00:38:04

to be thinking about like,

00:38:06

am I more like the religious leaders?

00:38:07

Do I have this hold out mentality, like,

00:38:10

I got it all in my brain. I got it all figured out.

00:38:12

I got it all going on in here.

00:38:13

Do I need to go deeper?

00:38:15

Do I need to stretch something out to Jesus

00:38:17

or are you like the dude with the withered hand

00:38:19

where you got a clear need.

00:38:20

Something clearly in your life that feels withered

00:38:23

and you're like I need to stretch this out.

00:38:26

Jesus wants to go deeper.

00:38:28

He wants you to go deeper,

00:38:29

but you got to stretch out to get there.

00:38:31

So as you sing this song,

00:38:33

be thinking about whatever it is.

00:38:34

What do you need to stretch out before God?

00:38:36

Let's sing.

00:40:24

- He loves you a lot, a whole lot.

00:40:29

He wants you to have a deeper relationship with Him.

00:40:31

Let me pray for you. God, thank You for Your love.

00:40:35

Thank you for Jesus. God, we want more.

00:40:38

We want to know you more, Lord,

00:40:41

we want to go deeper.

00:40:42

We don't want to hold out anything,

00:40:44

God. We want to stretch our whole lives out.

00:40:47

We declare that right now that our lives are yours, Lord.

00:40:51

Thank you for your love. Thank you for your grace.

00:40:55

Thank you for your forgiveness, God.

00:40:57

Thank you for the freedom that we find in You.

00:41:01

In Jesus's name, Amen.

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