Navigating Decision Making with God

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads. My name is Rachel.

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- And I'm Andy.

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- And we are so glad that you joined us today.

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You may or may not know this, but Crossroads

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is one church with many locations,

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both physically meeting

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and meeting online all over the world.

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You don't have to be near one of our physical buildings

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to be a real active, known part of our church.

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- Yeah, that's right.

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There are people who open their homes together

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and just share a meal and we call them tables,

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which is just eating together

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and being good friends as part of our church.

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We have people leading watch parties,

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watching the service, the same thing

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you're watching now in their homes

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or dorm rooms with groups of friends.

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That's part of our church.

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We also have people leading groups online,

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going deeper on the weekly teaching

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and asking difficult questions about God,

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or just simply praying and supporting one another.

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It's all part of our church.

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- Yeah. Every month our Anywhere community gathers

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for what we call a night of prayer.

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Which sounds super boring, I admit,

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but I'm telling you, it is one of

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the best things you could do on Zoom.

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We have a powerhouse team of people

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who actually hear from God,

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and you get one on one time with them

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to hear what He might be saying to you personally.

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- Yeah, people show up weary

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and they leave refilled and recharged.

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They show up like wondering if God is real,

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and then they get a message from a stranger

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that shows them that, like, He has to be real,

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offering them something unique in their life.

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They come in maybe wondering like, man,

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what to do about a tough decision,

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and they leave with just a sense of encouragement

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and clarity that they didn't have before.

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- So we'd love for you to join us

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for the next one on August 1st.

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Because church is about so much more than a building.

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God wants to speak to you, and there are

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so many ways for you to be a part of this community

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that we don't want you to miss.

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- Hey, right now we're going to do something

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that we do every week called worship.

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And I know it's easy to press

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the skip to message button,

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but just think about this with me.

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Right now and over the next few hours and days,

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people are going to be watching this same thing

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from all over the globe.

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People are going to be singing the same songs

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and words and truths together,

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even if they're literally oceans apart.

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And that's just so cool.

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- It is. It's amazing.

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So you might be listening in your car

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or watching on vacation or, you know,

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maybe in the bathroom hiding from your children,

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hypothetically. No judgment if so.

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But not skipping this part matters.

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It's powerful.

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It is a chance to actually agree with other people

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following Jesus all over the world

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and tell God we mean these words.

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And to be honest, even if you don't mean them yet,

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it's a good chance to test them and try them out a bit.

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- Yeah, these songs provide language

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for the things we might be feeling,

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but never had quite the words to articulate.

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Or they might say things we know we don't believe yet,

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but that we'd like to.

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So wherever you are, physically

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and wherever you are with God

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and whatever you believe about God,

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man, turn up the music and sing with us.

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- Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to Crossroads.

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If we have not met, my name is Eric

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and I'm so glad you are here.

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To our Anywhere community watching online,

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welcome in, we're so glad that you are here.

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We're in the last week of our summer series,

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Navigating a Life of Faith.

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And one of the ways we navigate that life

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is by responding to the Lord

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and the things that He's done for us.

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One way we do that is through worship

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and through singing songs.

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We're going to start our time today,

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right now, with singing.

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So why don't you stand on your feet

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as we sing some songs to the Lord. come on.

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Lord, thank You for Your truth.

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Thank You that we can stand up here

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and sing about things that can be tough,

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things that can seem far away,

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maybe things that could seem untrue.

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But there's something about singing the truth

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in a space where it's swirling around our minds

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and our brains and I think it's getting us

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and helping us to get to a place where we see it

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and experience it for ourselves,

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that Your truth is just that,

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that you are faithful.

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That doesn't change because of the situations

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of what life might be for me or for any of us.

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Your truth remains the same.

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And so, Lord, I'll sing Your praises

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as long as You will let me.

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I will sing of this truth of who You are,

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the King, the Rock of Ages,

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the One who came to save the world.

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That's who You are. That's who You are.

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And that's why we sing to You,

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because You're worthy of praise.

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It's in Your Son's name we pray. Amen. Amen.

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I love it when we get together in a room like this.

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Why don't you make this place

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feel a little bit smaller.

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Why don't you have five somebody next to you,

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behind you, introduce yourself if you don't know them,

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tell them your name and then you can have a seat.

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- This summer were hitting the road

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and navigating a life of faith together.

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Crossroads is one church with many locations,

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and each week we'll use the map to explore

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a different place and story and hear

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the amazing things that God is doing.

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- Hey, I'm Joel - And I'm Devo.

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And today we're actually heading to Oakley.

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- Oh. All right. Brian is calling right now.

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All right. Hey, Brian. What's going on, man?

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Hey, we're doing what you asked.

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We're hoping to do a good job.

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- Hello? - Think it's a butt dial?

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- Yeah, I think it's a butt dial.

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- Well, just in case. Hey, we're on our way.

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We're coming for that ice cream. I love you. Bye.

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- Oh, I love you.

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- Yeah, can picture of him saying it back.

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I think he probably did. - Probably.

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- All right. What's the icon for today?

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- The icon for this week is a coffee cup

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and it says where it all began.

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- When I think church I do always think coffee now.

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But the truth is, if we're going back

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to where it began, that's not always true.

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This would have, 27 years ago, been revolutionary

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to have coffee inside a church. It's wild.

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And that's why we're heading to Oakley

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to talk to two of the people

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that helped start Crossroads, Vivian and Jim,

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and just to see where it all began.

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- We are with two people, Vivian and Jim Bechtold,

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who have been here longer than Brian Tome himself.

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- I think he's saying we're old.

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- No. - Yes.

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- No. Seasoned.

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- Seasoned. Yes. We're seasoned.

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- Yes. And we would love to know,

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all the way back to the early days,

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how did it all begin?

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- So it started in a Bible study in my house.

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And when I became a Christ follower,

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we just decided that a group of friends

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would get together on a Thursday night.

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And we were shocked at the number of people

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who wanted to come.

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- I think at one point there were like 80 people

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that were crammed into his little house.

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And literally the floorboards started giving way.

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That's how many people were coming.

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- Oh my gosh.

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- And it happened because we were authentic,

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real, and we cared about people.

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And our friends at work, they were not going

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to go to any traditional place.

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They had no interest in that.

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- It went from Mt. Lookout because Brian Wells

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and Nancy Wells, the four of us, went up to Chicago

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to go see Phantom of the opera.

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And when we were there,

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we went to Willow Creek Church,

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and that was one of the first churches

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that was targeted to seekers,

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like, people who didn't go to church.

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And we went to the service there.

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We were like, "Oh, my gosh,

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we need one of these in Cincinnati."

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And so on the drive back, we're like,

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"Someone should start one of these in Cincinnati."

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And then we were just young and stupid enough

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to go, "Maybe we should start it.

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You know, there's all these people

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on the Bible study that would love

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to do something like this."

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- And this is proof for anyone who hears this story

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that God uses nobodies from nowhere.

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And so if he's put on your heart the idea

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of doing something, it doesn't matter

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what your background is,

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what your talent is, He's the one that opens doors.

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- Yes, we had absolutely no background in doing this.

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I mean, it was kind of crazy that it even happened.

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And so we actually started in a middle school

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in the Mt. Lookout area, because we could rent that space.

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It was next door to this monastery, with these nuns.

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And what we found out when we originally started

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this was that these nuns had been praying

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for 30 years that somebody would come,

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that would start a movement.

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- So when you asked the story about Crossroads

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and how it started, really it started because

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they were a group of people 30 years earlier

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who were praying that God would do

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something great in Cincinnati.

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And to this day, those nuns are still praying for us.

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- Now, where does Brian Tome come into this?

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- I knew you were going to ask that.

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- Did he come with the middle school or where did that?

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- So we're going to start this church

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and we, like, look around and go,

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"Well, I guess we need one of those pastor people."

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So we went to that Willow Creek Association.

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Like they had a newsletter that went out

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to a bunch of different pastors,

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and we put an ad in it, and Brian applied.

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- Fortunately, we had faith the size of a mustard seed,

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and we put a deal together to pay for his first year.

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We had no idea where the money was even going to come from.

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- Wow.

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Why does Crossroads stand out today?

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- Well, I think it's actually what we started with,

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which is we want it to be a church

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for people who had given up on church

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but not given up on God.

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And we wanted a place where people could come in

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and feel comfortable exploring their faith.

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So we we do everything short of sin

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to lower any barriers for people coming to visit,

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from serving good coffee to having casual clothes

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to having fun, humor, great music,

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all those things because we are really about,

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you know, connecting seekers,

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or people who are curious about God,

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with a growing community of Christ followers

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who are changing the world.

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- Well, Jim and Vivian, this actually

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doesn't just conclude the interview,

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this concludes our road trip.

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- Yeah, it's kind of sad.

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- Thank you, thank you for being here,

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honestly taking time to be here.

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We're so grateful.

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- You gotta move if you want to grow.

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That's true physically and spiritually.

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This summer, we're looking at

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six important moves you can make

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to experience God more fully.

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And today we're hearing from Alli

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about navigating the tough calls we face in life

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from the book of Isaiah.

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- Hey, Crossroads, great to be with you this weekend.

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My name is Alli Patterson,

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I'm one of the teaching pastors here.

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Great to see you too. Great to see you too.

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All summer we've been looking at different aspects

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of navigating through a life of real faith

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in the real world.

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And today we're talking about making hard calls.

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These places we end up in

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where we just don't know what to do.

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When we use the phrase tough call,

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the last time that phrase actually

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came out of my mouth, my husband was like,

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"Okay, babe, for real, if you could only pick

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one of us to be in bed, who would you want?

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Me or the cat? Like, tell me the truth.

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Just tell me right now."

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And I may have, like, paused for a minute and gone,

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"Um, tough call, tough call, tough call."

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So we use it sarcastically like that, you know,

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to just kind of tease each other a little bit.

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But today is no laughing matter.

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We're really talking about actual tough calls

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in our life, and maybe you have one of those

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in front of you right now.

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Maybe you're losing sleep over a decision

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or a tough scenario in your life.

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And today, what I want for you is

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I want you to know that God uses those

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in every single person of faith,

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every single life that wants to follow Him,

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He uses tough calls to help us grow.

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And so today, I want to get you prepared

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to face your next one a little bit better.

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Let me pray for us.

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Lord, please be here and bring to mind

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the decisions that are right in front of us today

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that You have something to say to us about.

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I ask that Your Spirit would speak

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to each person listening as though it was just for them.

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In Jesus name, Amen.

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Well, I don't think we talk about decision making

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enough, because almost any time you talk to

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a good friend or a family member,

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if you're wrestling with something,

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it's like what just comes out naturally, right?

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It's what's on your mind all the time.

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You might be up in the middle of the night,

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maybe you're just driving along the road

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and your mind just begins to turn over,

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"Should I do this or that, here or there?

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Yes or no? Him or her."

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You know, all of the things that feel like

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kind of forks in the road where we go,

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"Seriously, I really don't know what to do."

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And it seems to come up in our life all the time.

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I think of the ones that have touched me

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or my family or somebody that I know

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just in the past few months, I came up with

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school change decisions, college decisions,

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breakup, should we stay together or should we break up?

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Should I hire this person or should I hire that person?

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Should I work out this conflict between

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my family and my work schedule by doing

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the work thing or the family thing?

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You know, these even small, tough calls

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feel really big in the moment.

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And I want you to know God uses

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these things in our lives all the time.

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If only we could see how do we do this with Him,

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how do we engage God in those moments

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where we're really wrestling with something?

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Because some of them really do push our lives

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one way or the other, and we kind of sense those.

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I was thinking back over many years

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and which, like, tough calls, really jump out at me

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as forks in the road, having pushed my life

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significantly one way or the other.

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And I kept thinking about one particular one.

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It was just such an obvious one.

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It was quite a few years ago now,

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and I had decided to leave my corporate career

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for my first job in ministry.

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I had already accepted my position

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here at Crossroads, and I went into my boss

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and I told her.

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And I left and I had that like, really I'm scared,

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I'm anxious, but I'm also a little bit excited.

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This is a big change.

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I feel relieved I made this call.

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And then I walk in the next morning

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and my boss says, "Hey, can I talk to you?"

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And she brings me into her office.

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And first of all, you need to know that

00:30:22

this is a boss I trusted and respected.

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I thought she was for me.

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She had stuck her neck out for me.

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She had coached me really well.

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Like, this was an actual good boss.

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Those exist. They do.

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And she pulled me into her office and she said,

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"I haven't put the paperwork through.

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I know you told me you were leaving,

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but I need you to know this."

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And she pushes a piece of paper across the table to me.

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And on that piece of paper was my salary curve

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according to how long I'd been in the company

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and what my performance ratings were and all of this.

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And she said, "You are standing right on the edge

00:30:58

of a huge financial increase

00:31:01

and you don't even know it."

00:31:03

And she said, "I couldn't let you walk out the door

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without you seeing this.

00:31:06

Look what is coming. Look at this."

00:31:08

And it was like a bonus structure

00:31:11

and a big pay raise and, you know,

00:31:13

the way they were managing everything.

00:31:15

And I didn't know, but she knew.

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And she called me in and said,

00:31:18

"Now is not the time to go.

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I want you to reconsider."

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Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

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I walked out of her office

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and you can only imagine.

00:31:30

I'm sure you've asked yourself questions like this.

00:31:32

Like, "Did I not make the right decision here?

00:31:37

Did I hear God at all? Maybe this is God.

00:31:40

Is God interrupting me? Does He want me to stay?

00:31:43

Maybe I'm supposed to stay here

00:31:45

and make this money and be a big giver?

00:31:47

I don't know, that doesn't sound bad."

00:31:50

And I just -- I walked out thinking,

00:31:53

"I have no idea what I'm going to do."

00:31:55

Neither one of these is more right or more wrong,

00:31:59

somehow sinful or not, it was more

00:32:02

what am I going to do?

00:32:04

And these are the kinds of decisions that

00:32:06

if I had been a little bit further along

00:32:08

in my faith journey at that time,

00:32:10

I might have suspected that a tough call was coming.

00:32:13

Because any time we make a move toward God,

00:32:16

it just seems like it presents itself.

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And that's because they're part of

00:32:20

navigating through a life of faith.

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Every single one of us.

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I'm not kidding, if God were writing a manual on,

00:32:27

like, the top five things He's going to do

00:32:29

in everybody's life, He would definitely have

00:32:31

a chapter called Expect Hard Decisions

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that Make You Question Everything.

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That would definitely be a chapter.

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Can I digress for just one moment?

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That just reminded me, I keep this note

00:32:42

on my phone, my -- a couple of my good friends

00:32:45

and my kids, we've been keeping this running list

00:32:48

of potential chapter titles for a future book.

00:32:51

Like, everything, every time something

00:32:53

pops out of my mouth, they're like, "Chapter title."

00:32:55

So we keep this running list.

00:32:56

You want to know what one of them is?

00:32:58

The last one I added was actually with

00:32:59

a good friend of mine, and I said to her,

00:33:01

"Nobody over 40 should be wearing bike shorts."

00:33:05

And she goes, "Chapter title."

00:33:07

You'd buy that book, right?

00:33:09

You want to know my kid's favorite one?

00:33:10

I'm totally off the point here.

00:33:12

Got to tell you, my kids' favorite one:

00:33:14

Life Will Go Better If You Keep Your Pants On.

00:33:17

And they were like, "Chapter title."

00:33:19

I was like, "Come on, who would not buy that book?"

00:33:22

Anyway, back to the point.

00:33:25

God uses hard calls and this would be

00:33:27

a chapter in His manual of how to grow you

00:33:30

in your life of faith. It would.

00:33:32

It happens all the time.

00:33:33

So we're going to look at a story today

00:33:35

in the Old Testament where somebody

00:33:37

has to make a really tough call.

00:33:39

And this is one of my favorite stories in Scripture.

00:33:42

I've never gotten the chance to teach it before.

00:33:43

It it just hasn't presented itself.

00:33:45

But for years has been one of my favorite stories.

00:33:48

And it's in the Old Testament

00:33:50

three different times, three times.

00:33:52

Outside the life of Jesus, I can't think

00:33:55

of another story that is in three different books

00:33:57

of the Bible almost exactly the same.

00:34:00

It's in 2 Chronicles, 2 Kings,

00:34:02

and the Book of Isaiah.

00:34:03

And it's repeated so that we can understand

00:34:06

what happens to this guy who is in

00:34:09

probably the worst moment of his life.

00:34:12

But you need a little back story, because

00:34:14

I'm not going to assume that you know

00:34:16

the historical context of where

00:34:18

we're picking this up in the Old Testament.

00:34:20

Okay, so hang with me for a second through the backstory.

00:34:23

What's going on right now is there's a guy named Hezekiah.

00:34:26

He's a king in the nation of Judah.

00:34:29

God's people all through the Old Testament

00:34:31

were the nation of Israel.

00:34:33

But at one point Israel splits into two

00:34:36

and the northern part retains the name of Israel,

00:34:38

and the southern part is called Judah.

00:34:41

But they're all originally God's people,

00:34:43

the nation of Israel.

00:34:44

So this is the king in the nation of Judah,

00:34:48

and the nation of Israel is gone.

00:34:51

It's been conquered about 20 years before this

00:34:54

by the new regional superpower called Assyria.

00:34:58

And Assyria is dominating the landscape.

00:35:01

I mean, like dominating.

00:35:03

And their foreign policy, if you will,

00:35:05

is just absolute brutality.

00:35:08

This is like scary, scary stuff,

00:35:10

not just recorded in the Bible, but actually

00:35:13

in many other places through history,

00:35:15

including things that were recovered

00:35:17

from Assyria itself.

00:35:19

We understand this to be probably

00:35:21

the most brutal regime that might have

00:35:23

ever existed on the face of the Earth.

00:35:25

That's the superpower in the region at this time.

00:35:30

And they're conquering lands.

00:35:32

And Israel's already gone.

00:35:33

And King Hezekiah is getting

00:35:35

increasingly uncomfortable because he's sort of

00:35:38

a hollow leader, he's a vassal of Assyria.

00:35:42

He has to pay tribute to them and, you know,

00:35:45

kind of be under their oppressive thumb.

00:35:47

And he increasingly realizes, "I can't serve God

00:35:51

and this brutal king."

00:35:53

So he begins to collect a coalition

00:35:56

of other smaller nations looking for

00:35:58

a chance to revolt against Assyria.

00:36:01

Egypt is a rising power.

00:36:02

There's multiple other people involved,

00:36:04

so Hezekiah feels like he's got some help.

00:36:06

And they watch for an instance.

00:36:08

And it happens when the king of Assyria dies.

00:36:12

A new king comes in, but they sense

00:36:14

a moment of weakness and they revolt against them.

00:36:19

He prepares his people and his city to face

00:36:22

what he thinks is going to be a coming conflict.

00:36:24

And he believes he has the help

00:36:26

of these other nations who want

00:36:28

out from under the rule as well.

00:36:30

And here they come.

00:36:32

As predicted, the new king comes to put down this revolt,

00:36:36

and he marches across the land

00:36:38

and basically just burns it all out.

00:36:40

He is coming for him, and Hezekiah knows it.

00:36:43

And he seizes and burns the northern cities of Judah.

00:36:46

And he's working his way toward Jerusalem,

00:36:48

where King Hezekiah and a whole city of people are.

00:36:53

And Hezekiah kind of freaks out when he realizes

00:36:56

his help has left him.

00:36:59

He asks for a final price of surrender.

00:37:02

The king gives him one.

00:37:03

He strips the temple.

00:37:05

He gives them all their gold and silver,

00:37:07

and the army shows up anyway.

00:37:09

So here he is without help, absolutely broke,

00:37:14

completely alone in this tiny little pocket

00:37:17

called Judah against the most brutal superpower

00:37:20

that's probably ever existed.

00:37:23

And that's where we pick up the story.

00:37:26

The field commander of the army of King Sennacherib.

00:37:30

That's the name of the king of Assyria,

00:37:32

the one that takes over.

00:37:33

They're right outside Jerusalem.

00:37:35

And I would say they're pretty much

00:37:36

stepping on the neck of the city.

00:37:38

They're just about to cut off the water supply

00:37:41

outside the walls and put the city under siege.

00:37:44

And here are the first words of

00:37:47

the message they send to this King.

00:38:09

How dare you!

00:38:10

Who do you think you are, you little weakling?

00:38:14

Now here's the king of Judah.

00:38:16

And he thought he did the right thing, right?

00:38:18

He thought this was the right thing to do

00:38:21

and he's in this terrible situation.

00:38:23

And when it went wrong, he finds himself

00:38:26

weak, outmanned, outgunned,

00:38:28

completely and absolutely surrounded.

00:38:32

And here's his tough call.

00:38:34

This is what the field commander says next. He says:

00:38:42

What kind of bargain do you think

00:38:44

this is going to be, a good one?

00:38:47

But here's Hezekiah and he's thinking,

00:38:49

"Is this the only way to save my life?

00:38:51

Is this the only way to save my people's lives?

00:38:53

What if they do to us what they've done to everyone else?

00:38:58

And also, where's God?

00:39:01

I thought we were together on this."

00:39:05

And he shows up anyway, after doing everything

00:39:07

he possibly could to do what he thought was right.

00:39:10

This army and this king shows up

00:39:12

and steps right on his neck.

00:39:16

And the questions he must have been asking,

00:39:18

they probably sounded like the ones I asked

00:39:20

on the way out of my boss's office.

00:39:23

Is this God?

00:39:27

Is is this deal that I'm being offered,

00:39:29

is this the way out?

00:39:31

Is God trying to help me through this,

00:39:33

or am I supposed to stay the course?

00:39:35

Do I go this way or that way?

00:39:37

Because I don't know what to do

00:39:39

and there's a lot on the line.

00:39:41

And by a lot, I mean a lot on the line here."

00:39:47

And I know these are the same questions

00:39:48

that keep you up at night because

00:39:50

spiritually speaking, what's going on

00:39:52

in this story is what goes on in all of our lives

00:39:54

when we face these tough calls.

00:39:55

God wants, to some extent,

00:39:57

to back you into a corner so that

00:40:00

you have to answer the question

00:40:03

what am I going to do? How do I navigate this?

00:40:06

How do I engage God in this?

00:40:07

Can I hear Him? Can I follow Him?

00:40:09

And if I do, am I going to survive it?

00:40:12

What's going to happen?"

00:40:14

And so a lot of times I think our friends

00:40:17

and our family and actually just popular wisdom,

00:40:19

they tell us to make a pro con list, right?

00:40:21

Any others? I like a good list.

00:40:23

I'm not anti pro-con list.

00:40:25

I think they can be helpful.

00:40:26

Any other list makers in the room?

00:40:28

Thank you list makers.

00:40:30

I like a good list but I'm not sure

00:40:32

the pro-con list is complete.

00:40:34

It's not that it's unhelpful, it's just incomplete.

00:40:38

So I want to suggest to you from

00:40:40

the rest of this story today three thing

00:40:42

that when you're facing a tough call

00:40:44

you need to evaluate.

00:40:46

We see them all in this story

00:40:48

and also how Hezekiah engages God

00:40:50

as we get each of these three pieces of information.

00:40:52

So make your pro-con list, but I want you

00:40:58

to do these three things as well.

00:41:00

The first one is to see patterns of the past.

00:41:04

This is a piece of wisdom for us in tough calls,

00:41:07

patterns of the past.

00:41:08

We actually get a little bit of a snippet

00:41:11

before this story is told.

00:41:14

Here's what we find out.

00:41:39

Now why is this pattern of his past important?

00:41:42

Why is who he's been being important?

00:41:45

Because in tough calls we freak out.

00:41:48

Like, we freak out. We can't think straight.

00:41:50

We don't know what end is up.

00:41:52

We're stressed out about what we're going to do.

00:41:55

And one of the things that we see in this story

00:41:58

is we get this information about the past.

00:42:00

As a matter of fact, if you keep reading,

00:42:02

you learn that Hezekiah was so faithful,

00:42:04

he actually cleanses the nation of Judah

00:42:07

of any other worship.

00:42:08

He rips down altars of other gods.

00:42:11

He brings the worship back to the temple.

00:42:13

He reinstates the law.

00:42:15

He has been a good king.

00:42:18

And he's actually brought people back to God.

00:42:23

So what's that got to do with his tough call?

00:42:26

Despite the fact that he's backed into a corner,

00:42:28

he really doesn't have any other reason

00:42:31

to suspect that God isn't going to show up for him.

00:42:35

He's got patterns to their relationship.

00:42:38

He knows who he's been.

00:42:39

He knows who God has been.

00:42:41

He certainly knows who Assyria has been.

00:42:44

He has plenty of track record to draw on here.

00:42:48

Do you know that in the scriptures we're told

00:42:50

from beginning of the Bible to the end,

00:42:52

over 1200 times in some form to remember, remember.

00:42:58

We are so prone to forget, and God knows this.

00:43:02

And so one of the things that He encourages

00:43:04

us to do in the middle of tough calls like this

00:43:06

is stop, deep breath, remember what's been going on.

00:43:10

And in Hezekiah's case, Hezekiah has been faithful

00:43:13

and God has been faithful to him.

00:43:17

And there's really no evidence to suggest that

00:43:20

anything different is going to take place here.

00:43:22

Except he's freaking out.

00:43:26

But what happens when you enter a tough call

00:43:29

and that's not been your pattern?

00:43:31

Sometimes that is the case in our life, right?

00:43:33

We're disconnected from God. We're not --

00:43:35

We don't sound like that.

00:43:37

We haven't been super obedient. Right?

00:43:39

And I would tell you, if that's you

00:43:41

and especially if you're facing one,

00:43:43

there is an open invitation for you

00:43:46

into the kind of relationship that

00:43:49

we just described here between Hezekiah and God.

00:43:53

And it's through the doorway of Jesus Christ,

00:43:57

in Christ is where we get the promises that

00:43:59

would give us this kind of relationship,

00:44:01

that He will never leave us or forsake us,

00:44:04

that He works all things together

00:44:06

for the good of those who are called

00:44:08

according to His purpose.

00:44:09

These are promises that are over your life

00:44:13

when you are in Christ.

00:44:15

And so as you embrace those

00:44:17

and you come into relationship with Him,

00:44:19

the same is true for you.

00:44:21

You can expect that God is going to be faithful,

00:44:24

and over time, you can build up a track record

00:44:27

so that when you have your next tough call,

00:44:29

you can look back and go, "Wait a second,

00:44:31

God has been faithful."

00:44:34

And that's what Hezekiah needs to do right now.

00:44:37

We'll see if he actually does it.

00:44:39

So you've got to look at the past and the present.

00:44:43

There's something that goes on

00:44:45

in every single tough call of the present,

00:44:47

and we see it so deeply and so richly

00:44:50

in what happens next.

00:44:51

Hezekiah has gotten the intro to the speech.

00:44:54

How dare you! I'm the king of Assyria,

00:44:58

you little weakling! Who do you think you are?

00:45:00

But you know what, I'm going to offer you a deal.

00:45:03

Let's talk.

00:45:05

And then the field commander goes on.

00:45:07

And the rest of his speech,

00:45:10

or at least the bulk of it, is like

00:45:11

a master class in psychological manipulation.

00:45:16

He pushes every single button

00:45:19

you could possibly try to push

00:45:21

and all of it is about undermining Hezekiah's trust.

00:45:25

Trust in what? Anything.

00:45:27

Trust in himself.

00:45:29

Trust in other nations he was partnered with,

00:45:32

trust in even God Himself.

00:45:35

There's an all out assault on trust in this speech.

00:45:40

And you have an enemy who's going to talk to you

00:45:43

exactly the same way. Exactly the same way.

00:45:46

When you're in the middle of a tough call,

00:45:48

you can expect the voice of your enemy

00:45:50

to be giving you speeches like we're about to read.

00:45:55

And the tactics in this speech are really simple,

00:45:58

and you know them very, very well already:

00:46:00

fear, doubt and shame.

00:46:05

Fear, doubt and shame.

00:46:07

Fear, doubt and shame.

00:46:09

This is what the voice of your enemy speaks

00:46:11

to just completely undermine anything

00:46:15

that you are trusting in during this time.

00:46:17

And we see these in the speech.

00:46:19

But I asked my husband, "What is the toughest call

00:46:23

you think we've ever had in our marriage?

00:46:25

Like, what have we faced that you would --

00:46:27

What jumps right to mind?"

00:46:28

I like to talk to him about what I'm teaching.

00:46:30

And he was like, "Oh!"

00:46:32

He's usually a thinker. Like, "Let me think about that

00:46:34

and we'll talk about it tomorrow."

00:46:36

This was an immediate answer. Immediate, very unusual.

00:46:39

He said, "Hands down, whether we should stay married.

00:46:44

Toughest call I've ever faced and we've ever faced."

00:46:47

And what he was referring to,

00:46:49

some of you know my story a little bit,

00:46:50

was an affair that I had very early on in,

00:46:53

like, the early years of our marriage.

00:46:55

And talk about the trio of fear, doubt and shame.

00:46:59

We heard it all.

00:47:02

You'll never recover.

00:47:04

You'll never be happy again.

00:47:06

You can't trust her.

00:47:07

She's not worth it.

00:47:09

Nobody. Nobody recovers from this.

00:47:14

This is the one thing you just can't get over.

00:47:18

We heard person after person

00:47:20

and in the quiet of our own minds and hearts,

00:47:24

fear, doubt and shame over and over and over again.

00:47:28

Do you want to know the best marriage advice

00:47:30

we didn't have at the time,

00:47:31

but the best one I've heard since?

00:47:33

I wish somebody had told us this when we first got married.

00:47:37

I heard somebody say to a young couple

00:47:38

who's about to get married, he said,

00:47:40

"Let me give you some advice.

00:47:41

Today is the day that you need to decide

00:47:44

what you're going to do when you wake up

00:47:46

and wonder why you married the person next to you."

00:47:50

Right, married people?

00:47:52

That day is probably coming if it hasn't already,

00:47:56

when you wake up and go, "What in the world

00:47:58

was I thinking with you?" Right?

00:48:03

I know you know I'm right,

00:48:05

you're just sitting with them.

00:48:09

Why did he say that?

00:48:11

Why do I think that's such great advice?

00:48:12

Because the voices of fear and doubt and shame

00:48:16

are not trying to undermine your trust

00:48:19

in God's ability to get you out of that place,

00:48:21

in God's trustworthiness, in your ability

00:48:25

to receive from God forgiveness and reconciliation

00:48:29

and love and unity and all of the things

00:48:32

that you need to recover from anything you face.

00:48:35

They're not talking to you when you're getting married.

00:48:38

They start yapping when something goes wrong.

00:48:42

And that's exactly what happens to Hezekiah.

00:48:44

I want you to hear what this --

00:48:47

What this commander from the king is saying to him.

00:48:50

These voices just sound so right in the moment,

00:48:53

don't they? They sound almost reasonable.

00:48:55

But when you really pull them apart,

00:48:57

they are fear, doubt and shame

00:48:59

over and over and over again.

00:49:00

I think it would be great if you're facing

00:49:02

a tough call in your life for you to actually

00:49:04

say out loud what you're thinking and your thoughts,

00:49:07

write them down, get them out

00:49:09

so you can actually look at

00:49:11

how many of them are that.

00:49:13

So here's what he says

00:49:14

in just a few snippets of this speech. Fear.

00:49:18

He tells the people and Hezekiah all around,

00:49:21

you're going to have to eat your own excrement

00:49:23

and drink your own urine when we're done with this city.

00:49:27

Wow.

00:49:30

A few verses later, he talks shame.

00:49:32

Shame is you're never good enough.

00:49:34

You're not good enough.

00:49:35

He actually mocks him and says,

00:49:37

"I will give you 2000 horses

00:49:40

if you can even put riders on them."

00:49:43

You're so small. You're so weak.

00:49:46

You are so worthless.

00:49:47

You could never overcome this.

00:49:49

That's the voice of shame.

00:49:52

And the last one? Doubt. Oh my goodness.

00:49:54

Undermining trust in almost anything.

00:49:56

The commander does this a lot. He says:

00:50:04

Such as Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him.

00:50:09

But if you say to me,

00:50:10

"We are depending on the Lord our God,"

00:50:14

isn't He the one whose high places

00:50:15

and altars Hezekiah removed,

00:50:18

saying to Judah and Jerusalem,

00:50:20

"You must worship at this altar in Jerusalem?"

00:50:22

Now this is really interesting.

00:50:26

The first part very clear.

00:50:28

He says, "Egypt, these other people

00:50:30

you think you're relying on.

00:50:31

Nah. You can't. You're done."

00:50:35

Part two, he tips his hand.

00:50:39

We can actually see here that he's saying

00:50:43

something that isn't entirely true.

00:50:45

Now, he recalls what I told you,

00:50:47

the cleansing that Hezekiah did of the nation

00:50:50

where he tore down the other places of worship,

00:50:52

and he reinstated the temple worship in the correct way.

00:50:57

But this commander doesn't understand the Jewish faith.

00:51:00

He doesn't understand the Jewish law,

00:51:02

or he does, and he's purposely manipulating it.

00:51:06

He's accusing him of doing something wrong

00:51:09

when he did that.

00:51:10

He's saying, "God is angry with you for doing that.

00:51:13

That you've incurred the wrath,

00:51:15

and that's why you're facing what you're facing."

00:51:17

Is this true? No.

00:51:21

But can Hezekiah hear that in the moment?

00:51:25

It's an accusation that God is mad at him,

00:51:29

that he's done wrong, that the things he did

00:51:31

to try to please God were actually disobedience,

00:51:34

were actually making God angry.

00:51:36

This is not correct. This is a lie.

00:51:38

This is what the voice of your enemy will do

00:51:41

when you are in a tough call.

00:51:44

He'll use anything in your life to twist it

00:51:47

and turn it and seed doubt into your path.

00:51:51

And that's precisely what is happening here with Hezekiah.

00:51:54

The only way around this in our tough calls

00:51:57

is to become someone who deeply knows God,

00:52:01

who intimately knows God.

00:52:04

We're not clear precisely whether Hezekiah

00:52:08

sees and gets this

00:52:09

because it's embedded in the speech,

00:52:11

but I hope he did. I hope he --

00:52:14

It seems like he could.

00:52:15

It seems like he could say, "You know what?

00:52:17

That's actually not true."

00:52:20

And this is what we have to do.

00:52:22

We got to check these voices that come at us

00:52:24

in our tough call moments, because sometimes

00:52:27

they're whispering things that just simply aren't true.

00:52:31

But the only way we know that is to pull them out,

00:52:34

write them on a piece of paper,

00:52:36

or say them out loud,

00:52:37

and check it against the Word of God.

00:52:39

Is that what God says about me?

00:52:41

Is that what God thinks about my past?

00:52:43

Is that what God's plans for my future say?

00:52:46

Or is this fear, doubt, and shame?

00:52:51

These are the mind games that the field commander

00:52:55

is playing with Hezekiah in this speech.

00:52:57

So you got to look at the patterns of the past,

00:53:00

get the mind games out of the present.

00:53:04

And one more thing, you have to seek God for the future.

00:53:11

Seek God for the future.

00:53:13

And I want to underline God because

00:53:16

the tough calls, what we're looking for is

00:53:18

we want to know if it's going to work out, right?

00:53:21

We want to know if I go that way

00:53:23

or if I go that way, I can tell what's going to happen.

00:53:28

It's better for me.

00:53:29

We don't know and so it creates

00:53:31

all that anxiety of trying to decide, right?

00:53:33

Should I stay with him or not?

00:53:35

Should I move there or not?

00:53:38

Do I hire this person or not?

00:53:41

Do I stay where I am or do I completely change my path?

00:53:46

These moments where anxiety comes,

00:53:49

we want the picture of the future.

00:53:51

Sennacherib, the king, he sends him

00:53:54

a picture of the future that he's promising.

00:53:56

Now you tell me if this sounds right.

00:54:23

There's something very, very wrong

00:54:25

with that picture from the most brutal regime

00:54:28

that has ever lived, I don't think this is

00:54:31

what it's going to look like,

00:54:32

but this is the picture he paints for Hezekiah.

00:54:34

He's trying to give him a picture of the future

00:54:37

and ask him to buy into it.

00:54:38

"Come on now, let's not do this the hard way.

00:54:41

This this is going to be good.

00:54:43

It's going to look good."

00:54:44

Now, this is his version.

00:54:47

But what happens here is it sends Hezekiah

00:54:51

looking for another one, "Is this the right one?"

00:54:55

This is what my boss did, right?

00:54:57

Unknowingly and out of the best intentions

00:54:59

of her heart, she presented me

00:55:01

another picture of my future

00:55:03

when she pushed the salary curve

00:55:06

across the table at me and she said,

00:55:09

"Look what you're on the verge of.

00:55:11

You can't walk away from this."

00:55:15

I walked away thinking, "I got a picture of that future.

00:55:20

I can make up a lot of scenarios that sound like this.

00:55:24

This sounds not bad at all. Not bad at all."

00:55:26

We get attached to these pictures of our future

00:55:28

that we would really like, right?

00:55:31

Hezekiah is probably tempted here to believe this.

00:55:33

"What if I surrender?

00:55:34

If I surrender, is that right,

00:55:36

because that doesn't sound so bad?

00:55:38

If I stay, is that a better picture of my future

00:55:42

than the other way? Maybe."

00:55:46

But Hezekiah's instinct,

00:55:48

this might be the most important thing in the story.

00:55:50

It might be the most important moment of his life.

00:55:53

His instinct was not to swallow that one.

00:55:55

His instinct was not to go with his own.

00:55:58

His instinct was to go to God.

00:56:01

What Hezekiah did was he sought

00:56:04

God's picture of his future, not the king's,

00:56:08

not the one he wanted to take place, but God's.

00:56:11

Now, Hezekiah would have had some history.

00:56:14

And I'll just tell you, sometimes God says,

00:56:16

"You know what? You're done.

00:56:19

That army's going to conquer you.

00:56:21

Your child's going to die."

00:56:22

It's risky to seek God.

00:56:24

He's not always going to give you the rosy picture

00:56:27

that this king just painted.

00:56:30

And so Hezekiah's faith drives him to God.

00:56:33

Here's what it says. It says:

00:56:41

Running to the temple is like

00:56:42

running straight into the presence of God.

00:56:45

It would be like you running into your house,

00:56:47

hitting your knees and going, "God, really?

00:56:52

I'm here, I need You."

00:56:54

And as a matter of fact,

00:56:55

have you done that with your tough call?

00:57:00

I will look back on my life of faith

00:57:02

and I think how many times, oddly,

00:57:05

even though I didn't really do anything,

00:57:09

that something seemed to have shifted

00:57:11

between me and God when I have a moment like this.

00:57:16

When I hit my face and I tell Him, "I need You.

00:57:20

I don't know what to do."

00:57:21

And this is exactly what Hezekiah does.

00:57:24

He seeks God's word from any place he can get it.

00:57:26

He goes into the temple and the other place

00:57:28

he seeks it is through the prophet Isaiah,

00:57:30

which is why we get this story also in the book of Isaiah.

00:57:33

Isaiah tells this story as well,

00:57:35

and he doesn't sugarcoat it.

00:57:36

He sends this message to the prophet Isaiah saying,

00:57:39

"Give me some words from God.

00:57:41

Tell me the picture of the future, if you can.

00:57:44

Do you have anything to say?

00:57:45

Because I need God right now."

00:57:47

And he says:

00:57:56

He says to Isaiah, "It's ugly up in here."

00:58:00

And he throws it all at God's feet

00:58:03

and he asks Isaiah, "Can you help me see ahead?

00:58:06

What does God say about my future?"

00:58:08

And he confesses that the future

00:58:10

is completely out of his control.

00:58:12

And we just hate that, don't we?

00:58:15

We hate those moments.

00:58:19

But he throws it at the feet

00:58:22

of the only person who can control it.

00:58:26

He throws everything down before God,

00:58:28

and we get the answer to the question.

00:58:31

The question that came out

00:58:32

of the field commander's mouth.

00:58:34

I read it to you when he first started talking.

00:58:36

I'm going to read it to you again, he says

00:58:38

on what are you basing this confidence of yours?

00:58:41

And he means it kind of sarcastically as a jab,

00:58:44

like you are nothing.

00:58:46

But that is a great question:

00:58:49

on what are you basing this confidence of yours?

00:58:52

Tough calls force us to answer it.

00:58:55

Tough calls force us to answer that question:

00:58:57

on what are you basing your confidence?

00:59:03

Where really is it?

00:59:05

Is it in God or is it in something else?

00:59:08

So Isaiah sends the king his words.

00:59:12

He tells him keep trusting God.

00:59:14

He encourages him.

00:59:15

He's going to be faithful.

00:59:17

Keep trusting God.

00:59:18

And then the king Sennacherib, he sends him

00:59:20

a final slew of threats.

00:59:22

And then we get his final answer to the tough call.

00:59:25

What is Hezekiah going to do?

00:59:27

And here's what he says. He says to God:

00:59:40

This is his declaration of trust.

00:59:42

He says, "Whatever is going to happen, I'm with You.

00:59:45

Whatever it's going to take to stay with You

00:59:47

and trust You and go Your direction,

00:59:49

I'm in because You're the King.

00:59:51

You're the King over Sennacherib.

00:59:52

You're the King over me.

00:59:54

You're the King over this whole region.

00:59:55

You're the king over Judah.

00:59:56

You're the king over Assyria.

00:59:58

You are the one over everything.

01:00:00

You're the one that decides the future.

01:00:03

You're the one that's been present in the past.

01:00:05

You're the one whose wisdom is helping me see right now.

01:00:08

And if you ask me, the end has to play out,

01:00:11

but the tough call is actually over right here

01:00:15

because he makes his decision.

01:00:18

He says, "Whichever way means

01:00:23

I have to trust more in God, that's the right way."

01:00:28

And so he holds his position.

01:00:30

He trusts in God. He throws it all at Him.

01:00:33

And the problem that we have with this story

01:00:35

is we don't like this.

01:00:37

We would much rather have a bumper sticker,

01:00:39

that's what I call it.

01:00:41

Like when, you know, I'm not saying

01:00:43

God will never do this, but when He speaks

01:00:45

and He'll give you, like, you know,

01:00:47

a short phrase that you can put on a bumper sticker,

01:00:50

turn left, break up, move anyway,

01:00:54

you know, whatever, it's -- That's what we want, right?

01:00:57

Of course we want the answer,

01:01:00

like, clear and simple, plain as day,

01:01:02

slap it on a bumper sticker and move on.

01:01:06

And instead, this is what God wants.

01:01:10

God wants this moment right here.

01:01:13

He wants the moment you say,

01:01:15

"Whichever direction causes me to put

01:01:17

more trust in You, that's the way I'm going.

01:01:20

Because you're the King of kings.

01:01:21

You're the Lord of lords."

01:01:22

And the question under every question,

01:01:25

under every tough call is who do you trust on?

01:01:31

What are you basing your confidence?

01:01:35

And God keeps putting us in these tough calls,

01:01:37

hoping we're going to risk it on Him,

01:01:39

hoping you're going to go all in,

01:01:41

hoping that this time, this time might be

01:01:43

the time that you seek Him, that you hit your face

01:01:46

and that you go all in on Him, on trusting Him.

01:01:52

And that's why they tend to show up at our lives

01:01:54

in moments where we're moving

01:01:56

and in moments where God is seeking us in a new way

01:02:00

because He wants us to get to this point.

01:02:04

And rest assured, you're in good company.

01:02:07

This was not just you and me.

01:02:08

It's not just Hezekiah. It was Jesus too.

01:02:10

Do you know what happened at the beginning of his ministry?

01:02:13

It says the funniest thing.

01:02:15

It says the Spirit of God

01:02:17

led Him into the wilderness,

01:02:19

and He was there fasting for 40 days.

01:02:21

God purposely put Him in a position

01:02:24

where he was going to be weak and hungry,

01:02:26

and then guess who shows up? His enemy.

01:02:31

His enemy shows up and he starts

01:02:34

offering Him a picture of the future.

01:02:36

"All of this can be Yours.

01:02:38

I've got bread for You,

01:02:40

if You'll just do it on my terms.

01:02:41

If You'll just come my way, we can do this.

01:02:44

All it's going to take is just worshiping me,

01:02:47

letting go of that God thing You have going on."

01:02:50

And he sounds a lot like the enemy

01:02:54

that gave the speech to Hezekiah.

01:02:58

"Can you really trust God?

01:02:59

Are you really His?

01:03:02

Does He really love you?

01:03:03

Is He really going to come through for you?"

01:03:05

It's all the same stuff.

01:03:09

And God doesn't look very trustworthy in those moments.

01:03:12

But Jesus practiced.

01:03:13

He practiced then, and he practiced

01:03:16

over and over and over and over

01:03:18

through the years of His public ministry,

01:03:20

trusting God until He came

01:03:22

down to the final tough call.

01:03:24

And the final tough call is when

01:03:25

the Cross was in front of Him,

01:03:27

and it looked like staying obedient to His Father

01:03:30

was going to cost him his life.

01:03:32

And it was going to be brutal.

01:03:35

And there was an enemy breathing down His neck,

01:03:37

an enemy who wanted His life,

01:03:39

exactly like Hezekiah,

01:03:41

exactly like Sennacherib.

01:03:44

And guess what? Their stories,

01:03:45

they actually end the same way.

01:03:48

You know what happens to Hezekiah the next day?

01:03:50

God intervenes, the Assyrian camp,

01:03:53

185,000 soldiers die overnight.

01:03:56

He gets up, he marches home,

01:03:58

and his own son kills him shortly after.

01:04:01

And God looked pretty trustworthy.

01:04:04

And when Jesus comes to the Cross

01:04:08

and He goes in trust, and He loses His life.

01:04:13

And then three days later, He stands up

01:04:15

and walks out of the grave.

01:04:16

I'm thinking God looked pretty trustworthy

01:04:18

on that day, right?

01:04:20

And this is exactly what He's after in our life.

01:04:23

That all the way down to the very last tough call

01:04:28

you're ever going to make,

01:04:29

your trust will set up what only God can do,

01:04:34

what only God can do.

01:04:36

And these stories end with God doing things

01:04:38

on His way, on His timing, with His resources

01:04:42

and His power and His might and His counsel.

01:04:44

I'll add mine, 25 years into a marriage

01:04:47

that most people said was over,

01:04:49

God looks pretty trustworthy.

01:04:51

19 years after walking away from the career

01:04:54

that I thought I was building,

01:04:55

God looks pretty trustworthy.

01:05:00

And you're going to face a tough call,

01:05:02

a fork in the road,

01:05:03

it's going to be small, medium or large.

01:05:06

And the question is

01:05:08

is He going to look trustworthy to you?

01:05:11

Let me pray for you.

01:05:13

Lord, we trust You.

01:05:18

We believe Your Word above anything else.

01:05:21

You're the Lord, the King,

01:05:24

and help us to remember that

01:05:26

when we face our next tough call.

01:05:28

I pray that You would push us in Your direction,

01:05:30

that You would never give up on us,

01:05:32

even though we've ignored You

01:05:34

and gone our own way so many times.

01:05:36

I pray You would give us another chance

01:05:38

to go all in on You. In Jesus name, Amen.

01:05:44

Well, Oakley, it's always awesome to be here with you.

01:05:49

Yes. This is it.

01:05:51

This is it for our Navigating a Life series.

01:05:53

But never fear,

01:05:54

you're not going to want to miss next week.

01:05:56

Just trust me when I tell you that.

01:05:58

And I'll actually see you back here in two.

01:06:00

So, see you soon.

01:06:02

- Hey, thank you so much for watching with us today.

01:06:04

If any part of today's teaching or worship

01:06:07

or message impacted you or resonated with you,

01:06:09

man, we'd love for you to share it with a friend

01:06:11

or someone that you think might just personally

01:06:14

benefit from seeing this for themselves.

01:06:17

- And if you'd like to talk to somebody

01:06:18

from our team or receive prayer,

01:06:20

you can do that in the chat at crossroads.net

01:06:22

or email either of us directly

01:06:24

Rachel.Ryder@crossroads.net

01:06:26

or Andy.Reider@crossroads.net.

01:06:28

- Yeah, our hope and our prayer for each week

01:06:31

is that you're experiencing growth

01:06:33

in becoming more of the person who God made you to be.

01:06:36

And one of the best ways,

01:06:38

and depending on your personality,

01:06:39

one of the most fun ways we believe

01:06:41

that you can grow is by choosing to Go.

01:06:44

- Yes, when it comes to solving

01:06:47

the big problems of injustice and poverty

01:06:49

and exploitation, people always think

01:06:52

someone else will step in.

01:06:54

Well, congratulations, today you get to be

01:06:57

that someone else because the church,

01:06:59

not just Crossroads, the church all across the world,

01:07:01

is God's plan for restoration and healing in the world.

01:07:04

And that's why we Go. - Yeah, yeah.

01:07:07

You can check out all of our Go Trips,

01:07:09

both global and domestic at Crossroads.net/Trips.

01:07:13

This is an invitation to step into

01:07:15

an adventure with God, like,

01:07:17

to be a part of changing someone's life.

01:07:19

And man, it usually changes your life to.

01:07:22

- Another way you can create a huge impact

01:07:24

around the world is through giving.

01:07:26

And for those of you who give,

01:07:27

you are making an incredible difference

01:07:29

that probably goes so much further than you even know.

01:07:32

So if you'd like to join us in giving,

01:07:33

you can go to crossroads.net/give

01:07:35

or check it out just to understand

01:07:37

what we believe about money

01:07:39

and this practice we called Living Generously.

01:07:41

- Yeah. Hey, thank you so much for joining us.

01:07:43

We'll see you back next week.

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