Our Foundation | Rock Solid Week 2

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- Today we're tackling a phenomenon that's making

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national headlines and hitting close to home.

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It's called deconstruction.

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It's a disassembling of

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previously held beliefs about God.

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And let me make this crystal clear right up front,

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Crossroads is a safe place and it's a judgment free community.

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And if you're in this space of

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deconstructing, you are in the right place.

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In fact, before I go any further,

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if I can help you with this issue or any other

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in my life, this is my actual email address.

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Email me and I will respond back to you.

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See, at Crossroads we're a new kind of church,

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a community that you can join no matter where you live

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or what you believe.

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Stick around at the end of this video for more on that.

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Well, there are plenty of people upset about deconstruction

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and loads of articles and videos railing against it.

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This isn't that, because it turns out that deconstructing

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is also deeply unsettling

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to the people experiencing it for themselves.

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I mean, just think, what if one day you woke

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up and you no longer believed, like, any of it.

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That God's real, that faith is possible,

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that you have a purpose in life.

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What if the faith that once felt like the rock solid foundation

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under your feet just washed out

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like sand pulled out in the tide?

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This is happening everywhere,

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but there's actually two outcomes.

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See, some people question their beliefs,

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deconstruct them, and they never stop.

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It's like somebody who sets out to remodel a house,

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rips out the kitchen, then the bathroom, then the roof,

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then the walls and the foundations

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until there's nothing left but a hole in the sand

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and a pile of rubble by a dumpster.

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Others, and I put myself in this camp,

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question their beliefs, deconstruct them,

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and actually end up with more faith and a richer life.

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It's like a house remodel.

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We deconstruct what was there, usually something

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that was built a long time ago

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in order to build back something better.

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I, in my life, have deconstructed

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pieces of old beliefs.

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In fact, I'll tell you about some of those in a few minutes,

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and I've actually found a richer life in a deeper faith.

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I've also personally seen friends shipwrecked

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who end up at the other end of the spectrum,

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not with a better life, but with an emptier life

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and the tragic loss of joy, hope, and faith.

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So what determines whether you end up

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with a stronger faith or none at all?

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I think it all comes down to

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which kind of God are you seeking?

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And there's actually two types of

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God that people go looking for.

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One of them will absolutely fail you.

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The other will lead to life.

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Now I'm going to unpack those two types of gods

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and the faith behind them in just a few minutes.

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But I need to make this clear,

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I believe deconstruction is a practice

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that God actually wants for all of us.

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He wants us to question, search, and ask,

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and find better beliefs than the

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one we built our life on right now.

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In fact, I'm willing to bet that there are some things

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God wants to deconstruct about how you currently

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understand and interact with Him, and me too.

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This episode is going to give you the framework

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to take apart the false beliefs

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and end up with more faith, more joy,

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and greater confidence in God's existence

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and goodness towards you.

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This episode is for you if you've

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ever wanted a stronger faith,

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or if you've had increasing doubts,

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or if you have friends or family who are deconstructing,

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it's going to help you understand what's happening,

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why and what I believe God intends.

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By the way, at the end of this video,

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we'll be taking communion together.

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Communion is this ancient practice

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that usually involves bread and wine.

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But if you don't have bread and you don't have wine,

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don't worry, just grab something to drink

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and something to eat,

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and we'll do this together at the end.

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For now, I want to pray for us before we go any further.

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God, would You be with us

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and would You reveal Yourself to us today,

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Your truth, who You really are?

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We want deeper faith, a richer life.

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Give us that. Amen.

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Now the thing about deconstruction is it's not new.

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It's been happening for as long as Christianity has existed.

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In fact, Jesus actually predicted it would happen

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in one of his most famous parables.

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Maybe you've heard this before.

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It's from Matthew 7:24, it says,

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Now hang with me for a second on this, hang with me.

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I like Jesus and what He teaches,

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but can I be honest for a second?

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This metaphor of the rock and the sand

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is kind of dumb, right?

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I mean, this sand is kind of obviously not this.

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By the way, plastic, real rock, plastic, real rock.

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Okay, now we've got that.

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This is obvious, right?

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This sand right here, that's sand,

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there we go, is very different from this, right?

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I mean, who would intentionally

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build their life on sand?

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Nobody.

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Was He -- I think that Jesus is actually talking

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about something a little bit more nuanced here.

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See, because nobody sets out and anchors their life

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into something unstable.

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But many of us unintentionally end up

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anchoring ourselves to this kind of sand,

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the kind that's been compacted together over time,

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the kind that looks like it's rock,

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which is what this is, this is a paver,

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literally sand smashed together.

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See, the problem is, Jesus says the winds will come,

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the rains will come, and they'll beat on that.

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And when they do, it breaks.

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It doesn't actually hold up.

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Now, the winds are questions and doubts.

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They're the things that Jesus says will come our way.

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And I want to be clear, He says, the key is

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to sink deep foundations into the rock, not the sand.

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And the rock is His words.

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Now a great question to ask then is:

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which words, Jesus?

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Now here for sure, I think Jesus is saying,

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"Build your life on all of My words."

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But I also think there's something more specific,

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if you look just before this in Matthew 7.

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Just a few verses earlier, Jesus says this:

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Jesus says, "Found your life on My Word.

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In My Word is this. Seek Me."

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God says, "Seek me.

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Ask Me a million questions and never stop."

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That's how you drill into the rock.

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That's how you get there.

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See, asking questions about God is good. It isn't.

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And maybe you just need to hear that today.

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Do you know what a group

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that discourages question asking is called? A cult.

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If you encounter a group like that run,

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literally run away.

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See, at Crossroads, we welcome questions.

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One of the hallmarks of our community

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is the lack of needing to believe

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certain things to belong.

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We actually say that we major on the majors

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and we minor on the minors.

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You can go to our website

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and read our statement of beliefs.

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It'll take you three and a half minutes.

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Why? Because there's mystery and wonder in God.

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That's what we're going to unpack today.

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And it's amazing, you can build your life on Him.

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Jesus says, "Ask Me questions. Ask Me questions.

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Build your life on seeking Me. Ask away."

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You know the question that's been haunting me lately,

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probably the same as you, where do eels come from?

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Where do they come from?

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My wife, just a few weeks ago, she literally

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she walked downstairs in the morning, like pre-coffee,

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and she just hit me with this question

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out of the blue, no warning.

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She goes, "Hey, where do eels come from?"

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And I was like, "Um, maybe you skipped like science

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and health class in the fifth grade.

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I can tell you where eels come from.

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When a when a mommy eel and a daddy eel

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love each other very, very much,

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and they're married, obviously,

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then they do a special like eel hug situation.

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And then nine months later, a baby eel is hatched,

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possibly born, not really sure.

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The point is, it's easy.

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Did you skip fifth grade?"

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Here's the thing, do you know that scientists

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actually don't know where eels come from?

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No, it turns out all that we know about eels

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is that old eels get this, I promise, is true.

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You can Google this.

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Old eels swim out to the Bermuda Triangle,

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which is also called the Sargasso Sea,

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and then baby eels swim back.

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That's all we know. It's a complete mystery.

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There's actually some scientists now who believe

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that all eels in the entire world

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are actually the same species,

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just at different life stages.

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Like they're a saltwater animal,

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and then they become a freshwater animal,

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and then a saltwater animal again.

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But no one knows. It's a complete mystery.

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Now what if I told you that because of

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all this mystery and unanswered questions about eels

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that I've decided that I no longer believe in eels.

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After all, my fifth grade understanding

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of health class and science or whatever,

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it can't answer my new questions.

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And get this, even the world's leading experts on eels

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actually have more questions than answers.

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So I'm out. I'm out on eels, everybody.

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This is the day I announce it.

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No more eels for me. I'm done.

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See, this is exactly how many of us treat faith

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and why we lose it.

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See, we stop seeking God and fifth grade

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and then life happens when we're 25

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and our fifth grade faith utterly fails us.

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And yes, I don't mean this harshly,

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but of course it does. Of course it does.

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You weren't meant to keep that fifth grade faith.

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You weren't meant to have a fifth grade faith at 25,

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and you aren't meant to have a 25 year old faith at 55.

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See, every deconstruction begins with

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a question that we can't answer

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with our current knowledge of God.

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Sometimes it's a question that hits us in the face

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after the failing of a spiritual leader.

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Like, "Man, how can somebody who says

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they follow a loving God act with such hatred,

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such abuse, such selfishness?"

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Sometimes it's a question

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that comes from a scientific insight.

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You know, "How can I trust the reliability of the Bible

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when its own account of the creation story

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disagree with each other?"

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Which, by the way, they do Genesis 1 and 1.

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How do you reconcile this with what you're learning?

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But see, rather than digging through the tough questions,

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rather than trying to advance our faith,

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advance our understanding, we just give up.

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It fails my fifth grade understanding. I'm out.

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Hey, back the message in just a second, but first,

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I want to try something really quick.

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I'm going to talk about giving for only 30 seconds

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and explain why it matters. Go.

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So in Philippians 4:19, it says,

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"When we're obedient to give back to the Lord,

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He is faithful to supply all our needs."

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And I know at the end of the year a lot of people give

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and other people think giving is all about like

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I give to get.

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But that's not it at all.

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See, the fundamental basis behind tithing

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is simply showing God that we're submitting to Him.

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The best way to expose that submission

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is by using our money.

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The Bible talks about money in correlations to our heart.

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And that's what it is all about, our hearts.

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If you want to show your heart, if you want to take a step

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and say yes to God in this way,

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go to Crossroads.net/give.

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Do you remember when you were a kid

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how you asked a million questions,

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how you ask whatever you were honestly wondering.

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You probably pestered your parents,

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your favorite word was probably why, why, why, why, why, why.

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That's my kids' favorite question.

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It gets very annoying.

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Well see what happens for most of us as we age

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is that we learn the rules.

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We know which questions are okay to ask

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and which questions to avoid.

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And then slowly, somewhere we just

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stop asking the big questions altogether.

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In the early '90s NASA commissioned a study.

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It was just trying to measure creative potential

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of scientists and engineers.

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So they started with a diverse group

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of 1600 preschoolers, and they followed them.

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Now, fascinatingly, they found that 98% of preschoolers

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were actually considered creative geniuses.

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This is incredible.

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So they follow the same group, but they found

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that a grade school only 30% of those same children

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were still considered creative geniuses.

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By high school was only 12%.

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And by adulthood, only 2% were considered geniuses.

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So, what happened?

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Well, they found that they tried to memorize

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textbook answers in school

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instead of following the curiosity

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that comes from a great question.

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They were inadvertently trained

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through their childhood education

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to just memorize answers, not ask the questions.

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You know not coincidentally, there's a story

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where Jesus was talking about what type of

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person of faith is the greatest.

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How do you have the greatest faith ever, Jesus?

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And this was His answer, Matthew 18:3, He said:

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This is it, this is the critical fork in the road

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that will determine whether you gain faith

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or whether you lose it entirely.

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See, many of us learned in church growing up,

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just like in school, to memorize the answers,

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don't ask the questions.

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We inadvertently learn faith in the first kind of God,

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the textbook God.

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And I have to tell you, the textbook God will fail you.

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He's sand, just compacted together to look like rock.

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The textbook god is a list of formal answers to memorize.

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He's sort of like a spiritual professor,

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just kind of waiting to judge the correctness

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of all of our answers to the important questions.

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Now just which questions are important

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and exactly what the right answers are

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is much debate about that in the theological world

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because rather inconveniently, the Bible

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doesn't actually have an annotated list of all of them.

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In fact, it turns out the Bible

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actually isn't a list of answers at all.

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It's a collection of messy stories

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about a lot of messy people over thousands of years

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who never quite get the answers right at all.

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But God seems to love them anyway.

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So, why do people follow the textbook God?

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Why did they do this?

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The answer is because it's safe, it's easy.

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There's no real struggle or wrestling involved.

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You just pick an edition that you like

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and then you stick with it.

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You just kind of try to survive your entire life

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mentally agreeing to the same set of questions.

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And if you can do that at the end of your life,

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you get the really nice mansion in heaven.

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That's kind of the idea, right?

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But here's the problem with the textbook God.

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While he's neat, while he's easy to understand,

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while he's nice and orderly, he's also uninspiring.

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There's nothing to him, he's uninteresting.

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He's not transcendent. There's no mystery.

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There's no wonder.

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And because of that, there's no power beyond your own.

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See the textbook god lacks all of that.

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He will fail you because those answers aren't complete.

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They can't contain God.

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The good news is there's another God to seek,

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the God that I believe in, the God that I think is real,

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the transcendent God.

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He's not the textbook God, he's the transcendent God.

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And he's only found through a lifetime of seeking,

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just like Jesus said, "Seek and you will find."

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But here's the thing, don't seek for a while and stop.

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No, no, seek and never stop.

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This is actually how all of the ancient hearers

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of this faith spent their entire lives, seeking God.

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David, you might have heard him in the Old Testament.

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He was the guy who defeated Goliath.

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He was King David.

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He said that his greatest ambition in life

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was to seek God, to ask so many questions

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that he might just one day

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get to understand more about him.

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Psalm 27:4 said:

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David says, "If I have everything I could have

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of everything there is to pursue, the one thing

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that I want is to seek God."

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I'm telling you, if God seems flat to you right now,

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if God seems uninteresting, boring, two dimensional,

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it's time to start asking more questions.

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And not just the easy ones, not the simple ones,

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not the ones that are that are just kind of safe

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and sanitary, but the real questions.

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The ones that I know that you have.

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The questions like, "God, when that thing happened,

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where were you?

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God, how come I can't reconcile

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these two things together? Help me understand."

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Ask him the real questions

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that transcend your understanding

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and allow room for the transcendent God.

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Don't clean them up.

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Don't ask sanitary questions.

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But here's the thing, don't ask them half heartedly

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and expect to find answers.

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You have to put in the work.

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It's a lifelong pursuit.

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It's not a momentary thing.

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Proverbs 2:3-5 says:

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Then, see, you need to look for it

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as if it's hidden treasure and it was worth

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putting in all of the effort required to find it.

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A lifelong pursuit.

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See, I promise, because God promises,

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it will be harder than Googling an instant answer.

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And I know as humans, especially right now

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in this age of instantaneous information,

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we are deeply and increasingly uncomfortable

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with answers that take time to find.

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We are uncomfortable with mystery and wonder

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and transcendence.

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We have to know now, and that's killing faith.

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And please hear me.

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I'm not saying -- I'm not saying, not saying

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to check your brain at the door when you seek God.

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I don't think this means you have to be

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shallow minded and naïve.

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What a cruel trick that God would be playing

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if you wanted us to stop our brains,

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the brains that He made that are naturally growing

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and maturing and getting more logical.

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What I am saying is follow that increasing logic.

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Just for a second, doesn't it make sense that

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if there were an omniscient superintelligence,

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that that Superintelligence would vastly exceed

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my mental capacities and understanding?

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And as such, wouldn't it be reasonable to conclude

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that while there would be pieces

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of this transcendent God that I could understand,

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He wouldn't fit neatly into a textbook,

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that there would be many more things

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that would exceed my capacity,

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many more questions than answers?

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See the textbook faith and the textbook god

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will fail you, but the transcendent God never will.

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He never will.

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Now, how do you seek that sort of God?

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What are we getting at here?

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There's only one way: it's humility.

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It's humility, it's the thing I think maybe

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we're lacking more than anything in our modern world.

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And the court of humility is the capacity to not know,

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to seek and to allow room

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for more than you can understand, for the mystery,

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for the wonder, for the transcendence.

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I remember a number of years ago we had a person

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we were working with at Crossroads,

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kind of like almost in like a consultant sort of way,

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helping us with some stuff.

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And this person was brilliant, super smart.

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They were great.

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But Brian noticed something

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that he called out in a meeting once.

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So this person had no ability to say, "I don't know."

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Whenever we ask them anything about God, about life,

00:20:17

about how church works, about cooking,

00:20:20

about, I mean, literally anything,

00:20:22

they always had an answer.

00:20:23

I remember Brian in a meeting saying,

00:20:25

"You know, I think it's time to stop working with him."

00:20:28

We said, "Well, why?"

00:20:29

He said "Anybody who is unable to say, 'I don't know, '

00:20:33

is a person we can't trust."

00:20:36

I contrast that with an experience I had

00:20:40

in Turkey and in Greece.

00:20:41

I got to take this trip studying the life of Paul,

00:20:44

who navigated through those countries,

00:20:46

with one of the world's leading archeologists

00:20:49

and theologians,

00:20:50

a guy named Bob, who's become my friend.

00:20:52

And I remember being there and asking Bob

00:20:54

all these questions.

00:20:56

And Bob, this brilliant guy, the guy who could say,

00:21:00

"I know the answer, I have the answer."

00:21:02

Bob, who has spent decades upon decades

00:21:04

on the ground studying scripture in its context.

00:21:07

You know one of Bob's phrases he said

00:21:09

more often than anything else?

00:21:11

He said, "I don't know. That's a really good question."

00:21:15

And I think about that and I think we need more Bobs.

00:21:19

More of us need to have this ability to say,

00:21:22

"I don't know," and not feel like we're failing at faith.

00:21:26

And let me just say to you clearly,

00:21:27

in case you need somebody to say it to you directly,

00:21:29

if you have some "I don't knows,"

00:21:32

if you have some unanswered questions,

00:21:35

you're not failing at faith.

00:21:36

I think you're finding the real God.

00:21:37

If you're finding the God who transcends

00:21:39

your understanding, what you're exercising is humility,

00:21:41

and that humility is key.

00:21:43

See, it's the opposite of pride.

00:21:45

Pride is saying, "I know all the answers.

00:21:47

I have all the answers. They're all correct.

00:21:49

I know them. Please don't question them."

00:21:51

This is actually the biggest thing

00:21:53

that had to be deconstructed in me,

00:21:55

that God has had to take out of me on my journey

00:22:00

is the idea that God is a list of answers

00:22:02

and I can know them all.

00:22:04

I used to listen to a show, like a radio show,

00:22:06

called the Bible Answer Man.

00:22:08

It was a show that people would call in

00:22:10

and ask questions about this thing or whatever,

00:22:11

and the guy always had an answer.

00:22:13

And I thought that'd be pretty cool.

00:22:14

And I noticed something about me.

00:22:16

So, I had a knack for explaining stuff to people

00:22:19

in a way that made sense.

00:22:20

It would show up in group projects.

00:22:22

In high school and in college and my fraternity,

00:22:25

I was put in leadership positions

00:22:27

and was asked to explain things.

00:22:28

Even teach things at work this showed up.

00:22:31

People started to ask me to teach the Bible.

00:22:33

It was a great feeling because I have the answers. Whoo.

00:22:37

But somewhere in it, I started to lose God.

00:22:41

I lost the mystery and the grandeur

00:22:43

and the transcendence of God.

00:22:44

He became a list of answers.

00:22:46

He became a sermon outline, a video script.

00:22:49

He became an email to give a tight answer to.

00:22:53

What ended up happening is that God just felt

00:22:55

small, like flat, two dimensional.

00:22:59

You see a god who can be contained in my mind

00:23:01

and my own understanding,

00:23:03

it turns out he's not that big.

00:23:06

And I actually had to step back from that

00:23:08

and deconstruct the false belief that had been

00:23:10

in the background of my faith for decades

00:23:12

because it no longer worked.

00:23:14

Like a kitchen remodel, I had to rip it out

00:23:17

and return to scripture for the true design

00:23:19

to build back something better.

00:23:21

And you know what I found?

00:23:22

I found a better God, the transcendent God,

00:23:25

the God who is thankfully, thankfully way bigger

00:23:30

than my ability to understand and categorize Him.

00:23:33

See, when I went looking for Him, hunting for Him

00:23:35

like silver and hidden treasure, I found Him

00:23:38

and you can too.

00:23:40

But you have to understand who you're going to find.

00:23:43

This is how God describes Himself, His transcendence,

00:23:46

Isaiah 55:

00:24:01

God says this actually many places in scripture.

00:24:04

Romans 11, he says:

00:24:19

God is very clear.

00:24:20

He says, "Listen, I love you,

00:24:23

but I'm so much bigger than you.

00:24:26

I'm so much more than you can possibly understand."

00:24:28

Listen, has God become a list of correct answers to you?

00:24:31

Have you lost the mystery of God?

00:24:35

Here's good news:

00:24:36

you will never get to the bottom of God.

00:24:39

It's amazing news.

00:24:40

See if you can understand God, you're Him.

00:24:43

I don't know about you, but I want a transcendent God

00:24:46

because there's things in my life

00:24:48

that I need to be transcended.

00:24:50

There's problems that I don't know how to solve.

00:24:52

There's roadblocks that I keep hitting

00:24:54

over and over and over again.

00:24:56

And I don't want a god who has my understanding.

00:24:58

I need a god who goes beyond me,

00:25:01

a god who transcends me.

00:25:02

Because if there's a transcendent God,

00:25:04

maybe He can transcend my life.

00:25:06

Maybe He can take me to a new place.

00:25:09

The key question for you to consider:

00:25:11

Do you want to live in a world of airtight answers,

00:25:15

or are you open to the mystery, the transcendence,

00:25:19

the power, and the wonder of God?

00:25:23

If you have a bucket called "God"

00:25:26

and your questions don't fit in that bucket,

00:25:29

don't throw out the bucket, get a bigger one.

00:25:32

That's what I'm saying.

00:25:34

See, when Jesus came no one could imagine a god

00:25:37

who would come and sacrifice himself for them all.

00:25:41

Gods demanded sacrifices from people.

00:25:44

They didn't sacrifice themselves for people.

00:25:46

But Jesus transcended their understanding of God.

00:25:53

He said, "I'm not asking for something from you,

00:25:55

I have something for you. I have something for you.

00:25:58

I'm the guy who transcends everything

00:26:01

you've ever thought, everything you've ever imagined,

00:26:03

every limitation you've ever put on your life.

00:26:06

I transcend all of that. I came for you. For you."

00:26:12

This is the act we remember in communion.

00:26:15

And there's something here that is mysterious,

00:26:18

that is powerful, that is transcendence,

00:26:21

that maybe you've lost.

00:26:24

I want to take communion together with you right now,

00:26:27

so go ahead and grab something to eat

00:26:29

and something to drink.

00:26:32

Now, as we take communion, I want to put up

00:26:34

some of the verses that describe this transcendent God,

00:26:37

the two that we just looked at and some more.

00:26:39

I want you to read these words as you take communion,

00:26:42

remembering who God is, how much bigger He is than you,

00:26:47

and why that is fantastic news.

00:26:51

Specifically, I want you to call to mind

00:26:52

the situation in your life, I know you have one,

00:26:55

where you need God to transcend

00:26:58

what you think is possible.

00:27:00

I want you to hold that in your mind.

00:27:01

As you take communion, just tell Him,

00:27:03

"God, I believe You are the transcendent God

00:27:07

and that You can transcend all of my understanding,

00:27:11

all of what I think is possible."

00:27:14

A communion involves two things: the bread and the wine.

00:27:17

When Jesus did this, it was the Last Supper.

00:27:19

It was literally the last meal

00:27:20

He ever had with his disciples on Earth.

00:27:23

And he took the bread that had been on the table

00:27:25

and He broke off a hunk of it and He held it up

00:27:28

and went way past what they could understand.

00:27:29

In the moment they had no idea what He was talking about.

00:27:32

He said, "This is My body which is broken for you.

00:27:37

Every time you gather,

00:27:39

I want you to do this and remembrance of Me."

00:27:44

This is the body of Christ,

00:27:46

the food you're holding in your hand,

00:27:48

it's the body of Christ broken for you.

00:27:50

Let's eat in remembrance of Him.

00:28:08

As I'm eating, I'm just thinking about the spots in my life,

00:28:10

because I have them just like you do,

00:28:12

where I need the transcendent God.

00:28:15

I'm just asking God to show up in those spots,

00:28:18

and I'm praying to the same thing for you.

00:28:21

And after He took the bread, Jesus grabbed the wine.

00:28:25

He took it a step further.

00:28:27

He said, "I know this makes sense to you,

00:28:29

but you've got to trust me. You've got to trust me.

00:28:31

I know you can't see what's about to happen.

00:28:33

I know you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow,

00:28:35

but I do.

00:28:37

I'm going to give up My life for you.

00:28:38

I'm going to sacrifice Myself for you."

00:28:40

He took the wine and He said,

00:28:42

"This is My blood shed for you,

00:28:45

when you gather together,

00:28:47

drink this in remembrance of Me."

00:28:50

The thing you're holding, the drink you're holding,

00:28:52

this is the blood of Christ shed for you.

00:28:54

Drink it and remember His power.

00:29:14

God has power that goes past you.

00:29:17

He has understanding that goes past you.

00:29:20

And that power is for you.

00:29:24

Right now, we're going to sing this song together

00:29:26

as an act of worship.

00:29:27

I encourage you to let the video continue to play

00:29:30

and to sing with us.

00:29:31

The song is called On, the Power,

00:29:34

and it's about the transcendent God.

00:29:36

Let's sing together right now.

00:31:44

- I hope this is something you found helpful today.

00:31:46

I definitely encourage you to share this

00:31:48

with your friends who are wrestling with deconstruction.

00:31:50

Again, if you have any questions, you can email me.

00:31:52

We're not a TV show. This is a community.

00:31:54

If you're looking for next steps, we have a couple.

00:31:56

First is our World Changing Summit on November 3rd.

00:31:59

And we have a Prayer Night November 4th.

00:32:00

If either of those interests you,

00:32:02

you can go to online.crossroads.net for more.

00:32:05

I'll see you next week on Crossroads.

00:32:09

- My name is Alex, and I own where we are right now,

00:32:12

Iron sharpens Iron Gym here in Cincinnati, Ohio,

00:32:15

- And I'm Alison

00:32:16

and I've been coming to Iron Sharpens Iron for 4 years.

00:32:19

- In 2015, I was sitting in the room

00:32:22

at Oakley Crossroads and they announced the food drive.

00:32:25

And I had the idea that I want it to fill a box.

00:32:28

I didn't know if I would be able to.

00:32:29

And then I had the bigger idea of saying,

00:32:31

"Well, maybe people at the gym would like to do that."

00:32:34

I remember standing in the lobby mulling it over,

00:32:36

saying, "Okay, I think I think we can fill five boxes."

00:32:39

It didn't turn out that five was all that crazy

00:32:41

because we ended up filling 20 boxes.

00:32:43

So fast forward a few years, we wanted to do 75 boxes,

00:32:47

and that year we went well over 100.

00:32:49

You know, just this past year, our goal was 200 boxes,

00:32:53

and we ended up filling 220 boxes.

00:32:56

And it shows me that if we're willing to

00:32:59

just open up and invite, God will bring people in

00:33:02

and fill the right people in

00:33:03

to help you achieve your goal.

00:33:05

And He'll probably do what He does best

00:33:07

and blow you away and go past it.

00:33:09

- I've been involved in the Thanksgiving Food Drive

00:33:11

for quite some time now, and I used to contribute

00:33:14

and take a box at service.

00:33:16

And sometimes in my life I wasn't able

00:33:18

to fully contribute to that box financially.

00:33:21

And when I start coming to the gym

00:33:23

and I saw what Alex was doing,

00:33:25

I jumped right in on that.

00:33:27

I went to Aldi and I had the intention

00:33:28

to fill two boxes.

00:33:31

And as I'm sitting in the parking lot,

00:33:32

I had the idea to put it out on my Instagram Story

00:33:36

to contribute $.45 for a canned good.

00:33:39

So I went in and started shopping

00:33:40

and within a matter of 30 minutes,

00:33:43

I had about $200 in the account

00:33:45

and this just snowballed throughout the whole week.

00:33:48

And then we get to $1600

00:33:50

and that evening I get a phone call and she was like,

00:33:54

"How much have you raised?"

00:33:55

And I was like, "We're at $1600."

00:33:57

So she tells me on the phone

00:33:59

her and her husband matched the funds.

00:34:00

By day three or so when I could no longer shop

00:34:05

any more than I possibly was already doing,

00:34:08

I reached out to my Instagram followers again

00:34:11

and said, "Hey guys, I need your help now

00:34:13

to get these canned goods to Alex in a timely fashion."

00:34:17

So I started what I was calling shop and drops.

00:34:20

I was allocating money to groups of people

00:34:22

doing all the shopping for me,

00:34:24

and then we'd meet here at the gym

00:34:25

and drop everything off.

00:34:27

- The gap is where often I see God show up.

00:34:30

So when we step out and we say,

00:34:32

"I know that there's no way I can do this,

00:34:35

the only way it's going to happen is if You show up,"

00:34:38

that's where your faith grows.

00:34:39

That's where your community grows.

00:34:41

And that's where the story is told.

00:34:43

- Thanksgiving Food Drive is community for me,

00:34:47

and it has been over the last two years,

00:34:50

getting together, seeing how the community provides,

00:34:53

and seeing what we can do each year.

00:34:56

And then on top of that,

00:34:57

just blessing as many families as possible.

00:34:59

- CFD for me is a chance to step out in faith

00:35:02

and to put myself a little bit lower

00:35:06

on the list of priorities

00:35:07

and put some other people

00:35:09

a little bit higher than myself.

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