How to Be Humble | The Book Of Philippians Week 2 | Anywhere Service

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Today is all about how joy is possible,

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even when it feels like it's not.

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All types of things are going to get in the way

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of your joy and my joy,

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situations at home, at work, your relationships.

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But the thing I want to address today

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is the thing that you can control,

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that is your grumbling.

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Life is like a never ending pursuit of happiness.

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We're always looking for something

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better than what we have.

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The problems, trouble, pain,

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life, death all get in the way.

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Just when we think we're almost there,

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we get knocked back down.

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What if joy didn't mean what you thought it meant?

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What if you could have joy

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no matter what circumstances you're facing or will face?

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In this series of videos we're exploring

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five keys to chasing joy.

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Today, we're going to own the truth that

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the humble don't grumble.

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I'll tell you what I like grumbling about

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this birdfeeder right here.

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My wife has this bird feeder hanging over our porch

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and there's a little couch, outdoor furniture underneath it.

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And she just loves looking at the birds come up.

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There's birds come up.

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It's not just birds, it's squirrels come up.

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You can see them gnawing all over this

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and they come up and they spew seed all over the place.

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Because why not?

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You're giving the entire neighborhood a free buffet.

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Hey, I'm buying you food.

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Come over here

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and spray your food all over the furniture.

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And while you're there, just poop all over the place too.

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Just -- just poop down.

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And we're back and forth.

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She loves seeing the critters.

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Critters are fine by me,

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but I don't like their leave behind.

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And it's been this thing back and forth, back and forth.

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And the problem is me, because I'm grumbling about this.

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I can't control what she wants to do with critters.

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And I guess I could just try to power up

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and just take it and steal it.

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I actually might just leave this in my garage.

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Hopefully she'll forget about it.

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But I can't. I can't control that.

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But I can control my attitude

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and not having a grumbling spirit where I'm grumbling.

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Today we're going to start with the end in mind.

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We're looking at a section out of

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the book of Philippians.

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And the end of the section that we're going to see today

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is Philippians 2:14. Here's what it says:

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Who wants to be blameless and innocent?

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Who wants to be? I do.

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Who wants to be a child of God without blemish?

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I want to be.

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I want to be a child of God without blemish.

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Who wants to be crooked and twisted?

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Who wants to be?

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Hopefully, none of us are raising our hands,

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although that does sound like an amazing new 8% beer

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that some microbrewery somewhere should come out with.

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Crooked and Twisted.

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Yeah, I'm gonna have me a Crooked and Twisted.

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What separates crooked and twisted people

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from blameless and innocent people?

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What separates crooked and twisted people

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from children of God who don't have blemish?

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One word, humility.

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How do you know someone who isn't humble?

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They grumble. They are in disputes.

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That's what it means to not have humility.

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You're grumbling.

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Humility isn't thinking --

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having low self esteem about yourself.

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It's just thinking about yourself less.

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A few years ago, our board went through an exercise

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in the scriptures, just meditating and talking about

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the concept of humility.

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It's how we opened up every meeting for about six months.

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And one board member thought this was

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a really great idea, Jim Bechtold,

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great, great man of God.

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And to be quite honest with you, about month four,

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where I felt we were spinning our wheels,

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I wasn't sure what this exercise was doing.

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Was anybody learning anything about humility?

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What are we seeing? What are we feeling?

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What are we thinking?

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And finally, I think

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I said something one meeting, it's like,

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"I'm not I'm not sure where we're going with this."

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And then we we stopped after like a half a year

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looking at that intensely.

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Now, I know looking back at it,

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now I know that Jim was hearing from God

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because humility is the exact thing

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that we have needed over this last couple of years.

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The exact thing.

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I'll tell you this right now, next time,

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next time we have a global pandemic

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sandwiched with a contentious presidential election,

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followed by a run on the Capitol,

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followed by social unrest on every social issue,

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ending with inflation and recession,

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next time all that happens, we're going to be ready.

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We're going to nail it. We got we got it.

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We've got you covered because we did a lot,

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a lot of things wrong over the last couple of years.

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And I can just -- I have enough humility

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to be able to recognize that.

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And sometimes we make mistakes because

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we don't have the humility to admit

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that I don't have all the answers.

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The Apostle Paul is writing this letter,

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the letter of Philippians from a prison cell.

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His teaching is that

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we should have the same attitude of Jesus.

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And what was that attitude? It was one of humility.

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Paul's literally practicing what he preached here.

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He's in prison for following Jesus,

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and he had every reason to grumble.

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But instead he chose humility,

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because the humble don't grumble

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and because that was his choice.

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He was choosing that and therefore he experienced joy.

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Lib and I, we got married 33 years ago or so,

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something like that.

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We had a banner in our wedding

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and we chose the heading and the theme of joy

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and said, "Choose joy."

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Joy is a choice.

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Happiness is what happens to you

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when everything happens that you want to have happened.

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It's all happening the way I want it to happen,

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therefore, I can be happy.

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But joy is a choice. You choose. You choose that.

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And you can choose it because you're choosing humility.

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Humility isn't thinking less of yourself,

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it's thinking about yourself less.

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You don't think about yourself as a loser.

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It's not a thing of low self esteem.

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You just spend less time thinking about yourself

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because you want to spend more time thinking about God.

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The more you think about yourself,

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the less you could think about God.

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The more you think about yourself,

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the less you can think about others.

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Humble people think more about God

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and more about others.

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And when we think about others, we're less prone

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to fight with others and grumble with others.

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Let's keep going in Philippians chapter two,

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the very beginning, verse one, it says this:

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The Bible tells us we're supposed

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to look after our own interests.

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It's not bad looking after your own interest.

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You've got to look -- You've got to look after

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your own physical interest.

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"Am I healthy and my eating right?"

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You have to look after your own interests and say,

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"Am I saving and making enough money, saving enough money?"

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It's good to look after your own interests.

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You need to do that.

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But the Scriptures teach us to not only do that,

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that's a no-brainer thing everybody does.

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Even crooked and twisted people

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look after their own interests.

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But it says look after the interests of others.

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I think we do a pretty good job with that as a church.

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And our last data point with that was our response

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and is our response still right now to the flooding

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that's happening in eastern Kentucky.

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Man, rough, rough, rough stuff.

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And here's a little piece of us, how we as a church

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are looking after the interest of others.

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- Hi, I'm Darin Kroger. I'm with Crossroads Church.

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We're down here with our disaster cleanup teams

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in Hazard, Kentucky.

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We're responding to the flooding event

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that happened last week.

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And we are down here trying to help people

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clean up their homes, dry out their homes

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so they can save their homes.

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- It's so traumatic to walk or drive down that road

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and see what used to be a home,

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to see somebody's Social Security card, literally,

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like see an identity of a person

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who you don't know where they are and where they've gone.

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- When you think about flood, you don't think about --

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you think about, " Oh, there's water in my basement."

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This was so destructive, so unbelievably destructive.

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And it happened so quickly that people just

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did not have a chance to get out of its way.

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Once you have areas that are flooded,

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you can't get in a car and drive out, you know?

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Or you're going to be trapped in your vehicle and drown.

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It just blows your mind.

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- Never in my life have I seen

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such a vast opportunity to come together,

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where there is county's wide need for people.

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- I see God in the face of every one of those volunteers.

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Every time they pick up something,

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every time they pick up a piece of wet carpet

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or pull out a cabinet or throw a door on a burn pile

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or whatever it is, all the little acts of service

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that they do, that's where I see --

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that's where I see God, where I see Jesus.

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- Being the hands and feet of Jesus

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is cleaning out people's homes.

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It is serving meals.

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But it's so much more than that.

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It's welcoming people into your heart,

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it is having compassion.

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- So many of you gave

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and so many of you have volunteered your time

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and you are making a difference.

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You might not be here and you're watching this video

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and you might not be able to be in Hazard,

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but your entire church is bringing hope.

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So on behalf of all of Eastern Kentucky,

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I just want to say thank you to Crossroads.

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- That is heart wrenching,

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while at the same time being heart warming.

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Looking after the needs of others in humility

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is an incredibly godly characteristic.

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Jesus did this.

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This was His entire life.

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And in this passage,

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we see some of the signs of humility that He had

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that we are told to have.

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You know you are experiencing humility

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when there's a couple of things.

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One, when there is oneness.

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That's what it said, he is being one with God

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and we are to be one with one another.

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Paul encourages the people in Philippi

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to have the same mindset and love, the same thing.

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If there's any, if there's any,

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then make my joy complete by doing this.

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God is Jesus, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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There are one. There are one in the same.

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And this oneness enables them

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to interact with humility with one another.

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We have so much grumbling and so much anger

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that's happening in our culture because

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we don't have any oneness.

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If America ever changes its constitution

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and we become an autocracy, I want to be king,

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at least just for one day. Just one day.

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If I was king of America for one day, one day,

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I'll tell you exactly what I would do.

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I would do something that would give

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every American a common experience.

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I would do something where everybody had to be one.

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Coming out of high school, everybody, pick your poison.

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You're either got to go to the military for 2 years

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or you've got to go to the Peace Corps for 2 years.

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And that 2 years,

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you're going have to dress like other people.

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You're going have to have your head shaved like other people.

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You're going to be like other people for 2 years.

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You're going to interact with people

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who have more money than you, less money than you,

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who have different political opinions than you.

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There's not a common experience in America anymore.

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It's why we're always fighting all the time,

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because we're not humble,

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because we can't serve other people,

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because we can't understand other people.

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And why aren't we doing these things?

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Because we're not humble.

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Grumblers, and we are a nation of grumblers,

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will always have a hard time with oneness and unity,

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because humility is a prerequisite

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for oneness and unity.

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Verse five says:

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Have this mind, this mind of oneness.

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And then verse six:

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Oneness.

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Oneness is critical for humanity.

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The other thing that's critical is obedience. Obedience.

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How many people would say,

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"I want to be an obedient person?

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Obedience is great. It's great to obey."

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Oh, my goodness.

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Obey is the worst four letter word in our language.

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It's the thing that nobody wants to do.

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Maybe that's why very few people are actually like God,

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because Jesus obeys, He obeyed God even to death.

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This means that there's going to be things in your life,

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in my life that we're going to have to do

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that we don't want to do,

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even maybe to the point of death.

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When you find a life that's willing to lay its life down,

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out of obedience, out of honoring God,

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you're going to find a person who's humble

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and on the way to a great life.

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- Hey, I'm Hannah. - And I'm Andy.

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- And we're in the Book of Philippians today

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talking about joy.

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And, you know, here around Crossroads,

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we believe that giving can actually be a joy.

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- Yeah, we believe that giving allows us to show our hearts

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and can help us continue to stumble towards God together.

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- That's right.

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And if you want to give right now,

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you can go to Crossroads.net/gift.

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Now let's get back to the message.

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- Philippians 2:6 says:

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It says Jesus there,

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His way of humility was to empty himself.

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Jesus existed before the earth was created.

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He existed before Christmas took place.

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And He comes down to this earth to live a sinless life

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that you and I can't live,

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to die a brutal death that you and I deserve.

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He does that out of humility.

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And it says he doesn't grasp onto it,

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meaning He had interests and perks up in heaven,

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whatever those are, we don't know.

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Whatever angels were fanning Him and feeding Him grapes,

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the life He had there.

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And He came down and led a difficult life

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and He had splinters in His hands

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and other difficult things.

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But He didn't cling to all those things.

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He released them.

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He didn't cling to His interests.

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He didn't cling to His preferences.

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He didn't cling to His wants, His desires.

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He released them out of humility.

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It's the core to who He was and what He did.

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He was lucid about His mission and who He really was.

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I've started taking up golf again.

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I haven't really golfed consistently since,

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you know, a long, long time ago.

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I stopped golfing for the most part when I got married.

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I had my first weekend after our honeymoon,

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I went golfing with my buddies.

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I told Lib, "Hey, I'm going golfing."

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And she said, "Okay, great, that's fine, hun."

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The problem was her dad didn't golf

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and she'd never date anybody who golfed,

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so she didn't have any perspective for it,

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how long it took.

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So after nine holes at the turn, I give her a call,

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my new bride to call and say, "How's it going?

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I'll be home in a couple of hours." Whatever.

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And she says, "Where are you?"

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I said, "I'm golfing." "You're golfing?"

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She had no idea it'd take, like,

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four and a half hours the whole thing. Right?

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My friends talk about how that back nine

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how I would hit my ball and run to my ball.

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Run and run and run.

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And I just stopped golfing after that.

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It wasn't because she told me not to.

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It was just time and money didn't make sense.

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I recently just this last summer

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I've golfed more in the last summer

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than I have in the last ten years,

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probably four or five times this last summer.

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And I was golfing with my son.

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My son said, "Man, when were you at your best, dad?"

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And I said, "22. I was pretty good back then."

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And then when I said that I thought 22,

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it dawned on me, that was 34 years ago.

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Now other than thinner gray hair,

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I'm exactly the same as I was physically at 22.

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My measurements are the same.

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My endurance is the same. All that's the same.

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But I haven't been golfing, so no wonder

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every time I go out in golf, I get frustrated

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because I can't hit 250 yard straight drives consistently.

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My identity is one that I am a golfer,

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even though I'm not.

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I haven't been for 34 years.

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And I get frustrated because I keep thinking

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I'm a golfer, but I'm not.

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See, a lot of us think that we're humble, but you're not.

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You have the identity, but you're not.

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Like, when did you not do something you wanted to do

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and voluntarily look out for somebody else?

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When was -- when would that have been?

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Many of us identify as a Christian.

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That was a long time ago.

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A long time ago that you got baptized,

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a long time ago you read the Bible on a daily basis.

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A long time ago you would actually have prayer requests

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and you would actually pray.

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A long time ago when you would tell somebody

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about who Christ was.

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That was a long, long time ago.

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Yet we say I'm a Christian.

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I'm not saying you're going to heaven or not.

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I'm just saying, "Hey, man,

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if your game isn't one of Jesus,

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stop calling yourself that."

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You may identify with Jesus,

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but unless you're living the way He lived,

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which we're seeing here in Philippians 2, you're not.

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We can't get upset about it.

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I've got to take an accurate assessment of where I am.

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"Okay, this is where I am right now.

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So let's build from there."

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I'm a crappy golfer now. Let's built from there.

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I'm a selfish, prideful person who grumbles. Good.

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Look where we are there, and now let's let's build from there.

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I might have just hurt your feelings with what I said.

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I don't know why.

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Why would what I just said hurt your feelings?

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It's really weird, like I could say.

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How does somebody else

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say something that hurts our feelings?

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Feelings don't have feelings.

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Our feelings are never hurt.

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Feelings just express what our ego is feeling.

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It's my pride that's hurt. It's my ego that's hurt.

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People aren't ignoring or intentionally dissing us

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or saying things to offend us, but we feel that

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because we're exalting ourselves,

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we're looking out after our interests,

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our views, our opinions.

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They're just living their life, not thinking about us,

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just like we live our lives

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and don't think about other people.

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And when we say things like,

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"You made me feel like a piece of garbage,"

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that's really not true.

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No one can make us feel like a piece of garbage.

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We're making ourself feel like a piece of garbage

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because we have too much pride and too much ego.

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They don't have power over our emotions,

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our ego does, our pride does.

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There's something wrong with me,

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and therefore we grumble

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and we become a nation of grumblers.

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Paul Tripp says this:

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One of the greatest words

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in the English language, onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia.

00:20:59

It does, grumble, the word grumble is what it is.

00:21:02

Grumble, grumble.

00:21:03

If you're with anybody right now,

00:21:05

let's do a little exercise.

00:21:06

Let's in 3 seconds, let's all say

00:21:09

the word grumble three times together. Okay?

00:21:12

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

00:21:14

Let's do it again.

00:21:15

Grumble, grumble, grumble,

00:21:17

grumble, grumble, grumble,

00:21:18

grumble, grumble, grumble.

00:21:20

You're hear that murmur?

00:21:21

That's what the normal American population is like.

00:21:26

It's a bunch of prideful grumblers

00:21:28

who don't get their way

00:21:30

and just want to spew and spout wherever.

00:21:32

And even if we're not saying it, we're feeling it,

00:21:35

and internally there's just no joy, there's no life.

00:21:39

We're bearing it.

00:21:40

We're grumbling internally

00:21:41

because we're only looking after our own interests.

00:21:44

I think as a church we have

00:21:46

signs of doing pretty good with this.

00:21:48

We have campuses that celebrate when other campuses

00:21:52

get a new building or get some upgrades.

00:21:54

Instead of just saying, "How come we're not getting it?"

00:21:57

We celebrate one another's victories

00:22:00

because we are one as a church one.

00:22:03

No matter what state we're in or where we're going,

00:22:05

we are one.

00:22:07

Therefore, we're celebrating with Dayton right now,

00:22:09

our Dayton community that's been in rented facilities

00:22:12

and has been helping other people get buildings.

00:22:15

Our Dayton community has just gotten its own building,

00:22:17

an old Sears up in Dayton.

00:22:19

It's awesome.

00:22:20

I think it was 3.1 something million dollars.

00:22:23

Great. We're celebrating with that.

00:22:26

We are looking out after

00:22:27

the interests of our Dayton community.

00:22:29

It's amazing. We're excited for you, Dayton.

00:22:31

Now, we have no idea how we're going to find

00:22:34

the millions and millions of dollars

00:22:35

of construction costs that are going to go into that.

00:22:37

That's another problem for another day.

00:22:39

But right now we're just celebrating

00:22:41

and we are excited for Dayton because we are one.

00:22:47

Some of us have evolved our grumbling

00:22:51

into what's known as the humblebrag.

00:22:53

And there's different versions of the humblebrag.

00:22:55

I'm looking like I'm humble,

00:22:57

but really I'm just bragging. I'm building up my ego.

00:22:59

Like Biggie. Biggie was right.

00:23:00

He said, "Hey, just filed my taxes.

00:23:02

Mo money, mo problems."

00:23:05

Kind of a humblebrag, or maybe not.

00:23:07

Mo money, mo problems.

00:23:08

Or you ever hear this one?

00:23:09

"I hate when I go into a store to get something to eat

00:23:12

and the staff are too busy hitting on me

00:23:14

to get my order right. So annoying."

00:23:17

Yeah. You're so attractive, aren't you?

00:23:19

Those are humble brags.

00:23:21

It's just a new school version of false humility.

00:23:26

Tim Keller said on Twitter:

00:23:38

Stop spending time on my interests, on my desires.

00:23:42

I spend time on Jesus, His interests, His desires,

00:23:46

which is other people;

00:23:48

His lifestyle,

00:23:49

which is about foregoing His own interests many times,

00:23:53

which is about taking a road of sacrifice,

00:23:56

of default difficulty.

00:23:57

And when He doesn't get His way, He doesn't grumble.

00:23:59

It's one thing we never see Jesus do,

00:24:00

we never see Him grumble, even though He had

00:24:02

more than enough opportunity to grumble.

00:24:04

When people who were close to Him were letting Him down,

00:24:06

He didn't grumble.

00:24:07

Now, here's the good news here.

00:24:10

This life of humility, this life that brings us joy

00:24:16

isn't a life where all our life

00:24:19

we get the short end of the stick.

00:24:21

It actually is the path for God to reward us

00:24:23

and God to honor us, for God to do that.

00:24:27

The next little section of Philippians, verse 9 says this:

00:24:52

Jesus, the name of Jesus is recognized

00:24:55

as all supreme here in this earth,

00:24:57

here above the earth, which is heaven,

00:24:58

and even below the earth, which is hell.

00:25:01

That's what's represented there.

00:25:02

God has hyper exalted him, that's what's meant there.

00:25:06

Hooper -- Hyper, hyper exalted Him.

00:25:08

He's elevated him.

00:25:09

When's the last time you heard someone say, "Buddha"?

00:25:14

You might've heard someone talk about Buddha.

00:25:16

Have you ever heard someone use Buddha as a swear word

00:25:20

or an expression?

00:25:21

Ever hear somebody say, "Gandhi"?

00:25:25

No. You never.

00:25:27

You ever heard someone say, "Richard Dawkins"?

00:25:31

You haven't heard that because

00:25:33

Buddha, Ghandi and Richard Dawkins don't have

00:25:35

a highly exalted name that means much,

00:25:37

at least not as much as the name Jesus.

00:25:41

No one's going to say Richard Dawkins' name

00:25:44

in ten years or 100 years.

00:25:46

He'll be long forgotten.

00:25:49

It'll never be an expression that people use

00:25:51

for millennia afterward,

00:25:52

because there's no power to that name.

00:25:55

But there is power to the name of Jesus

00:25:58

because the humble people who find joy in the path

00:26:04

of looking out after the interests of others,

00:26:07

of being humble and pure instead of crooked and twisted,

00:26:11

will eventually be exalted.

00:26:13

Maybe in your next job interview it will be.

00:26:16

Maybe it'll be next year, maybe next decade,

00:26:18

for sure, in the next life.

00:26:21

Jesus says this in Matthew 23:12:

00:26:28

So if we want to elevate our interest,

00:26:30

elevate our desires, elevate our opinions,

00:26:32

elevate ourselves, always think of myself,

00:26:34

we want to elevate, eventually God goes,

00:26:36

"Huh? I'm going to need to bring you down.

00:26:39

You will be humbled. You will be brought low."

00:26:41

Maybe America is having the problems we're having right now

00:26:44

because we've been too prideful

00:26:45

and God's brought us down.

00:26:47

Whoever exalts himself will be humbled.

00:26:49

But here's a cool thing, and whoever humbles himself,

00:26:51

whoever chooses the low place,

00:26:53

whoever chooses to look out after the interests of others

00:26:57

and to serve others as Jesus served us,

00:26:59

and do not insist on always getting their way,

00:27:02

getting their opinion, their views out across,

00:27:05

whoever humbles themselves will be exalted.

00:27:08

God says, "That's a life I can work with.

00:27:12

That's a life I want to build upon.

00:27:14

That's a life that can take more responsibility.

00:27:17

That's a life that can take more perks.

00:27:18

That's a life that can take more rewards.

00:27:20

That's a life that can take more blessings."

00:27:22

And He elevates us.

00:27:25

You make the choice, friends.

00:27:26

You want to exalt yourself

00:27:27

and grumble about everything else that isn't right

00:27:29

according to your own interests and views and desires,

00:27:33

and then watch how your life

00:27:34

actually goes on a downward trajectory?

00:27:37

Or do you want to humble yourself to the place of Jesus

00:27:41

and watch and wait for Him to exalt you and elevate you?

00:27:46

When you get this right,

00:27:48

there is a joy that permeates your life,

00:27:51

that transcends circumstances.

00:27:53

It's a beautiful thing. It's a great thing.

00:27:55

Go get that this week.

00:27:59

- Hey, we hope you enjoyed the message today

00:28:01

and you were able to get a clear picture

00:28:02

of chasing joy through the Book of Philippians.

00:28:04

- That's right.

00:28:05

This series is tied to an entire church initiative

00:28:08

called the Bible Challenge,

00:28:10

and we've been doing that throughout the past year.

00:28:12

-Yes, we as a community

00:28:14

are in the Crossroads app all through the week,

00:28:16

reading and diving deeper into scripture.

00:28:18

- And you know what?

00:28:19

Maybe you've made it this far in the Crossroads App.

00:28:21

You've been with us all year, but if you haven't,

00:28:23

you can join right now.

00:28:24

All you have to do is download the app and you are set.

00:28:28

- Hey, that's all we got today.

00:28:29

We'll see you next time on Crossroads.

00:28:32

- What do Jolly Ranchers, diamonds,

00:28:34

plants and people have in common?

00:28:37

Well, at first glance, maybe nothing.

00:28:39

But at second glance we see that all of those things

00:28:42

go through a little thing I like to call process.

00:28:45

Today on Crossroads, we're talking about

00:28:46

how process might just be the link

00:28:48

to the joy that we've been missing.

00:28:51

We're going to look at Philippians 3

00:28:52

to see what a man named Paul has to say

00:28:54

about pressing, process, and poop,

00:28:58

you know, alliteration.

	What You Can Control	0:00
	The Humble Don't Grumble	1:03
	Blameless & Innocent	2:52
	Looking After Yourself	7:45
	Looking After Others	8:41
	Oneness	11:10
	Obedience	13:56
	The way of humility	15:15
	A nation of grumblers	20:40
	Gospel humility	23:24
	Connect With Us	27:59

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