Will things ever get better? | The Struggle is Real

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– Hey, let me ask you a question,

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when I say the phrase the struggle is real,

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what do you think?

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You know, a lot of church people want you

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to believe that there is no struggle

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if you just simply follow God with your life.

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The problem is that's not true.

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See, the best things in life are never easy,

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but they're worth the struggle.

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By the way, my name is Kyle.

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Welcome to Crossroads Church.

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We believe that you were born for adventure

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and we exist to help guide you on that adventure.

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Today, you're going to hear from

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my friend Alli Patterson, about the struggle

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and how the struggle can be worth it

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and how you can get to the other side

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and experience the incredible life

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that God has for you.

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– Hey, guys, I am a pastor and I know

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that people probably look at me a lot

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and think that maybe somehow that I have

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fewer struggles in my life than they do.

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But it's not true.

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There's plenty of places in my past,

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plenty of places in my present,

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and I'm sure in my future

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that I mess up all the time,

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even though I'm actually trying not to.

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Like we're about to do a house project.

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And I know that it's right to stay on the budget.

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But then I see that really pretty tile

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that I really actually kind of want,

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or I know that it's right to extend trust

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to people who are in authority over me.

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And I still struggle with being supportive

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when I think a stupid decision gets made.

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And I know that I need to be gentle and patient

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with that one family member

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when they call me on the phone.

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And I decide I'm going to do that,

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and then it's not the words I hear

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coming out of my own mouth.

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And you guys, I actually counsel couples

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that I marry on how to communicate well together.

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And then I have an issue in my own marriage.

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And honestly, I just want to not talk about it,

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watch my show, and go to bed.

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This week, I think you are going to come

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face to face with an ongoing struggle in your life.

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And my guess is that you will know it

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sometime in the next two minutes.

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Maybe you already do.

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It's the issue, the tension, the fight,

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the temptation that you face

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all the time in your life.

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Maybe it's a really big one,

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or maybe it's actually hidden

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from anybody else's view at all.

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Some of us are going to come up against

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these issues this week.

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We are going to look at them, know what to do,

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and actually choose the opposite.

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I've been there.

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These are the issues where

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we cannot seem to get our crap together

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and we walk away from them going,

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"Seriously, what is wrong with me?"

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Maybe you have a thing with your spouse

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or your significant other too.

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Maybe you struggle to be on time to work

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and you just can't quite pull it off.

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Or maybe there's a website

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you keep promising yourself

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you're not going to go back to

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or later today you're going to go out

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and you're going to buy some more clothes

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or some more electronic gadgets

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that you don't need and you can't afford.

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Today, whatever those are in your life,

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big or small,

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we are going to jump on the struggle bus together

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and we are going to learn how to struggle better.

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Today, I want to help you do three things,

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and we're going to start by seeing

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our struggles from God's perspective.

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We have got to see these the way that He does.

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The second thing I want to do is encourage you

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to stay in the struggle and not run from it.

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And the third is give you the hope

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that you're going to survive it,

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because I believe not only can you,

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but you will with Jesus.

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But you and I, see, we have instincts

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that really don't serve us very well here.

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There's things inside of us

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that actually operate to keep us

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in the struggles that we face all the time.

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And last week, I couldn't help but think about this

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as I watched a horse trainer gain the trust

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of a wild, unbroken horse.

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As a matter of fact,

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that happened right here at Crossroads.

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If you missed that service, you can actually

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go here right now and watch it.

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And I would recommend that you do.

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And I want you to listen to how

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he talks about these instincts

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that are inside the horse

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that want to pull it backwards.

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– This horse will literally spend

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its entire life running around this trash.

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He'll spend his whole life

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being influenced by the ones around it.

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They can't help him.

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I have to go after him.

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And when I find him and he says, yes,

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everything will change.

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Even with his instincts of wanting

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to just go back and stay alive,

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it's my commitment to him and his yes to me

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that makes it to where this is a forever thing.

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He said that He'll never leave us

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and He'll never forsake us.

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I want you to watch that played out.

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It doesn't matter how this horse responds.

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Once he says, yes, I'm all in

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and this isn't an empty promise that comes

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from a religion or a person.

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This is the Creator, the Author of Life

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speaking a truth that He's got

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the power of heaven behind Him

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and all the resources of heaven

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saying that I'm coming after you.

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– He just told us that just like us,

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these horses have an instinct to go backwards,

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to just survive, to go back to these instincts

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that won't have his healthiest,

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most beautiful, most vibrant life in mind.

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This is exactly the same for us.

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Exactly the same relationship that we have with God

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who is coming after us

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right in the middle of those kinds of struggles.

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I believe that today God is coming after you

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right in the middle of whatever struggle you are in.

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That struggle and those instincts underneath it,

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they want to take you backwards into an old life

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and God wants to move you forward

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through His Son Jesus.

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If you have not yet said yes to Jesus,

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then I know He's coming after you for that yes today.

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And if you have and you would consider

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yourself a follower of Jesus,

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listening to this now then,

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I think that God is coming after you

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right in the middle of any struggle

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or instinct that you have

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to go back to your old roaming buddies

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or your fake freedom, just running around,

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what did he call it? The trash.

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Where are you running around the trash in your life?

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I believe that God sees and knows

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exactly what's going on inside of you and me

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and that He knows that struggle is very, very real.

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That's why the first thing that we need to do

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is we need to see.

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We need to see clearly how God sees our struggles.

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The most important thing that we could do

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is try to get the same look at our issues

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that God has,

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the very ones where you want to do better

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but you just can't seem to.

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If you are a follower of Jesus,

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then God sees your struggles under one big banner.

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There's like a heading over them.

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And the heading says:

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this struggle is already and not yet.

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It's an already not yet issue.

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As a matter of fact, you live

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in an already not yet reality.

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And I'm going to show you a picture of it.

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I was in Michigan on vacation one summer.

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I probably snapped this picture 5 or 6 years back.

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And it was so clear to me

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when I stood in front of this tree

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that this is the exact reality that

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the Bible tries to describe as us.

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I was looking at this tree

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and I took a picture because I thought,

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"How bizarre, this tree is like half alive

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or two thirds alive and kind of one third dead.

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The dead branches look really odd

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coming up in the middle of this beautiful tree

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or what could be a beautiful tree."

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And if you are a follower of Christ,

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then this is what you look like to God.

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You are actually made up

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of two different natures,

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at least for here and now you are.

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And the one part is already green.

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It's already alive. It's already leafy.

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It's the already part.

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And you also have the not yet parts.

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You've got the brown branches.

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You've got the things that are dead,

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the things that are lifeless,

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the things that cannot lead you

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to the life that God has for you.

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And these two natures

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are struggling against each other.

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They are in you and they are both

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exerting power over you all the time.

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And the struggle, my friends, the struggle is real.

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In the Book of Romans,

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the writer of Romans is a guy named Paul,

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and he's writing about this

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in kind of theological terms.

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And then right in the middle of Romans 7,

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he kind of breaks into this like angst

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where he sort of starts to talk

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as though this is about him,

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because it's about him, too.

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And it feels so personal.

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In Romans 7, he says this:

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Paul talked about both.

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He talked about that already and the not ye.

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He said, "I am not the one doing wrong."

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What does he mean by that?

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Well, he means part of him is already.

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The real identity that we have

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with God in Christ is completely pure,

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absolutely forgiven, totally victorious

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over anything that you will struggle within your life.

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This is the part of you that's alive

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and it's the truth of who you are in Christ.

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And also there's a not yet part.

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There's a few dead branches in there,

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and Paul mentions them.

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He says, "It is sin living in me that does it."

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There's some kind of other force,

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some kind of other power,

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something that's creating a struggle

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where he can't quite do

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what he knows is the right thing for his life.

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And it's because he's not yet

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completely without the presence of sin.

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He's got dead branches.

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So do I. So do you.

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And these are not going to lead us

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to the life that God has for us,

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but they will try.

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They will still try to exert power in your life.

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And guys, we have got to understand this.

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You are the tree, but, boy, do we not like this.

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We do not like this idea.

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As a matter of fact,

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there are some really nice sounding

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popular ways of talking about this idea

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and absolutely rejecting it.

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One that I hear all the time.

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I hear, like truly nice people in my life

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say things like, "You know what, I don't know about you,

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but I just really believe that all people are good.

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Just like in in the bottom of their heart,

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all people are just really good."

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And we want to close our eyes to the brown branches.

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We just want to close our eyes to the dead parts

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and go like, "You know, there's really no struggle here.

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Just all people are good."

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Or maybe, you know somebody who does the opposite

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and they go, "Yeah, they're there.

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Whatever, it's just how I am."

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I've actually probably said that before.

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You probably have to.

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We kind of make excuses for the brown branches.

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We try to make them acceptable

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or we try to just like embrace them as,

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"You know, I don't know what to say.

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I dont' know what tell you, it's just who I am."

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And the last thing I think we do,

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sometimes we just feel like, OK,

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we admit they're there

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and we're just the worst person in the world.

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"I'm awful. I'm terrible.

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I'm not worth anything.

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I see them. I hate them.

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I want to -- I have to pay for them

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over and over and over again."

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Guys, God doesn't do any of these things.

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He doesn't look at us like that.

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He sees us. He knows they're both there.

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He's not surprised by it.

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God is not disappointed in you

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for any kind of struggle that you're going through.

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As a matter of fact, I'm sure of it.

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I'm sure of it because He's the one

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that created the very circumstances for your struggle.

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When you come to faith in Jesus,

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God actually takes up residence inside of you.

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His Spirit comes to live in you,

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and it's that presence that comes to fight

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for the territory inside you

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and inside your life.

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The green leafy part

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starts to come against the brown branches.

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God's presence in you and in your life,

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it actually causes more struggle.

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Paul writes about this next,

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and he uses war language

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for this internal tug of war. He says:

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There it is again, that sin is somehow

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has a power and is at work within him.

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And he says, "In my mind, I know what's good,

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but I'm struggling against a power

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that is something else."

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When we can't get this right,

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like when we won't see it this way,

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we end up kind of disillusioned with God.

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And I think this is really tragic, actually.

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We blame God all the time.

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We blame God for these ongoing things in our life

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that we just can't quite seem to shake.

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And we think if He's good or if He's there,

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shouldn't He just be taking these things away?

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And why won't He, furthermore?

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Isn't He -- doesn't He want me to live a good life?

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And we come to the point where we actually blame Him.

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And maybe, in a really bizarre turn of your mind,

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maybe in some ways we should actually

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be praising Him for the presence

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of the struggle at all.

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Because I got news for you,

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if it wasn't for God and His life in you,

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you wouldn't have a struggle.

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You'd have one nature

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and it wouldn't be the good one.

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Maybe today we could see this issue

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a little bit more like God sees it.

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We could look at our struggles

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and we could equally have grace

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while we see the reality of the power

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that's trying to kind of pull us backwards in our life.

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Guys, the struggle is very, very real,

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but the battle is a good sign.

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And right now, I believe in that battle,

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God wants to win more of you.

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And His tactic is whatever struggle you face, whatever.

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Is it in a relationship, if it's with your work,

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if it's with your family, if it's with yourself,

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if it's with forgiveness.

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Whatever these issues are,

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if you want God to win more of you over,

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I'm going to tell you what to do,

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and you're probably not going to like it.

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I want you to actually do the opposite

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of what your instinct is.

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See, we have these instincts, I think,

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to keep our lives a little bit more comfortable.

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We have instincts that make us want

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to make things a little easier on ourselves.

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Of course we do.

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We want to make it stop.

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We want to sweep it under the rug,

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maybe dabble in a little bit of denial about it

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or medicate it or run from it.

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Whatever we can do to just get ourselves

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back to the point of comfort, but don't. Don't.

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Instead, I want you to do the opposite of that.

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I want you today to consider staying in the struggle.

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I want you to step into the struggle.

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Do it on purpose, and this time

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I want you to do it with Jesus.

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I want you to stay in there.

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I don't want you to run from it.

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All we need to do is look at our physical lives

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to learn that we really need

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an amount of struggle in our life.

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That struggle actually has some purpose.

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Now, I want you to think with me

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about our world for a little bit, our culture.

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And physically, I think we live in a time

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where we've tried to engineer for ourselves

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a total lack of struggle.

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We have invented all kinds

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of crazy struggle saving devices.

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Who does not love to be in the airport

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and come across a moving sidewalk that just,

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you know, projects you across

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the miles of the Atlanta airport?

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Who doesn't love a Roomba vacuum

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that just like runs around your room for you?

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And, oh, by the way, you don't even

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have to get in your car

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to go through the drive thru anymore.

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You can just do DoorDash

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and they'll practically bring it to your couch.

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We have engineered a life

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with very little physical struggle.

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And am I the only parent out there

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who has said no to motorized scooters?

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I've got kids. They like things with wheels.

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And I was like, "OK, wheels are good,

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but why do we need a motor on your scooter?

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Why is that a thing?

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Can you just move your limbs like,

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you know, move your limbs?"

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Our bodies actually need us to replace

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the struggle that we are losing.

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Our bodies and need that struggle to stay healthy.

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So what do we do?

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Well, some of us anyway, we go to the gym.

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I go to the gym, and I brought a pair of

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the weights that I actually keep at my house.

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These are my -- these are five pounders.

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They're kind of girly weights, I get it.

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But, you know, whatever.

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We need to put struggle back in our life.

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So we go to the gym and we do things like this.

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We hold up weights.

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I don't know, maybe I'll do a little isometric hold.

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And what's going to happen?

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If I hold these weights for long enough,

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I'm going to start to struggle.

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My muscles are going to start to burn a little bit.

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Maybe at about a minute they'll start to shake,

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maybe a little longer.

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Who knows? A minute and a half, two minutes,

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they will actually fail.

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I'll have to drop the weight.

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I will decide, maybe that's all I can take.

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And this struggle, though, even when I fail,

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even when I hit the point

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where I can't take it anymore,

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it's actually doing something in my muscles.

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It's actually making me stronger.

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What if I willingly took these weights

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every single day for six months

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and I held them up

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and I held them as long as I could?

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At the end of that six months,

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I guarantee you I would be able to do things

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in my life that I couldn't do before.

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I would be able to lift things

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I couldn't lift before.

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I would have greater strength than I had before.

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There would be a physical impact.

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But if I won't struggle,

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if I won't put my body through it,

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then I will actually end up less free.

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I'll be worse off six months from now.

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And over time, if I avoid struggle,

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I will lose function.

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I will probably suffer some loss

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of mobility, energy, strength.

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I'll probably carry extra weight.

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Who knows?

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I will leave possibilities for my life on the table

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because I'm avoiding the struggle

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that would have given them to me.

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We need struggle spiritually too.

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So many of us, probably the most common thing

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that I hear as a pastor is somebody say,

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"Why won't God just take this away?"

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And we surround ourselves with people

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who say things like, "You know what, girl?

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You don't even need that in your life.

00:19:32

You just need whatever. It's just not a thing.

00:19:34

You need to get away from it. Walk away.

00:19:37

Just it's not a big deal.

00:19:38

You need to get away from that struggle."

00:19:42

What if that's wrong?

00:19:45

What if God instead does something

00:19:49

in the middle of struggle?

00:19:50

What if He moves through long, slow work

00:19:55

in your life, that's only going to happen

00:19:57

little by little every time

00:19:59

you step into the struggle with Him?

00:20:03

Today, I want you to do something,

00:20:06

I want you to decide that you're going

00:20:09

to invite God into your struggle.

00:20:12

I want you to stop trying to run from it.

00:20:15

I want you to stay right in the middle of it.

00:20:19

Some of us just believe that God should work

00:20:22

while we run the other direction

00:20:24

and just yell, "Take it away."

00:20:27

What if the way through that struggle

00:20:29

is to invite Him straight into the middle of it,

00:20:33

right in the middle of our weakness,

00:20:35

right in the middle of the point

00:20:37

where we have to drop the weight

00:20:38

because we can't take it anymore,

00:20:40

right in the middle of our need,

00:20:41

right in the moment that we face

00:20:43

our total inadequacy to get out on our own?

00:20:47

It's there, it's there that we are forced

00:20:53

to see the reality of our brown branches.

00:20:56

We are forced to deal with the sin

00:20:58

and the crap and the death that is really in there,

00:21:01

really exerting power in our life.

00:21:04

And I promise you, when you hit that point

00:21:08

and you do it with God, it is going

00:21:10

to make you do what Paul did.

00:21:12

All we have to do is keep reading Romans

00:21:14

to find out what happens next,

00:21:16

because Paul does it.

00:21:17

It's almost as if he's recounting

00:21:19

this terrible tug of war struggle

00:21:21

that's even going on inside him

00:21:24

where he can't do what he knows is right

00:21:27

and he cries out to God.

00:21:31

And he says:

00:21:43

Guys, it is only when we come face to face

00:21:46

with the death that is in us

00:21:49

where the Spirit can bring us to life.

00:21:54

The Spirit of Jesus can bring us back to life,

00:21:57

but if we refuse to invite Him into those places,

00:22:00

if we keep Him away from our brown branches,

00:22:02

if we will not admit they're there,

00:22:04

if we just refuse to do that,

00:22:06

then we are going to steal things from ourselves

00:22:08

that only He can bring and only He can do

00:22:12

right in the middle of that struggle.

00:22:16

My husband, his name's Bill, he went on a Go Trip.

00:22:21

At Crossroads, we take trips to go

00:22:24

and help people in different communities

00:22:26

all the way around the world.

00:22:27

And my husband took one of my sons

00:22:29

on a trip like that to go dig ditches

00:22:31

to bring water to remote villages in Nicaragua.

00:22:35

So they go on this trip together.

00:22:36

Father/son thing; it's going to be great.

00:22:39

And they get there and my son gets super sick

00:22:42

on the first day, like super sick.

00:22:44

And they missed all the fun team building

00:22:46

on the first day.

00:22:47

They miss the climbing the volcano

00:22:49

and all the good experiences of the trip on the first day.

00:22:52

And then and then my son felt a little bit better

00:22:54

and my husband got sick.

00:22:58

And he was not just sick, you all, he was so sick.

00:23:03

He missed most of the week of work

00:23:06

and weirdly, about two days into this weird illness,

00:23:09

he lost his vision.

00:23:12

He literally lost his sight

00:23:14

and no one could explain it.

00:23:17

And great medical care is not exactly

00:23:19

on every corner near where they were

00:23:22

and it was terrible.

00:23:24

It was a terrifying experience.

00:23:26

He's trying to take care of his own kid.

00:23:28

He is in a pretty rural place.

00:23:31

And nobody on the trip had any idea

00:23:33

what was happening to him.

00:23:37

It was awful, it was terrifying.

00:23:39

There were disappointed expectations,

00:23:41

lost opportunities.

00:23:43

There was not only just the physical trauma of the trip,

00:23:46

but it was just all kinds of bad on every level.

00:23:50

And no, just in case you're wondering,

00:23:52

he did not go permanently blind.

00:23:53

It actually, they figured out later,

00:23:55

that it was a really rare side effect

00:23:57

of a motion sickness medication

00:23:59

that he had been on, for all the crazy transportation

00:24:02

that they were kind of experiencing.

00:24:04

So he got his sight back after a few days.

00:24:06

It was fine.

00:24:07

But when he got home, he was like,

00:24:10

"You know what? Never again.

00:24:12

I'm never going to put myself in that situation again,

00:24:14

that was a terrible situation."

00:24:16

But the tension over the next year in him started to grow.

00:24:23

He didn't say anything to me about it

00:24:24

at first because he knew how I would react.

00:24:27

It was just not a great experience for them.

00:24:29

And who would want that for somebody they love?

00:24:31

But he started to think maybe he needed to go back.

00:24:37

And I have to admit, I was probably

00:24:40

one of the voices at first in his life

00:24:41

that said, "Are you crazy?

00:24:43

Are you out of your mind?

00:24:45

Why would you do that? Why would you go back?"

00:24:49

And slowly, he realized

00:24:51

this was actually really important.

00:24:54

And I think today he would tell you that

00:24:56

maybe one of the most important things

00:24:58

spiritually he's ever done is to take our other son

00:25:02

and to go back on that same trip two years later.

00:25:05

To willingly step back in to the place of struggle.

00:25:10

To let God into that very spot

00:25:13

to work in the fear and work in the sickness

00:25:16

and work in the disappointment

00:25:18

and work through all the lost opportunity

00:25:20

and regret of the first trip.

00:25:22

What if deliverance, what if freedom and rescue,

00:25:27

what if it isn't God waving a magic wand

00:25:29

and just taking it away?

00:25:32

All through the Bible, we actually see

00:25:35

that deliverance and freedom and rescue

00:25:37

very often happens when we will

00:25:39

willingly step into some kind of struggle,

00:25:42

but we'll do it with God as our big rescue plan.

00:25:46

We do it knowingly, willingly, purposefully,

00:25:50

and we invite Him into it.

00:25:52

I want you to listen to the story of a man named Lee

00:25:56

who discovered what God does when you do that.

00:26:02

– My name is Lee Harrell

00:26:03

and I am a volunteer at Uptown

00:26:05

and sometimes I volunteer and help out

00:26:07

at Florence as a guest worship leader.

00:26:10

I've been married for 10 years

00:26:11

to my amazing wife, Katrina.

00:26:14

Yeah. You know, I grew up in church.

00:26:16

You know, when I got older,

00:26:17

I started making some different choices

00:26:19

and kind of went away from church for a while.

00:26:21

But then I ended up coming back to church in my mid 20s.

00:26:24

A pastor at this church and he asked me

00:26:26

to come on staff at that church as a worship leader.

00:26:29

And I ended up being on staff there for 13 years.

00:26:32

During that time is when my alcoholism

00:26:35

kind of blossomed, if you will.

00:26:37

I was at a place then that I did not feel

00:26:40

like I can come just as I was.

00:26:41

Even though I was a staff worship leader

00:26:44

and I was leading people to the Lord

00:26:46

and I was mentoring people,

00:26:48

in the corner and in the quiet,

00:26:50

I had this monster growing inside of me

00:26:54

that needed to be fed every day, you know?

00:26:56

You know, I didn't want to drink every day.

00:26:58

I didn't want to habitually be drunk.

00:27:03

That was never the point.

00:27:05

I just wanted to not deal with the heart pain

00:27:10

that life had dealt me.

00:27:12

I tell people now that I was in a spiritual desert.

00:27:16

I felt so alone.

00:27:17

I would say that the last two years

00:27:20

of my active addiction, I started to realize

00:27:24

that I had a terrible problem

00:27:26

and I started to want out and saw no exit.

00:27:31

My relationship with God was very real

00:27:34

and it always has been.

00:27:35

But I wasn't giving Him access to my heart.

00:27:39

You know, I wasn't giving Him access

00:27:41

to some of the pains and anxieties and fears that I had.

00:27:45

I got to the point where I was so desperate

00:27:50

to stop drinking and I didn't know how,

00:27:54

but I started to believe and think

00:27:57

for the first time that

00:27:59

I'm going to drink every single day until I'm dead.

00:28:04

And in that moment is when God spoke to me in my heart.

00:28:08

He just said, "You know what you have to do?

00:28:12

You just have to admit you have a problem."

00:28:14

My wife woke up and I told her,

00:28:16

"I have to talk to you right now."

00:28:18

And I said, "Babe, I think I'm an alcoholic."

00:28:20

She's like, "What do you want to do about it?"

00:28:23

I said, "I need help."

00:28:24

I think by the end of the day that day

00:28:26

she had connected me to an IOP program,

00:28:30

an outpatient program.

00:28:31

And I went and got assessed and entered a program.

00:28:35

I never drank again after that day. You know?

00:28:37

I didn't look back.

00:28:39

There was a whole lot of tension in my heart in those days.

00:28:42

I thought I had standards.

00:28:44

I thought that I told the truth.

00:28:46

I thought that I was a kind and gentle person.

00:28:50

But when I am drinking

00:28:53

and in the grips of that disease,

00:28:56

I'm none of those things.

00:28:57

The tension really came from putting

00:29:00

alcohol and my addiction to alcohol

00:29:02

before everything else in my life.

00:29:04

For six years, I dreaded the moment

00:29:07

that I would have to stop drinking alcohol.

00:29:11

I tried over and over to quit and it never worked.

00:29:14

But as soon as God spoke to me

00:29:17

about admitting my problem, I believe

00:29:21

that He had already done the work

00:29:23

in me before I even admitted it because

00:29:28

I never craved alcohol again after that day.

00:29:30

I tell people all the time that miracles happen.

00:29:34

And that was a miracle.

00:29:36

When I tell you that someone who drank

00:29:40

habitually, compulsively for six years every day

00:29:44

and then all of a sudden I didn't drink again

00:29:47

and haven't, that's a miracle.

00:29:52

– When Lee was running away, he wasn't free.

00:29:56

He used the words spiritual desert.

00:29:59

I think that's where a lot of us are

00:30:01

because we don't think we can come as we are.

00:30:06

That's what he said, "I didn't feel like

00:30:08

I could come to God just like I am."

00:30:11

And he said, "I already knew Jesus."

00:30:13

Guys, it doesn't matter if you think you know God

00:30:17

or you really do know God,

00:30:19

we still have places in our life

00:30:23

that are creating these battles

00:30:26

where we cannot overcome without Him.

00:30:28

Lee was not able to overcome his desire to drink,

00:30:31

despite trying to quit, despite trying on his own.

00:30:35

And the day he gave God access,

00:30:37

the day he went in there again

00:30:40

and this time he did it with God.

00:30:43

Well, that's when what Romans talks about next

00:30:48

started to play out in his life.

00:30:50

Paul wrote about what happens when we do that,

00:30:52

when we go into those places with God

00:30:56

exactly as we are.

00:30:57

In Romans 8 it says this:

00:31:17

You belong to Him.

00:31:19

Lee belonged to Him.

00:31:21

You are not condemned.

00:31:22

When you step in there and you do it with Jesus,

00:31:25

you are not condemned for the struggle that you are in.

00:31:29

The Spirit of God is not maybe going to free you.

00:31:32

The Spirit of God is not kind of going to free you.

00:31:35

The spirit of God has already freed you

00:31:38

from the power that is holding you in that struggle.

00:31:41

He wants in there with you.

00:31:44

Lee said that he believed

00:31:45

that God had already done the work in him.

00:31:48

And I love how he put that because his work,

00:31:52

Lee's work was to step into that struggle

00:31:55

in the faith that Jesus was going to

00:31:57

get in there with him. And he did.

00:32:00

And knowing that not yet

00:32:02

these not yet parts of our lives,

00:32:04

these dead parts, these these dead branches.

00:32:09

Not yet, only means, not yet.

00:32:14

Jesus has the thing that brings it back to life.

00:32:18

Jesus actually came to defeat the power of sin.

00:32:22

And when He died on the Cross

00:32:23

and He got up alive three days later out of the grave,

00:32:28

He put your struggle to shame.

00:32:31

He crushed it right then and there.

00:32:34

And if you want to share in that kind of life,

00:32:37

then you have to meet Him in His kind of death.

00:32:41

You have to step in with Him right into the pain,

00:32:45

right into the struggle, right into the temptation,

00:32:48

right into the battle to get the power of the Cross.

00:32:51

And it's real. The power is absolutely real.

00:32:55

And it's only available in one place,

00:32:58

right in the middle of the struggle.

00:33:00

So the next time you face it,

00:33:03

maybe it's going to be today.

00:33:05

The next time you face it, I want you

00:33:07

to follow the advice of pretty much anybody

00:33:10

that would say, like, "You know,

00:33:11

if you're going to come up against

00:33:12

a struggle in your life,

00:33:13

what's the first thing you should do?

00:33:15

Just stop and take a deep breath."

00:33:18

I think that's great advice.

00:33:20

And I want to offer you some words to say in that breath.

00:33:24

I want to offer you a six word prayer.

00:33:28

When you breathe in, I want you to say to God,

00:33:32

"Meet me here."

00:33:35

And when you breathe out, I want you to say,

00:33:39

"Bring me a life."

00:33:43

"Meet me here and bring me life."

00:33:48

In one breath, you can invite Him in.

00:33:51

In one breath, you can actually risk

00:33:54

stepping into that space again

00:33:57

and this time doing it with Jesus,

00:33:59

this time doing it in the faith

00:34:01

that He has the power in His life

00:34:04

to overcome anything that you're facing in yours.

00:34:07

Guys, you're going to survive. I know it.

00:34:10

I know you are going to survive the struggle

00:34:13

if you do it this time with God.

00:34:16

Because in Christ, in Him, the end is not up for debate.

00:34:20

It really isn't. The end has already been decided.

00:34:23

We are living in this crazy, unique part of God's story.

00:34:26

I don't know if you ever think about this,

00:34:28

but we in human history are living

00:34:31

in an incredibly unique part of God's story

00:34:34

as it's playing out in space and time.

00:34:37

We are living in the already but not yet part.

00:34:41

And there's such hope for us in knowing that.

00:34:44

That means that in our struggle we can know

00:34:46

the Kingdom of God has already come.

00:34:49

The Kingdom is here.

00:34:50

Jesus has already defeated the power of sin on the Cross.

00:34:54

He literally beat your struggle

00:34:56

when He got up out of the grave.

00:34:59

It's over. It's done.

00:35:07

The not yet part is what takes a step of faith.

00:35:10

It takes a step of faith

00:35:12

to actually meet Him in the middle of it,

00:35:14

to believe that He can show up,

00:35:15

to believe that He has the power,

00:35:17

to believe that He will share the life that He has.

00:35:20

And you've got to do it.

00:35:22

You've got to get in there with Him

00:35:23

so that He can work it out right here in reality,

00:35:28

in your life, in space and in time,

00:35:30

because the victory is already won.

00:35:33

The Kingdom has come, the Kingdom is coming,

00:35:37

and the Kingdom one day will fully come.

00:35:40

I want to see the tree again.

00:35:41

Let's look at this tree again,

00:35:43

because when I came across this tree,

00:35:45

I think we look at something like this

00:35:47

and I think we default to what I did.

00:35:49

I looked at this tree and I thought,

00:35:50

"Oh, that's too bad; that tree is dying."

00:35:53

That is dying is what I thought.

00:35:55

You know, it started as a seed that grew into a tree

00:35:58

that looked pretty good for a second.

00:36:00

And now, "Oh, too bad it's dying."

00:36:02

No, if this is us, that is absolutely

00:36:06

not how it works in the Kingdom of God.

00:36:08

When the Kingdom of God comes into your life,

00:36:11

the life takes over the death.

00:36:13

You are coming back to life. You are not dying.

00:36:17

Those dead branches, they will never win.

00:36:21

If you meet God right in the middle of your struggle,

00:36:24

then life is overcoming death for you.

00:36:27

1 Corinthians 15 actually says that

00:36:29

when Jesus comes again, that death

00:36:32

will be completely swallowed up in victory.

00:36:35

Everything that's dying will be swallowed up in life.

00:36:40

You are on your way back to life.

00:36:44

One day you will be fully green, fully leafy,

00:36:46

fully alive, fully healed, fully rescued.

00:36:50

All your branches are coming alive again.

00:36:52

So I want you to keep going. I want you to have faith.

00:36:55

I want you to invite God into that space today,

00:37:00

because the end has already been decided.

00:37:03

The battle has already been won.

00:37:04

And right now, right here,

00:37:06

God is working it out in your life.

00:37:08

The struggle, I get it, it's real.

00:37:11

And the struggle might be real for you today,

00:37:13

but I want you to live in

00:37:14

the confident expectation of what you don't yet see

00:37:18

because we're in the not yet part,

00:37:20

but the already is coming and I know where it's going.

00:37:25

We've got hope and we've got to live like that.

00:37:27

I want you to listen to this song.

00:37:29

And if you want to, I want you to open your mouth

00:37:33

and actually say these words out loud.

00:37:35

This song is called You Keep Hope Alive.

00:37:38

And it's a song that says

00:37:40

death tries to get a stronghold,

00:37:41

but the life of Jesus is stronger.

00:37:44

Let's declare that kind of hope together today.

00:37:47

Let's live in that kind of hope going forward.

00:41:56

– Nothing is impossible with God,

00:41:58

no matter the struggle going on in your life.

00:42:00

Look, I don't know what that is for you.

00:42:02

Maybe it's alcoholism like Lee,

00:42:03

maybe it's something completely different.

00:42:05

No matter what it is, we are here to help.

00:42:08

You can go to our website right now.

00:42:09

There's a little chat button in the corner,

00:42:11

9 a.m. to 9 p.m. that staffed

00:42:12

with real people waiting to help you.

00:42:15

Or if you'd rather, you can email me directly.

00:42:18

I'd love nothing more than to help you

00:42:19

with whatever struggle's going on in your life.

00:42:21

This is my actual email address.

00:42:23

I'll do my best to get back to you within 24 hours.

00:42:26

You know one of the struggles that

00:42:27

a lot of us have in life is around money.

00:42:30

It feels like water going through our fingers.

00:42:32

We don't know how to hold onto it.

00:42:33

It is frustrating?

00:42:35

If that's where you find yourself,

00:42:36

my encouragement to you is to try giving.

00:42:38

I know that sounds kind of crazy.

00:42:40

That's what I've done in my life

00:42:41

where I've experienced thousands people

00:42:42

at Crossroads jumped in and surrendered our money to God

00:42:45

and see incredible things happen.

00:42:47

If you want to jump into it,

00:42:48

you can go to Crossroads.net/give.

00:42:50

And look, I get it.

00:42:51

I know that sounds self-serving for a church

00:42:53

to talk about money and, hey, just give it to us.

00:42:55

It's magical. I totally get that.

00:42:57

We designed a way to take some of that out of it

00:42:59

and hopefully to help you take that bold step of faith.

00:43:02

We call it the 90 Day Tithe Test.

00:43:03

It's pretty simple.

00:43:04

You try giving, tithing for 90 days

00:43:07

and if at the end of those 90 days,

00:43:08

you don't experience more of God in your life,

00:43:10

we will give you all of your money back.

00:43:12

No questions asked.

00:43:15

If you want to jump into that, go to Crossroads.net/tithetest.

00:43:19

Here at Crossroads Church online

00:43:20

we're a community that's designed

00:43:22

to help you go on the adventure that God has for you

00:43:25

and will want to go there with you together.

00:43:28

We've got all kinds of exclusive content,

00:43:30

opportunities, experiences,

00:43:31

and real people that you can connect to.

00:43:34

You can get access to everything just by going to

00:43:36

Crossroads.net/getstarted and signing up.

00:43:39

I hope to see you next week right here on Crossroads.

00:43:46

– You know, there's a reason

00:43:47

why your life isn't better than it is.

00:43:49

And I mean like one reason.

00:43:50

It's probably one you never thought of before.

00:43:53

I think the reason your life isn't better than it is,

00:43:56

is because you're still scared of something.

00:43:59

You are scared of monsters.

00:44:04

For our 25th anniversary, we wanted

00:44:06

to bless a number of our reach out partners

00:44:08

by giving away $2.5 million over 25 weeks.

00:44:13

We want to bless as we've been blessed.

00:44:17

– Hey, everyone. I'm Hannah and I am here

00:44:19

with my friend Kristie, who is the executive director

00:44:22

of OneCity for Recovery, based out of southwest Ohio.

00:44:26

So excited to get to chat with her today

00:44:28

and hear a little bit more about her story.

00:44:30

So welcome, Kristie.

00:44:32

Welcome OneCity For Recovery.

00:44:33

I'll actually start us off today by asking,

00:44:36

what is that? Tell it.

00:44:37

– Yeah. So OneCity for Recovery is an organization

00:44:40

that's been around for about five years.

00:44:43

And it is focused on really the horrible epidemic

00:44:47

that we have here in Ohio, southwest region

00:44:50

with substance abuse.

00:44:51

It started out with heroin, but we have now,

00:44:54

I would say broadened to become more inclusive

00:44:57

because there is --

00:44:58

substance abuse continues to to morph.

00:45:00

And so we really help those who are

00:45:03

battling substance abuse to help them find

00:45:05

a way to recover in a very pragmatic way.

00:45:08

As I've come to know a lot of people

00:45:10

who are really battling substance abuse,

00:45:12

like how --- Like how bad their life is,

00:45:17

like and how isolating.

00:45:18

They've broken all the relationships

00:45:20

with the people that they love.

00:45:22

One of the reasons that I got involved with OneCity

00:45:24

is I became involved with a woman

00:45:27

who was in active heroin addiction.

00:45:30

And through that, I was helping her

00:45:35

with two of her young daughters.

00:45:37

And I would host them in my home and it --

00:45:44

and I was the best resource that she had.

00:45:47

I wasn't family.

00:45:48

I was pretty much a complete stranger.

00:45:50

And to me that's what really hit home of like

00:45:56

it's the most sacred relationship there is

00:45:59

with a mother and her girls.

00:46:01

But to see that the folks that are in

00:46:04

the worst of the worst be able to find hope,

00:46:10

find some light and be able to

00:46:12

get out of that darkness, that gives me hope.

00:46:17

That gives me serious hope.

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