We Run

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- Runners to the starting line.

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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I'm Andy, and around here we run.

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We run after the things that God has called us to as a church,

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and we aren't slowing down.

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I'm excited for Brian to talk more about that later.

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But first, we're going to get started with worship.

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We have this time every weekend

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to take our focus off of the craziness of life

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and turn our attention towards God.

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So turn up the volume, go full screen and sing along.

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- Come on. Put your hands together like this.

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We sing to remind ourselves of how faithful,

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how good God is. Sing this with me.

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- The battle belongs to Him.

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You know, these songs we sing

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aren't just songs that were created recently.

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They're songs that have been sung for generations

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and truths that we find in Scripture.

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The song that we're going to sing next

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is found in Ephesians 3:20.

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It says this; I want us to read it together.

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It's true, His faithfulness,

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His glory endures all generations.

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You know, I grew up singing a song in church

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because I grew up, I'm an old Baptist kid

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and we grew up singing Great is Thy Faithfulness.

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And that was the song, man,

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that just touched me every time we sang it.

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And and it was a reminder of exactly who God is. It goes:

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- Lord, we thank You. You're so mighty.

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You - Whoo, I just love singing to You

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because it just puts me in a place of

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remembering exactly who You are.

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It helps me to knock back the noise of life,

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the noise of mistakes, the noise of the enemy.

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And it reminds me that, God, You're faithful.

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You're so good. You're so true.

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You're so consistent.

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And because of that, I have something to look forward to.

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I can lift my eyes up, because You're good,

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because You hold all things together.

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So for that, we thank You

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and we'll always sing to You because You're worth it.

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

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- You know, Brian Tome always talks about

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the benefits of being outside.

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And I get to be outside at least an hour every day

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when I start my week, I get to dance.

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I get my steps in.

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I recommend it to anybody. It's so much fun.

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- When I first started serving for Kids' Club,

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I thought I was just signing up

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for community service hours,

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but I ended up finding connection with the staff,

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the other volunteers, and especially the kids.

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And now it's something I look forward to every Sunday.

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- Sometimes when you just come to service,

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you take things for granted.

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And what I found out was how many people

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are behind the scenes helping out

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and how I've been able to contribute to that.

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- When I started serving at Crossroads,

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I thought it was going to be an experience

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for me to learn how to do electrical work, how to do plumbing.

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But it actually turned into finding

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a friend here at Crossroads

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and it became about relationships.

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It was labor that was in the trenches,

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but enabled me to connect with God.

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- I found that serving here at Crossroads

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just gives me a huge sense of purpose

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and being able to help this community

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spread the Word of God to people that are

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perhaps watching this around the world.

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It's just awesome to be able to take

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the skills that God has blessed me with

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and be able to give back to our community.

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- I signed up for volunteering, I felt that

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it was going to be maybe burdensome,

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it was going to be long days and exhausting.

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What I found is that it's a great opportunity

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for me to share my gifts with my community

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and I find myself being closer to God.

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- Volunteering is one of the ways

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that we run as a church, and it's an amazing way

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to make a difference and have fun while doing it.

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Crossroads was started by volunteers

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and we still run on volunteers today.

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I actually started as a volunteer 15 years ago.

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Learn about the ways that you can get involved

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at Crossroads.net/volunteer.

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There are so many different things happening

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around Crossroads depending on where you live,

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whether you live near one of

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our Crossroads physical locations

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or anywhere around the globe.

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You can stay connected by downloading

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the Crossroads Anywhere app,

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by selecting your location and you're all set.

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Now another way that we run together is by giving,

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we pool our resources to accomplish things

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that we could never do on our own.

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The money that goes to Crossroads

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goes right back out to life changing work

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both locally and globally.

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To learn more or to give, check out Crossroads.net/give.

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Today and over the next five weeks

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I'm so excited because we are taking a look

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at our purpose as a church, the things that

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God has uniquely given Crossroads to run after.

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This is us, it's who we are, and it's in our DNA.

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- Talking about running after the lost,

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running after our friends who don't know Jesus,

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that's in our DNA as a church, as a team.

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What does that look like for you?

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Are there stories that you have of, like,

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I've been run after by this place?

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Is there something that you've done

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or your team has done

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that's really you've seen the fruit of that?

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- I can share it from the beginning.

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I would say when we had this idea to start

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a church for our friends that didn't go to church,

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we were like nobodies from nowhere

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who knew nothing about starting a church.

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But we had this idea and we just started running towards it

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and we figured God would guide us along the way.

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And He did. So He brought people around

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who knew something about starting churches,

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He led us too so that we hired Brian Tome.

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Because you kind of need one of those pastor people

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when you start a church.

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So yeah, he's still our pastor.

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And we ran towards, you know,

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finding a place where we could meet.

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And that's where People's Middle School came out.

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But I think if we had just kind of had the idea

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and didn't start moving, we probably would

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still be sitting around our living room talking about,

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"Hey, be nice to have a church like that."

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- I think the people that we look up to in life

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are always the people who were crazy enough to do it.

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And so, you know, when you get to sit around

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in a half circle with a bunch of folks

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who are crazy enough to do it and me being,

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kind of coming in on this on the back end side,

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what I am in is a training ground of crazy people

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who are crazy enough to do it.

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- So the first time I ever came to Crossroads,

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my parents brought me.

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I was 19 years old and they had found this new church.

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And they go, "Come with us. You're going to like it."

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At this point in my life, I did not like church,

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I hated church, wanted no part of it.

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Was pretty okay with like, God and Jesus, probably,

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but not -- but not church.

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And so they brought me and I hated it.

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Hated it.

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When I walked into the atrium, there were these,

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like, really expensive flat screen TVs.

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They were plasmas, like, back before LCD and then LCD,

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and they were like $1 billion apiece.

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It's like, why are these here?

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I sit in the service, everyone's wearing blue jeans.

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That's not okay for church.

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Everyone has coffee. That's crazy. No one can --

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You can't take coffee in the sanctuary, the place of God.

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What are you doing? You know?

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And then they played a Dave Matthews band song,

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and I was like, this is -- this is freaking terrible.

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Okay, so we leave. We're in the car ride home.

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My parents say, "You know, what did you think?"

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I was like, "I thought it was awful."

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And I went through all my -- all my reasons.

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And my parents listened patiently.

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And then they were like, "Okay, but you --

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You hate church, so isn't that - isn't that good?

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Don't you like coffee and Dave Matthews Band and TV?"

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And I was like, "Uh, yeah."

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And I came back the next week and I --

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And I heard the gospel

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in a way I'd never heard it before.

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I heard people who were sharing things

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you weren't supposed to share,

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admitting mistakes you weren't supposed to admit,

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and that sort of we run,

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we'll do anything short of sin to reach people,

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for me, that got me.

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That was like, "Oh, I can hear it."

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And I got to take that back to my friends at college. It's pretty cool.

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- Years ago we had a Crossroads running group starting up,

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and the whole point of it was to be able to

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pair physical with spiritual, like, the tactile with the spiritual.

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That's when we were trying to get a college ministry started.

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And so it was the thing we were doing at church.

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So I was like, "Well, if Crossroads doing

00:28:06

a running group, I guess I'm learning to run."

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And so I called people I knew who were runners

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and was like, "Will you start this group?

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And I'll just get in it and get my friends to do it with us."

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And so I ran a half marathon

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and had an awful experience, coming out of both ends,

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if that's enough information for you.

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It was awful and I was like, "I will never do that again."

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- [indiscernible] Nah, you don't need to, Kyle.

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- You joined a running group to reach people for Jesus,

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like an evangelism group?

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- Yeah, it was the thing we were doing as a church,

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physically running, which now I look back, like,

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that was really spiritually insightful.

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And so, yeah, that's actually how our uptown community,

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like, the first official Crossroads thing

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on the website that we did was a running group.

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- Nice. - Yeah - That's really cool. - Wow.

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- But I got one question I would like to throw out

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a memory of anything short of sin moment

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that I heard about but I wasn't around for,

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and that's the infamous beer on stage incident.

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[indiscernible crosstalk]

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- You weren't there? - No, I wasn't here for that.

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- That's happened multiple times. - Yeah. Someone tell me that story.

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- Where I remember it was we were doing --

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We did a series called either the Front Porch --

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Backyard Gospel. Backyard Gospel.

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I don't know if that was the first time,

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but that was definitely one of the times.

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And Brian was talking about like, "Hey,

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I want to be the same person here

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that I would be if you were with me on my back deck."

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And as a part of that, he cracked open a beer

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and he drinks it, because he's like, "Listen,

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if we weren't here and you were on my back deck,

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I would offer you a beer and it wouldn't be an issue,"

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you know? And so it was really powerful.

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But I think like the number of people

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for whom that moment was like,

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that's when I knew this was a place for me. It's powerful.

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- Yeah, I've actually done that beer thing a few times.

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I'm not going to do it this series, though I'm due.

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I'll tell you what's amazing.

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When you have three beers by noon

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at church as part of your job.

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God bless America. That is great stuff.

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Now, some of you might be saying,

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"Now, why would you do that? Why would you?"

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I understand there would be confusion about that

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and other things, that's why we're going to do a series on this.

00:30:03

Today we're going to be deep Bible,

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so get ready for a moment, get ready for a moment here.

00:30:07

I just want to make sure you understand

00:30:08

there's no ask is coming in this series.

00:30:10

There's no ask coming after this series.

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We have -- We want nothing from you.

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We want something for you.

00:30:16

We have been in deep, deep growth mode

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and we just got a high, high percentage of our church

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that is like, "I don't --"

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And so those have been around a while,

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we also need a refresher who we are as a church,

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why we do what we do.

00:30:28

I was talking with Johnny G., John Gillespie,

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our community pastor down in Lexington.

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Our Lexington campus is up 30% since March,

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March till last week, 30%.

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Over the summer church is supposed to shrink.

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We've grown, actually all of our campuses combined,

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we're up 24% from March to today.

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That's really, really nuts.

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And I want to help us understand

00:30:54

this basic stuff that's in the Bible,

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basic stuff about churches, basic stuff about people

00:30:59

who want to follow after the heart of God

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that actually isn't very basic anymore.

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In fact, when someone starts doing some of these things,

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there's confusion.

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And I think God is confused over what we're confused by.

00:31:11

I think if we actually had early followers

00:31:15

of Christ said, "Here's what followers would look like

00:31:18

in the 21st century, "they would go," What?

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Well, you mean they're not? What you mean not? What? What?"

00:31:25

Yeah, we've lost some things.

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Those of us who call ourselves believers in our country

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and at Crossroads, we're not trying to be better than other churches.

00:31:32

We're not trying to be different other churches.

00:31:34

We're trying to understand the scriptures as best we do

00:31:37

and apply them in a meaningful and aggressive way

00:31:41

in our culture today.

00:31:42

So let's pray before I go any further.

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God help me to explain and to encounter You in a fresh way today.

00:31:49

You know, I don't really care all that much

00:31:53

how many people are a part of Crossroads,

00:31:55

but I care a lot how many people are actually

00:31:57

a part of You and Your family and are engaged in it

00:32:00

and running correctly, passionately, gracefully.

00:32:05

Help us to connect with You today.

00:32:08

Help me, God, to accurately talk about Your amazing character.

00:32:12

And I pray these things according to

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the identity of Jesus. Amen.

00:32:18

So the story I'm going to look at today

00:32:20

is known as the Prodigal Son.

00:32:25

It's a classic story.

00:32:29

It's called the Prodigal Son, even though

00:32:31

the word prodigal is never in the scriptures

00:32:33

and even though Prodigal Son is never titled it.

00:32:36

I'm going to show this today, I was --

00:32:37

Some people this last week or a couple weeks ago said,

00:32:40

"You should share that thing."

00:32:41

I said, "Really? Didn't I just talk about that?"

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And I went back and looked at my old files

00:32:47

and it was actually five years

00:32:48

since I've talked about this, five years.

00:32:51

The reason why it feels like to me that it's yesterday

00:32:54

is I probably reflect more on this story

00:32:56

than any other story in the Bible,

00:32:58

because I think I understand the character of Jesus,

00:33:00

the character of God in ways

00:33:02

that no other story actually paints.

00:33:04

It's really profound.

00:33:06

So we're going to jump into it today.

00:33:07

Jesus would make stories up. They're known as parables.

00:33:11

And there's only one time where He has the same point

00:33:15

told three different times in three different ways. It's the only one.

00:33:18

He starts his story, this parable off, says,

00:33:20

A woman has got ten coins. She loses a coin.

00:33:23

And she doesn't celebrate she's still got nine coins left.

00:33:26

She does everything she can to find a coin.

00:33:28

She turns up the house to find it.

00:33:31

Then goes right from there and says

00:33:32

there's a guy who's a shepherd.

00:33:35

Shepherds out watching sheep. He loses a sheep.

00:33:38

And he's got 99, but it doesn't matter that he's got 99.

00:33:41

He leaves the 99 because he wants to find the one.

00:33:44

Jesus is hitting from every angle:

00:33:46

Woman in the first story, Man in the second story.

00:33:49

Inanimate object in the first story,

00:33:51

animate object, something that's alive, a sheep in the second story.

00:33:54

And then He moves in for the close,

00:33:56

which is the longest story He's told

00:33:58

and maybe the most profound story He's told.

00:34:00

It's from Luke chapter 15.

00:34:03

I'll just read it and we'll talk about it.

00:34:05

Chapter 15:11:

00:34:07

And he said there was a man who had two sons. Let's stop right there.

00:34:13

When Jesus tells a story, normally every person

00:34:17

or thing relates to something else.

00:34:19

So we've got a man, a father.

00:34:23

This is going to be God.

00:34:25

This is the God figure in the story.

00:34:27

And then there's two other people, actually,

00:34:29

there's three kind of people in this world:

00:34:32

Those who can count and those who can't.

00:34:40

But there's two people actually in this story.

00:34:42

There is the lost son and there is the found son.

00:34:49

There is the younger son and there is the older son.

00:34:53

There is the younger brother

00:34:54

and there is the older brother.

00:34:56

Everybody in here, you're going to be either

00:34:58

a younger brother or an older brother.

00:35:00

If you're not doing that right now,

00:35:02

your inclination is to be one of these people. Let's keep going here.

00:35:13

Today, if your parents have resources,

00:35:16

it's not uncommon to ask for an early inheritance.

00:35:19

Normally happens if you've made

00:35:20

some bad spending decisions, you're totally in debt

00:35:22

and you're thinking, "Mom, dad,

00:35:23

if you've got resources you're going to give me

00:35:25

later on when you die.

00:35:26

If you want to just take my portion

00:35:28

and help me get out of this crushing debt, that'd be great."

00:35:30

Or sometimes I've known people who had parents

00:35:32

who had resources and they were going to start a business.

00:35:34

And so they asked for an early inheritance.

00:35:36

A mom or dad may or may not do that these days,

00:35:39

but they don't take it as personally

00:35:40

as they did back then.

00:35:42

What this guy is saying in that cultural context is,

00:35:45

"Mom, dad, dad, I wish you were dead.

00:35:52

I don't want to be with you.

00:35:54

I don't want to be in your household.

00:35:56

I just want the things that you have.

00:35:59

I want the blessings from you. I want an inheritance."

00:36:02

Everybody in an ancient Middle Eastern culture

00:36:03

would know that's exactly what he was asking.

00:36:05

"Don't care about you. Don't like you,

00:36:07

don't want you, just want your money."

00:36:09

This is the way most of America is: "God, don't care about You.

00:36:13

God, don't want to be in Your family. Don't want to be around You.

00:36:16

But any blessings you got, bring them to me.

00:36:18

Any nice things, bring them."

00:36:20

This is what younger brothers do.

00:36:23

Now a classic father figure in ancient culture

00:36:28

would not go for this at all,

00:36:31

would be offended, and he would power up on him.

00:36:33

Look what God does in this story, who this represents.

00:36:42

So he gets the money, his early inheritance.

00:36:57

He takes all the money and blows it

00:36:59

on wine, women and song, and then a famine hits.

00:37:03

This happens with many of us who run away from God,

00:37:06

don't want to be around Him, want the blessings of God,

00:37:08

but don't really want to be in a in a relationship with Him.

00:37:11

We go away and we're just barely getting by,

00:37:14

but then a famine hit hits or rock bottom hits

00:37:17

or something we're not prepared for.

00:37:19

And all of a sudden, oh, no, I can't. I can't,

00:37:20

I can't handle it. And this happened to this guy.

00:37:22

He blows all of his resources

00:37:24

and now he has nowhere to go, nothing to do.

00:37:27

Verse 15.

00:37:45

Now this is -- Jesus.

00:37:47

I know it's going to shock some of you.

00:37:49

Jesus was a Jew.

00:37:52

Yes, Jesus was a Jew.

00:37:54

All of his early followers were Jews.

00:37:57

They understood the dietary laws that had been

00:38:00

given to them generations, generations ago.

00:38:02

It was called kosher, being kosher,

00:38:05

not being dill, not being pickled, but actually kosher.

00:38:08

There was all these laws that were there.

00:38:11

And for whatever reason, one of these laws

00:38:14

in the Old Testament was, hey, man, God was anti-anti pig.

00:38:18

No -- There's theories as to why this was,

00:38:21

but it means being kosher means you don't eat bacon,

00:38:26

you don't eat ham.

00:38:28

The first time I went to Israel years and years ago,

00:38:30

I went down to the little hotel

00:38:32

and I had the little breakfast there.

00:38:33

And it was, like, there was no bacon,

00:38:35

there was no sausage.

00:38:37

I went to the manager and I complained.

00:38:39

I was like, "Dude, man, this is."

00:38:41

And then as he looked at me, it dawned on me,

00:38:43

"Oh, that's right. I'm in Israel at a Jewish restaurant.

00:38:50

There's no pig products."

00:38:52

Like, sucks to be you, dude. Come to America sometime.

00:38:54

So I -- This guy who is in a Jewish audience, right?

00:39:03

Again, this is a made up story.

00:39:04

But what Jesus is trying to say here, you know,

00:39:07

a Jew being around pigs, feeding pigs

00:39:12

would be like saying somebody who went to

00:39:15

vacation Bible school in a Baptist church

00:39:18

being in the porn industry.

00:39:20

Like, this is a massive fall, massive fall spiritually.

00:39:25

He not only is around pigs,

00:39:28

but he's looking at what he feeds the pigs

00:39:32

and he says, "I wish I was having that pig --

00:39:36

I wish I was eating what that pig ate."

00:39:41

This today isn't about diet, not about diet.

00:39:46

We're going to see in a moment a climax of this thing

00:39:48

is about running, running.

00:39:51

We run is a phrase we've said around Crossroads

00:39:54

for a long, long time because it traces back to this story,

00:39:58

because we're going to see in a moment here

00:39:59

that God runs. God runs.

00:40:02

And if we want to be like Him, we're going to have to run.

00:40:05

Now, there's ways that the physical world

00:40:08

mirrors the spiritual world.

00:40:10

So in the physical world, our country is getting

00:40:13

further and further and further and further out of shape.

00:40:15

Our waistlines are expanding higher and higher and higher and higher.

00:40:18

Our fitness levels are going down, down, down.

00:40:21

Our cardiovascular ability is going down.

00:40:23

I mean it's crazy, the most wealthy nation

00:40:25

is supposed to have the greatest health care

00:40:27

in the world, we're decreasing in health expectancy.

00:40:30

Where our life of living is going down

00:40:33

because physically we're not in shape.

00:40:36

Just like spiritually we're not in shape.

00:40:41

I ran across the video this last wee.

00:40:43

When I was growing up, if you're, I don't know, older

00:40:46

you might have had in your when you were in high school,

00:40:48

the Presidential Physical Fitness Award.

00:40:52

It comes from Kennedy. It comes from Kennedy.

00:40:55

And he had all these kids back in the '60s and the '70s.

00:40:58

These are clips I found from a school in California.

00:41:02

This is their basic physical education class.

00:41:05

All the guys. Right?

00:41:06

We used to have shuttle runs, 600 yard dash,

00:41:09

50 yard dash, pull ups, sit ups.

00:41:12

You had to hit these marks to get a little blue patch.

00:41:14

That was the Presidential Fitness award for you.

00:41:18

It was really, really cool.

00:41:19

As I was watching this stuff from the '60s,

00:41:21

I'm going, "What would happen if you lined up

00:41:24

every kid in the average high school?

00:41:28

Would the entire high school be able to do

00:41:30

20 push ups like we just saw there? Would anybody?

00:41:34

Would there be anybody in the high school? Like maybe one out of ten?"

00:41:38

You know, we're just - we've really --

00:41:42

We've really fallen out of physical shape.

00:41:44

And I believe, I'm not that bummed about that.

00:41:47

But I believe what God's bummed out is

00:41:51

we've bummed -- we've fallen out of spiritual shape.

00:41:53

We don't do the things early Christ followers would do.

00:41:57

We don't have the same passions

00:42:02

that Jesus and his early followers did.

00:42:04

We just kind of bolt Church on as

00:42:06

something I should go to every once in a while,

00:42:08

just kind of bolt on the the worldview of Christianity

00:42:12

instead of actually getting into the world and actually living.

00:42:16

It's a problem. It's an issue.

00:42:19

And that is part of the reason why it's so astounding

00:42:22

that we've been growing the last couple of years.

00:42:24

It's so astounding because every --all over America

00:42:29

we're going down in terms of church engagement, down.

00:42:33

Gallup recently released a poll and said

00:42:36

if you are a church attendee, isn't that great?

00:42:38

I guess if you're here today, you're a church attendee.

00:42:40

What a wonderful label. I am a church attendee.

00:42:42

If you are a church attendee,

00:42:43

for the first time in American history,

00:42:45

you are in the minority according to Gallup,

00:42:49

in the minority, it's just been going down.

00:42:52

And it's been going down in large part because

00:42:55

those of us who are engaged in a church,

00:42:58

which hopefully, hopefully means engage with Jesus,

00:43:02

we're not running.

00:43:05

We're not going to people who don't know who Jesus is.

00:43:10

That's not what we're doing.

00:43:11

We're we're gathering only for our own edification,

00:43:14

which is great. We're gathering.

00:43:16

Gathering only to be affirmed, which is fine.

00:43:18

We all need be affirmed.

00:43:19

We're gathering only be around people

00:43:21

who may think like us, and that's fine.

00:43:23

But we're not gathering,

00:43:25

I'm talking now across the nation,

00:43:26

I'm talking where Christianity is right now,

00:43:28

we're not gathering for a purpose of running.

00:43:30

We're gathering for a purpose of navel gazing.

00:43:34

We're gathering for a purpose of I don't know what

00:43:37

and the stats and the condition of our country

00:43:40

belies this. Let's keep going here.

00:43:43

All right, verse 17.

00:43:59

Remember that from Bugs Bunny? Oh, Father.

00:44:03

Most of you don't. Most of you don't know Bugs Bunny and Looney Tunes.

00:44:07

Most of you don't know the Presidential Physical Fitness Award.

00:44:10

That's what's wrong with this country.

00:44:22

So he says, "I need to to go someplace.

00:44:26

I need to get back to my dad."

00:44:27

And he starts rehearsing this thing in his mind.

00:44:30

"Father, I'm sorry. Sorry.

00:44:31

I'm not worthy to be called your son.

00:44:33

I'd rather have you dead. I told you that.

00:44:35

I'd rather have your blessing instead of having a relation with you."

00:44:37

He's practicing this speal.

00:44:39

I should. I should. I should. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

00:44:41

And he's rehearsing this speech because

00:44:43

he's going to go back to his dad to hopefully

00:44:46

just go on payroll for his dad

00:44:48

so he doesn't have to eat the stuff that he's feeding to pigs.

00:44:52

He's going to start actually moving.

00:44:55

He's going to start walking. He's going to start running.

00:44:58

Part of the issue with us is we think

00:45:00

you have to do something special to run after God

00:45:02

or to run for God or to walk with God.

00:45:04

You don't have to, you've just got to, whoever you are, where you are right now,

00:45:07

just move towards God right now.

00:45:09

Those of you who are younger brothers, just move towards God right now.

00:45:11

Just go, wherever you are, just move. Just start.

00:45:13

Start moving with whatever you're believing.

00:45:15

Maybe you're believing things that are right.

00:45:17

Maybe you're believing things are wrong. Just start moving.

00:45:19

We as a country, again, we don't move.

00:45:21

We don't move physically

00:45:22

and we tend not to move spiritually either.

00:45:24

We just dig in on what we currently believe.

00:45:27

We don't move.

00:45:28

I get made fun of like for how I work out

00:45:33

and what I wear when I work out because --

00:45:35

And those of you who work out where I work out,

00:45:40

you know what I'm talking about.

00:45:41

The shoes I wear. I wear the easiest shoes to work out in.

00:45:45

That would be whatever shoes I wore to work that day.

00:45:48

Because if I got to bring another pair of shoes,

00:45:50

stuffed in my backpack.

00:45:51

So these shoes right here are what normally

00:45:53

what I'm on the elliptical with, these shoes right here.

00:45:57

And they look great when you're in shorts, let me tell you.

00:46:00

Sometimes I forget to bring shorts

00:46:04

and I'm going to do something upper body

00:46:07

and I wear jeans.

00:46:11

I know, I know. I'm weird. I know I'm weird.

00:46:14

I forget to bring -- my kids call me the goldfish

00:46:17

because I have a memory of a goldfish.

00:46:19

I don't remember things at all.

00:46:21

So I forgot. I forgot. So I'll just.

00:46:23

Hey, the point, Brian, is not to look

00:46:25

the way you should look when you work out.

00:46:27

It's just to do something, right?

00:46:28

So I'll go over and all I'm saying is this:

00:46:30

when we can grow spiritually if we stop saying,

00:46:32

"Well, I don't know this. I don't know."

00:46:34

Just get moving. Just get moving.

00:46:36

Just, just, just just start going the way of God.

00:46:38

Don't worry about what you you did today.

00:46:41

Don't worry about what you forgot.

00:46:42

Don't worry about the mistakes you've had.

00:46:44

Wherever you are, just start moving.

00:46:46

And this guy, this younger brother, he starts moving.

00:46:50

Now, this is when it gets really good, really, really good.

00:46:54

Let's keep going here. Verse 20:

00:47:09

So I picture this guy, this lost son.

00:47:13

He's come back. "Okay. I'm sorry, Father. I'm sorry.

00:47:15

I'm not worthy to be called your son.

00:47:17

Please take me on as one of your -- Father.

00:47:18

I'm sorry. I'm humility. I'm sorry."

00:47:21

He's going through a speech and you get the picture

00:47:23

that this father, it says he sees him a long way off.

00:47:28

It's not like his father has gone on with his life

00:47:30

and then someone knocks the door and he's like, "What are you doing here?"

00:47:33

Seeing him a long way off to me indicates

00:47:36

he's looking for him.

00:47:39

It's like he's sitting on the front porch going,

00:47:41

"He left that way, probably going to come back

00:47:46

from that way if he ever comes back." He's just looking.

00:47:52

If you're a younger brother, a younger daughter,

00:47:56

He's looking for you. He's looking for you.

00:48:00

I would say He's waiting for you, which is true,

00:48:03

but waiting only in and of itself is too passive sounding

00:48:09

as we're going to say right now, because

00:48:12

when he sees this, he feels compassion for him.

00:48:16

He feels something, feels compassion,

00:48:17

not indignity like, "Huh, about time he came around."

00:48:21

Some of us have a picture of God,

00:48:23

who God just like waiting to say, ha, ha, I told ya.

00:48:27

And that's maybe why we don't hang around with people,

00:48:30

those of us who are older brothers we'll talk about in a moment,

00:48:32

maybe that's part of why we don't hang around

00:48:34

younger brothers is because we're always indignant

00:48:36

to people who aren't - who isn't a Christian.

00:48:39

We're indignant to people who think differently than us.

00:48:41

We're indignant towards people

00:48:43

who have different morals than us. We're indignant.

00:48:45

It's almost like we're just want God to whack them

00:48:48

instead of God to forgive them.

00:48:50

It's like I really think when I hear

00:48:52

the average Christian talk, they're rooting

00:48:54

more for the justice of God

00:48:55

than they are for the mercy of God.

00:48:57

Well, didn't we all get the mercy of God?

00:48:59

Didn't we just talk about grace?

00:49:01

Well, you know, I want grace for me.

00:49:03

I want all these other people to feel awful

00:49:06

for what they've done and get slapped down

00:49:08

and have their comeuppance.

00:49:09

That's the older brother, I'll get to in a moment.

00:49:13

But God, He was not like that, says He feels compassion.

00:49:16

When we talk about feeling compassion,

00:49:18

we talk about our heart, our heart, my heart.

00:49:20

Oh, I felt it in my heart, which is fine

00:49:22

because the Bible talks about our heart.

00:49:24

But here the word that's used for feeling compassion

00:49:27

is the word Splankna, which is your bowels,

00:49:31

your intestines, because it's at the center.

00:49:34

It's like at the center of your being.

00:49:36

And it actually means my bowels are wrung out,

00:49:40

my bowels are twisted.

00:49:43

That's what the father figure feels.

00:49:45

God is twisted, He's internally in knots

00:49:49

when a child who He's created is disconnected from Him.

00:49:54

And when this father sees off in the distance,

00:49:58

this guy coming, he takes this --

00:50:01

He would have had this robe, it would have been down.

00:50:04

He takes his robe and he tucks it up inside of its belt,

00:50:08

which reveals his legs, which for many of us guys,

00:50:10

we skip leg days all the time.

00:50:13

Most men do not like other people to see their legs.

00:50:16

And not only that, why did he do that?

00:50:18

He does it to run.

00:50:21

He put it, he sees his son and he sprints.

00:50:25

It's a run out. It's a full sprint.

00:50:27

The word here is dremo that's used.

00:50:29

I have a tool at home, some of you might.

00:50:31

It's a high speed little thing to buff things

00:50:33

and cut thing, and it's called a Dremel.

00:50:36

It's like a dentist tool, like, [buzzing fx]

00:50:40

I'm not sure if the Dremel was invented after this word,

00:50:43

but this is the words used, dremo, which means to race.

00:50:47

It's an all out sprint.

00:50:49

When's the last time you've --

00:50:51

I'm not-- I'm talking physically right now.

00:50:53

When's the last time you've done a physical sprint?

00:50:57

When's the last time you've even seen somebody,

00:50:59

other than somebody you're going to watch today

00:51:01

on a football field, do a sprint?

00:51:05

We don't watch people. We don't --

00:51:07

We don't see people run. We don't run.

00:51:10

And yet the image of God is that He runs.

00:51:13

You don't have to run to know God, physically run,

00:51:15

but you've got to have the attitude of a runner. I'm telling you right now.

00:51:18

If you want to follow Jesus, that means being like Him.

00:51:23

If you want to be like God, that means doing what God does.

00:51:27

And when God runs, runs to people who are far away

00:51:32

and have jacked up morals

00:51:34

and have thumbed their nose at God

00:51:35

and may be highly offensive and have squandered things

00:51:38

and maybe have hurt other people.

00:51:41

Jesus died for all of them too

00:51:45

and they're still the child of God.

00:51:50

They are still the coin that God goes, "Oh,

00:51:53

I got nine others, but this one I really want."

00:51:56

They're still a sheep of God.

00:51:58

God says, "I know I've got 99 others filling churches.

00:52:01

Great, great. But there's this one.

00:52:03

Who's going to be about this one?"

00:52:06

God is passionate about this and He goes.

00:52:09

To understand who we are, you have to understand

00:52:12

the history of Christianity

00:52:14

and how we're trying to fit into that.

00:52:16

This is not some philosophical discussion

00:52:18

I have people all the time who are like, "Why do you do this?"

00:52:21

There's a lot of things we've done that are very controversial.

00:52:24

Many of them today aren't controversial at all.

00:52:26

They're very normal today.

00:52:28

But they were when we did them, like giving out coffee

00:52:30

and you can bring coffee into the service.

00:52:35

I was crazy, I'm telling you.

00:52:37

First, you would give it out.

00:52:38

Not pay, not a cup to drop a quarter in. Give it out.

00:52:42

And you could bring it in here. In here.

00:52:45

Like you could spill it in here. Oh, my gosh.

00:52:47

In fact, we're going to have a Blue Team meeting.

00:52:49

This just reminded those of us here in the Blue Team,

00:52:51

the Blue Team are those who tithe at Crossroads.

00:52:53

We've got a great -- It's going to be great meeting

00:52:55

and there's going to be people in worship venues

00:52:59

who are going to have beer and wine and sparkling water

00:53:02

and worship at the same time. God bless America.

00:53:05

It's going to be wonderful.

00:53:06

Going to walk in here and people are going go like.

00:53:10

Bringing up bring a horse on stage.

00:53:12

A football themed Super Bowl service, an Awaited with a --

00:53:19

We did this. We had somebody --

00:53:22

We run so hard sometimes, it hurts me to say this.

00:53:26

We run so hard sometimes,

00:53:28

we take such pains to be creative and run

00:53:31

that we've had people die doing it, literally die.

00:53:37

We did a Christmas production, had 150,000 people

00:53:41

come to it the last year before we shut down.

00:53:43

And we had a woman who was running

00:53:45

and swinging from a rafter as the magi.

00:53:48

And right there she fell and died, right there opening night.

00:53:58

All of these things that we do, we do because

00:54:01

we want to be like God, make aggressive moves and running.

00:54:04

One of my seminary professors said, "Yeah,

00:54:06

if you look at the history of the church

00:54:08

and the history of missions, there's people

00:54:10

who are always pushing things, pushing the edge."

00:54:13

Whether it's William Booth and the Salvation Army,

00:54:15

which seems normal today, it wasn't back then.

00:54:17

Or William Carey and China Inland Mission

00:54:19

or whether it's, you know, George Whitfield

00:54:22

and some of the stuff we'll talk about in our Blue Team meeting.

00:54:24

But he says this, he says, "There's always unbelievable

00:54:27

criticism because people don't understand it."

00:54:30

Judson Taylor, going to reach people in China,

00:54:33

and actually growing his hair,

00:54:35

long ponytail to look like the Chinese.

00:54:37

And he's a white Englishman, like.

00:54:40

And my seminary professor said what these people

00:54:43

would say, always said to people was they said this:

00:54:46

I think God likes how I bring people to Christ

00:54:49

better than how you don't.

00:54:52

It's amazing, do you realize in the last 12 months

00:54:55

2200 people been baptized in our church? 2200.

00:55:01

Baptism means you've come to know, come to faith.

00:55:03

2200. What? What? [explosion fx]

00:55:09

It happens because there's a bunch of people

00:55:12

that still run in our church. They go, go after it.

00:55:17

And when somebody comes to know Christ,

00:55:19

their life really doesn't get just saved,

00:55:22

it gets started.

00:55:24

Look what happens with this guy. Let's keep going here.

00:55:28

He runs out and kiss him, verse 21.

00:55:30

And the son said to him, "Father,

00:55:37

He gets out his speech he's been rehearsing,

00:55:39

perfectly, by the way, without notes.

00:55:42

And the father said to his servants,

00:55:43

Hey, hey, quick, quick, quick, quick. Bring all the best robe, and put it on him.

00:55:48

Bring the best robe on him.

00:55:49

It means put my identity on him.

00:55:52

He cloaks him in his identity.

00:55:55

When you come to know Christ, you're not just

00:55:57

a new improved version of yourself.

00:55:59

God gives you a new identity.

00:56:01

He cloaks His righteousness around you.

00:56:04

He looks at you, believe it or not, He looks at you

00:56:06

the way he looks at Jesus, because you have

00:56:08

the identity of Jesus, you have the the cloak of Jesus

00:56:11

on you when you come to know faith.

00:56:12

By the way, for those of us who are younger brothers, this is a good gig.

00:56:16

You might want to give your life to Christ right now.

00:56:19

Let's do that.

00:56:20

If you want to pray, you want to pray this, let's do it right now. I'll do right now.

00:56:23

God, Just say something like God, I want --

00:56:26

I've heard enough.

00:56:27

I don't know everything, but I want it.

00:56:28

I ask you to come into my life right now.

00:56:31

Come on, ask Him. Go for it. Come on.

00:56:32

I want you to come into my life right now.

00:56:34

And I ask that You would forgive me.

00:56:36

I ask You to fill me with Your Spirit.

00:56:39

As best I can., I'll follow You the rest of my life.

00:56:42

Amen. Amen. Yeah. [applause]

00:56:46

All right, let's keep going here.

00:56:48

So, uh, and put a ring on his hand

00:56:53

and shoes on his feet.

00:56:54

Ring on his hand. Why a ring on his hand?

00:56:56

Ring on his hand because that is a sign of wealth.

00:57:01

You would seal documents with your ring and wax,

00:57:04

and he gives him his wealth back, puts it on him.

00:57:07

And shoes on his feet. Why shoes on his feet?

00:57:11

Because I expect you to run, that's why.

00:57:14

Because I expect you to move, that's why.

00:57:17

Because I got something for you to do,

00:57:19

a place for you to be.

00:57:21

When you come to Christ, He expects you to run.

00:57:24

He wants you to be like Him, and that's what He does.

00:57:28

And then it keeps going here.

00:57:29

And bring the fatted calf and kill it,

00:57:32

and let us eat and celebrate.

00:57:34

For my son was dead and he's alive again.

00:57:36

He was lost and he is found.

00:57:38

And they began to celebrate.

00:57:39

He says, hey, where's that fatted calf?

00:57:41

Time to have a party. This is great. It's amazing.

00:57:44

Let's celebrate. There's no, like, "What did you do?

00:57:46

What's wrong? What's wrong?"

00:57:48

By the way, I hear people say, well, all religions

00:57:52

and all spirituality are basically the same.

00:57:54

When I hear that, I go, like, "Okay.

00:57:56

I'm talking to somebody who really doesn't know

00:57:58

anything about religion and spiritualities.

00:58:01

That's not true at all."

00:58:03

All religions spiritualities have some of the same

00:58:06

thou shalt nots. Thou shalt not murder.

00:58:08

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

00:58:09

But like, there's a Buddhist version of this story,

00:58:13

and it's entirely different than what the father does.

00:58:15

Let me just read it to you. We'll do it real quick.

00:58:41

This is like the God figure, fear inspiring.

00:58:48

Many of us feel that God is, "Go on. Come on.

00:58:51

You're just an underling. Get on your work. Don't be lazy."

00:59:07

See a difference? You work it off.

00:59:09

Okay. I'll let you work.

00:59:10

I'll let you come and I'll let you work it up.

00:59:12

But Jesus, Jesus, God, the God of the Bible says,

00:59:15

"Oh, man, mercy, grace, riches on you right now."

00:59:18

Yeah, you're going to work. You're part of the family, that's what we do.

00:59:21

But no, you don't work your way up.

00:59:23

There's no grace, there's no mercy, there's no blessing.

00:59:26

In Hinduism there's no such thing at all.

00:59:28

You die in Hinduism, you get reincarnated.

00:59:31

And it's all based on how you work last life

00:59:34

and how you work this life to get yourself

00:59:36

eventually the brass ring.

00:59:37

This thing that's in the Bible, this God of grace,

00:59:40

this God of riches, this God of mercy,

00:59:42

this God of forgiveness, it's one of a kind, friends.

00:59:44

If you like any of this stuff,

00:59:46

then you have to love Jesus because it comes from Him.

00:59:49

It comes from His spiritual, His spiritual down line.

00:59:55

Let's keep going. Here's where it gets, no.

00:59:58

The rest of us have this inclination

01:00:00

of the older brother.

01:00:01

Let's see what an older brother is like. Here we go.

01:00:24

You think his brother would go, "Oh, awesome.

01:00:26

My brother's back? Sweet. I love my fellow man,

01:00:30

especially someone who shared my DNA. Great. Whoo."

01:00:32

No, not what happens.

01:00:59

Interesting. See what this older brother is doing

01:01:02

is he's dehumanizing his brother.

01:01:05

This son of yours, he says, not my brother.

01:01:10

This son of yours.

01:01:13

He identifies him by all the things that he's done wrong,

01:01:18

all the things that he's gone out and done

01:01:20

that were wrong with this and that.

01:01:21

And he's angry because older brothers

01:01:24

are religious people who think that God is fair

01:01:27

and we get upset when somebody gets grace

01:01:30

that we haven't gotten.

01:01:32

And actually, truth be known, truth be told,

01:01:34

we'd actually prefer the people who aren't

01:01:37

in the family of God would stay out there

01:01:39

and God would smite them.

01:01:40

We actually would prefer that. We never say that.

01:01:43

But we secretly root for the people

01:01:45

who think different things and do different things

01:01:47

and disagree, we secretly root for God to smite them.

01:01:53

We don't root, generally, for them

01:01:56

to come in the family and get rich,

01:01:59

get spiritually rich with God.

01:02:02

And this - we also are a bit bitter. Do you notice?

01:02:05

Do you notice what he says here? He says, "All these years I've served you."

01:02:10

How about all these years I've enjoyed your love?

01:02:13

How about all these years I've been in your family?

01:02:15

No, it's about works. It's I got to do the right thing.

01:02:18

I got to -- Christians don't smoke.

01:02:19

We don't chew. Don't date the girls who do.

01:02:21

We just -- We kind of -- We don't.

01:02:24

We just -- We just do this stuff like this.

01:02:26

And when somebody doesn't have my morals, woo,

01:02:29

but I'm working, that's why.

01:02:31

That's why many of us end up deconstructing.

01:02:34

We actually become unfaithful because

01:02:36

we're in this bargain with God that I do this for you and you do this for me.

01:02:40

No, God doesn't bargain with you.

01:02:42

What? Bargain with you?

01:02:44

Like He needs something you would do for Him.

01:02:47

You're not bargaining with God.

01:02:49

You bargain when you need something;

01:02:50

God doesn't need anything.

01:02:52

Yet we get bitter.

01:02:54

And it's this older brother, he's got this

01:02:56

totally whacked, really weird theology.

01:02:59

And here's the weird thing. It gets really weird.

01:03:01

The weird thing is he should have been the one who was running.

01:03:10

In ancient cultures it was the oldest brother,

01:03:14

the oldest one, who would get the lion's share

01:03:16

of the inheritance to take care of the family,

01:03:18

to employ the family,

01:03:19

to have the whole family business going.

01:03:22

And you had to take care of your family.

01:03:26

And he should have been the one

01:03:27

that actually went out to find his brother.

01:03:30

We still see this in some cultures today.

01:03:33

Back during the Vietnam War, Time Magazine ran a story

01:03:38

on somebody who was known as simply "The Brother."

01:03:42

And the story is, let me make sure I get his name right.

01:03:45

Army Lieutenant Daniel Dawson.

01:03:48

He got shot down over enemy lines and he was lost.

01:03:52

And his brother Donald found out

01:03:54

about his younger brother being gone.

01:03:57

And he sold everything he had, and he took 20 bucks

01:04:00

and left it with his wife.

01:04:02

Sucks to be her, I guess.

01:04:03

Takes 20 bucks, leaves it with her

01:04:06

and goes over to Vietnam with the picture of his brother

01:04:10

trying to find his brother.

01:04:12

And the Viet Cong let him go.

01:04:14

They respected him and word got throughout the ranks.

01:04:17

He came to be simply known as "The Brother,"

01:04:20

because they understood in their culture

01:04:22

this is what good older brothers do,

01:04:25

They go in search of.

01:04:27

Jesus is your older brother.

01:04:30

Colossians says He is the first born amongst all creation.

01:04:35

Jesus says the Son of Man, speaking of Himself.

01:04:38

He says, "I have come to seek and save that which was lost."

01:04:43

He's the first born older brother

01:04:45

and He goes into seeking mode.

01:04:47

And so when you want to be like Him,

01:04:50

you will do like Him, which means

01:04:52

actually liking people that are different than you,

01:04:58

actually loving people who have a different worldview than you,

01:05:02

actually laughing and having fun with people

01:05:04

who don't share the same morals that you and I do.

01:05:10

And we do it because it's a form of running.

01:05:13

It's a way to push. It's a way to go.

01:05:15

And it's very uncomfortable. It always is.

01:05:18

It was uncomfortable for the father

01:05:19

to tuck his stuff in and run.

01:05:21

It would have been uncomfortable for the younger brother to go.

01:05:24

But the fact that he has this response

01:05:26

shows that he's lost the plot

01:05:28

and many people in churches have lost the plot.

01:05:31

Who is the last person you told about your faith?

01:05:37

Your your prayers?

01:05:39

If you look, when you pray, how much of your prayer

01:05:42

is focused on your personal pain, other's pain,

01:05:44

ad how much is -- how many names do you mention

01:05:46

of people who don't know Christ?

01:05:47

How many people do you know who don't know Jesus,

01:05:50

if you're one of the folks in here who happens to be a Christian?

01:05:53

Is that reflected in how we operate?

01:05:57

If you're a normal American churchgoer, probably not,

01:06:01

which is why we're so anemic

01:06:03

and why our country is in the condition that it is.

01:06:08

It's not good.

01:06:09

Hebrews 12:1-2, one last thing on this running piece.

01:06:24

Run. Following Jesus is not a sedentary activity.

01:06:28

It is one that requires some vibrancy,

01:06:31

some unction, as my spiritual mentor would say,

01:06:35

requires some risk, some being a bit different.

01:06:41

This last week, last thing I'll share and then we'll be done.

01:06:44

And by the way, when you leave, we'll have a --

01:06:47

I'm going to replay that song.

01:06:48

I've asked the band to generously redo the song

01:06:51

that we did very first that some of you

01:06:52

couldn't get in here with a with a jam up of the traffic.

01:06:55

So as you're leaving, you can check that out if you want.

01:06:58

But I was thinking about this this last week.

01:07:01

I was in Pittsburgh honoring a spiritual grandfather

01:07:06

of mine who's faithful and going strong at,

01:07:09

I think, 90 and I mean going strong. Pretty impressive.

01:07:13

And I stay at a friend's house.

01:07:15

The friend's house started this business.

01:07:17

There's one in Cincinnati.

01:07:19

There's 30 of them across the country. It's a franchise that's growing.

01:07:22

It's called Peace, Love and Little Donuts

01:07:23

and these little, little donuts

01:07:26

that that he actually made by accident.

01:07:29

Because when he put the donut machine together,

01:07:31

he put it together wrong

01:07:33

and this itty bitty donut came out and he's like,

01:07:37

"That's kind of cool. I can actually take that

01:07:39

and put some toppings on it."

01:07:41

And like off to the races, away he goes.

01:07:43

He was telling me the story of when he opened up

01:07:46

his first store in the strip district of Pittsburgh.

01:07:48

This guy comes in, he was just monkeying with this deal

01:07:51

and one of these little donuts plopped out

01:07:53

and he took some cinnamon on it and gave it to him.

01:07:55

And the guy bites into this warm, fresh donut,

01:07:59

this little donut with cinnamon.

01:08:00

He bites into it and he goes,

01:08:02

he said his eyes got really big,

01:08:04

and then he ran to the front door.

01:08:06

My friend Ron is going, "Well, you're like running out

01:08:08

before you have to pay anything?" He just gave the thing to him.

01:08:11

He runs the front door. He opens the door

01:08:14

and he looks up and down Station Square,

01:08:16

looks up and down the street and then comes back in.

01:08:20

And Ron said to him, "Well, what did you do?"

01:08:23

The guy said, "Oh, my gosh."

01:08:25

He said, "Instinctively, I had to go find someone

01:08:27

to tell them, 'Get in here. You have to try one of this.'"

01:08:33

If you've been running to any doors recently?

01:08:36

You've been opening any doors?

01:08:38

Maybe it's because you haven't had a fresh taste of Jesus.

01:08:41

Maybe it's because He's gotten stale.

01:08:44

We've only had a stale version of Jesus,

01:08:46

it doesn't have any life.

01:08:47

We don't know the version of Jesus who actually runs.

01:08:49

We don't know the version of Jesus

01:08:51

who actually gives us rings and gives us identities

01:08:54

and is sweet.

01:08:55

That's what Psalm says: Oh, come taste

01:08:58

and see that the Lord is good.

01:08:59

When you actually taste Him, you drop off

01:09:03

your older brother judgmental, static ways,

01:09:05

you drop off them and you actually get in the game

01:09:08

with your dad who runs. That's what we do here.

01:09:13

We want to just be like Jesus

01:09:14

and we want to live the Bible, which means running.

01:09:18

God, thank You for how you've ran after me

01:09:22

back when I was 16 years old,

01:09:23

through an organization called Young Life,

01:09:25

at Franklin Regional High School.

01:09:27

Thank You for how You ran after me there.

01:09:28

And there's a lot of us in here just want to remember

01:09:30

somebody ran after us. We thank You for it.

01:09:35

God, we want to recommit ourselves or commit ourselves

01:09:37

to be people who run, people who not just

01:09:40

pray about things, but actually do things. Thank you.

01:09:43

Thank you, God, for showing us Your character.

01:09:47

You're so generous and so good.

01:09:50

We pray these things according to the name of Jesus. Amen.

01:09:57

- Hey, thank you so much for watching.

01:09:58

Now, Crossroads isn't just content that we watch.

01:10:01

We really believe this is a community that you can belong to

01:10:04

no matter where you live.

01:10:06

And if you're still watching right now, I think you might want that second thing.

01:10:10

Next Sunday, September 17th at noon EST,

01:10:14

my friend and teammate Emmanuel Montgomery is going to be leading

01:10:17

a time for you to connect with other members in the Crossroads community,

01:10:20

to find groups that you can join and even ways that you can

01:10:24

leverage your unique wiring, gifts, talents and abilities to make an impact.

01:10:29

And you even get a free gift card for attending.

01:10:32

Now, this whole series is about reminding us who we are as a church

01:10:36

and what we're called to.

01:10:37

And our team actually made this really sweet poster

01:10:39

to help us remember who we are as a church.

01:10:42

Now, if you have a Crossroads profile and have Anywhere selected,

01:10:46

it should be in the mail on its way to you.

01:10:48

And if you attend one of our physical sites,

01:10:50

you should be able to get those there next weekend.

01:10:53

And hey, you don't want to miss any week in this series.

01:10:57

It's going to be awesome.

01:10:58

We'll see you next week when Kyle talks about how we go.

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