I Am Who I Am - Guest Speaker: Matt Chandler

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads Church Online.

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We're so glad you're here with us.

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Whether you're around the corner

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or on the other side of the globe, thanks for tuning in.

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Hey, my name is Andy Reider,

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Community Pastor for Crossroads Anywhere.

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This is my good buddy Arturo,

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who is a part of our Reachout team

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as well as serving with our Crossroads en Espanol.

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- Thanks, Andy. And actually speaking about Espanol,

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did you know that we have our services

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available in Spanish, like right now?

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- In stereo. - In stereo.

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- Love it.

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- In fact, if you want to find that service,

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just click back

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and look for the button that says Ver en Espanol,

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get your familia around and go for it.

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- That's right. Yeah, we're a global movement,

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a global community, not just in the content

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that you can watch, but in who we are and where we are.

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We truly are all over the map.

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And that was on full display just this past week

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with a little thing that we call Go Day.

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- A little thing called Go Day?

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- A little thing. - A little thing.

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No, not a little thing.

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We're talking 2000+ volunteers. - 2600.

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- 2600 mobilized across 8 states and 4 countries.

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Andy. I mean, going outside of the church walls

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and showing up with the love of Jesus.

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- Yeah. Almost 10,000 hours of effort invested

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to make stuff happen, man.

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I have two quick examples.

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Lots of great ones from all of our sites,

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but two examples from our Anywhere Community.

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One, Tim and Rosie and sort of a remote part

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of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan.

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They had a neighbor who had trees down,

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huge storm came through, messed everything up.

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They showed up with 20 people with chainsaws,

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with a stump grinder, with all the tools,

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and just reset this whole guy's house and yard.

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It is beautiful.

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And the guy literally after hours of work, like,

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looked at them and said, "Why would a church do any of this?"

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And they got to look at him and basically just say,

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because God told us to.

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God told us to love Him and to love our neighbors.

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So good. Another example, a woman named Fritzie,

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who's incredible, flew from her home in Manila

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in the Philippines all the way to Bhutan with her son, Sky,

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and they served over a hundred kids in a rural community there.

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Food, sang songs with them, prayed with them,

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and served them. It is just so beautiful.

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And the best part is, like, I had nothing to do with it.

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I didn't even know about it until afterward.

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This was just you guys on your own initiative,

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finding needs and finding ways

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to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

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- Andy, this is literally why

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my family loves to give around here.

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Just knowing what giving activates

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in and around our communities. It is incredible.

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And for those of you that are part of that team,

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thank you so much.

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If you're curious about giving around here,

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we want to encourage you to go to

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Crossroads.net/give to find out more.

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- That's right. Hey, we're going to jump in.

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We've got teaching in just a few minutes from Matt Chandler.

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That's going to be incredible.

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But before we get there, we're going to have some time

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to connect with God through song.

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So use these songs as a as a kickoff

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to a conversation between you and the God of the universe.

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- That's right, God. We're grateful.

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Our hearts are full of gratitude

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because of what you've done, Lord.

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- There's no one like Him.

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The only response is to put our hearts on display like this.

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- This is right. This is right.

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We're so prone to fill space with clapping,

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which is praise to Him, which is great,

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but sometimes it's just because it makes us more comfortable.

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One writer about God said a few thousand years ago,

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he wrote, "I'll just stand in awe of You

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and let my words be few."

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Awe, silence for the one who is holy.

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Father God, I bless You because You are like no other.

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Because You are a mystery,

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and yet You've made Yourself known to us.

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You're powerful and You are with us.

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The fullness of You is breathtaking

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and I praise You because You are good and holy.

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And I pray all this because of You, Jesus. Amen. Amen.

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Whew. Well, y'all sound beautiful.

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I mean, not as beautiful as Marcella does on the viola,

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but y'all sounded pretty good, you know?

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So, hey, why don't you turn to somebody that you're here with,

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just say, "Hey, glad to be here with you,"

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then you can have a seat.

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If you're joining us online, glad you're here with us, too.

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- Well, this weekend, we've got a nice little surprise for you.

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Whenever I get to spend time with a friend of mine

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and make it my job, I'm all about that all the time.

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A couple of years ago, a good friend of mine

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came who was becoming a good friend at that point,

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and we are definitely good friends.

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We've known each other for years now.

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He came and spoke. His name is Matt Chandler.

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Matt has a church down in Dallas, Texas.

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Matt is, um, he's an author.

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He is, I believe,

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one of the greatest communicators alive today.

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He's just that good.

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And I know this because you all told me

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last time he spoke that he is better than me.

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"Man, that guy is really good. Like, he's better than you."

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I know. I know.

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You think I'm gonna bring in some freaking loser?

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No, no. That's why I'm here today,

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because I want to hear what he has to say.

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He's got really, really good stuff to share with us.

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He's a deep well and a good friend.

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Please welcome our favorite, Matt Chandler.

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Come on, come on, come on.

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- What a rookie mistake to, like, not have the mic on.

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It's just not a mic I'm familiar with.

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Hey, so good to see you today.

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If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them,

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whether that's digital or hardback.

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I'm kind of old school, I like you to have a book in your hand.

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But we're going to be in Exodus chapter three tonight.

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Certainly we'll put that on the screen for you.

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But I also want you to get your eyes on it.

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Now I know we don't know each other well,

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so let me preface my intro like this.

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I am not in the habit of reading

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ancient pagan demonic prayers

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in my sermons that come from the Bible.

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So just because I don't want to make anybody nervous,

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but I, however, will be doing that tonight.

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I'm going to read an ancient Assyrian prayer

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that was unearthed around, they think it was 668-633 BC,

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so way before Jesus.

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But here is the prayer.

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I want you to look and listen to the futility in it,

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the confusion in it, and the general,

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"I better cover all my bases," in it.

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So I'm just going to read it:

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Do you see, do you see what I'm saying?

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He's just like I don't know, God, Goddess,

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her, him, it, she, whatever, whatever it is,

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be quieted toward me.

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Now here's the good news for you and me today.

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The good news for you and me today,

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especially as believers in Christ,

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is we never pray like this.

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We aren't guessing.

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We aren't groping in the dark.

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We're not trying to figure out what He wants

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and what He doesn't want and who He is and what He's not.

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And like, we're not left in the dark to answer

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the most fundamental question

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about ultimate reality in the universe.

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He has not done that to us.

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This poor soul, and everyone who prayed this prayer,

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is just trying to, did you hear it?

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He's like, maybe I sinned, maybe I didn't. How would I know?

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Maybe I ate something I shouldn't, or maybe I did,

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I don't know.

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I just know, I know something's wrong with me

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and I don't know how to fix it.

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And so whatever's causing my pain in the universe,

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will you please relent?

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And the good news for those of us

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who trusted in Jesus Christ is we've got our answers.

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Because God has revealed Himself to us.

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It's the only way we have answers.

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We're not left guessing. We don't guess.

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We know, and we know because God has decided

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to reveal Himself to us, to not make us guess,

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to give us confidence in knowledge

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that could transform us

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and transform our lives into joy filled hope

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and not finger crossed,

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I don't know why bad things are happening,

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but whoever's out there, please fix it.

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I don't know if you're a him or a her or an it or a what,

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but please get me out of this swamp.

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We're never stuck like that.

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And then what kind of bends the brain in 2025

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is that God is self-defining.

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He's the only one in the universe that's self defines,

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which means -- Well, let me say this.

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And no, I'm not trying to start a fight with you.

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I know I'm in Cincinnati.

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I know I'm not in my hometown,

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but just let's make some eye contact.

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Your opinion about God doesn't matter.

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It does not matter what you think He's like.

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You will not affect God's godness by your opinion

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of how you think He should behave.

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Like, God is.

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This is what I mean by God is self-defining.

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You're not self-defining. I'm not self-defining.

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God and God alone is self-defining

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and He has let us know, "This is what I am."

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Now we live, maybe all days are like this,

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maybe especially our day.

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We like to kind of make God in our own image.

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The way it works is every culture has what's called

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plausibility structures.

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Sociologically speaking, that just means

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because of our intakes, what our culture, values

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and beliefs, the things that we watch,

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the art that we create, the architecture we design,

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there just starts to be a way that

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we think the world should work.

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It's called a plausibility structure.

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It just -- it seems it should work like this.

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Well, what ends up happening when you let

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your version of God be the one that you accept

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instead of God's explanation of Himself to you

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is you begin to create, I don't know if you ever known this.

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You begin to create God in your own image.

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Have you ever noticed that some people,

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their version of God is just like them?

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Are you tracking with me?

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It's like all the people they hate, that's who God hates.

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All the people they love, that's who God loves.

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What they like their God likes.

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What they hate their God hates.

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What they're bent towards, their God is bent towards.

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It's just weird thing where people

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will create God in their own image and then swear by it,

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and then cherry pick some verses from the Bible.

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You know, you got to slap that Jeremiah 29:11 on something.

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You better get that Philippians 4:13 right on there.

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Don't forget Romans 8:28. That's your God by God, right?

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All things are working together for me, brother.

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He has a plan to prosper me.

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It's not that those things are untrue.

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It's just you can't untether them from who He is.

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And the more you make God in your own image,

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the more you exalt yourself to a place you're not.

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To see God rightly is to see ourselves rightly.

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To see ourselves rightly,

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then is to have peace on a horizontal plane.

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I cannot know me rightly outside of seeing Him rightly.

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It's in seeing Him rightly that I'm actually

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formed into who He designed me to be.

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And if I can't ever find that, then my horizontal plane

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is going to be nothing but conflict.

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Because if I don't know who I am,

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this identity I've been given by Him,

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then I got to fight for and create my own identity.

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And that puts you and me in competition.

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That means I need you to complete me,

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if you've ever seen Jerry Maguire. Right?

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This is, but this jams us up.

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It makes us hostile.

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That means I need you to tell me how good I am.

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And if you don't know how good I am,

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we've got a problem because I'm awesome.

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Have you ever seen God?

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He looks a lot like me, right?

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This is, this is what happens to us.

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God is not a concept that you and I get to shape.

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He's just not.

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I'm just going to keep saying it.

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Your "I think God is like" fill in the blank,

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it just, gosh, I love you, it just doesn't matter,

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unless it lines up with how God has said, "This is who I am."

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And with that said, I want us to look at this.

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So Exodus three I've just got --

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I love this passage because God introduces Himself

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to His people with His personal name.

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So God is very much active through the book of Genesis.

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Like, we see Him working.

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He's the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

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the God of creation, the God of the flood, the God of --

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You just watch God working, but He never introduces Himself.

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He just is.

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And then if you remember back Sunday school,

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felt bored, or you've been in church for a long time,

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you know the people of God end up enslaved in Egypt.

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And then at the beginning of this chapter,

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Exodus 3, we read this:

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I have heard the cries of my people.

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I have seen their suffering.

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I have come down.

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I have heard, I have seen, I have come down.

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Comes to Moses and tells Moses,

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"You're going to go back to Egypt.

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You're going to deliver my people from Pharaoh.

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I'm going to flex on the Egyptian gods.

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I'm going to crush them all in a public way,

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and then I'm going to lead you to a promised land."

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And Moses, he's got some questions, namely,

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"Great, when I get there, I'm going to say that.

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They're going to be like, "Who sent you?"

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Who do I tell? Like who? Tell me your name.

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Who? Who are you? And so let's pick it up.

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This is Exodus 3, starting at verse 14.

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And God replied to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM.

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This is what you are to say to the Israelites:

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I am has sent me to you."

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God also said to Moses, "Say this to the Israelites:

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The Lord, the God of your ancestors,

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the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,

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and the God of Jacob has sent me to you."

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Now if you highlight in your Bible,

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I would highlight this next one.

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"This is my name forever,

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and this is how I'm to be remembered in every generation."

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In other words, my name ain't changing,

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like, I am who I am.

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And that's what everybody's going to call me, right?

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You ain't -- you ain't calling me something different

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in 2025, that is my name, and my name is I AM WHO I AM.

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Now, this is meant

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to deliberately blow up our categories.

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And honestly, it's not a great translation in the English,

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just the direct translation isn't good English.

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In the real translation here is I be who I be.

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And that's fun to say, right?

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So He's doing -- What He's doing is

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He's deliberately blowing up our categories.

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See, I am something.

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I am a husband.

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I am a father.

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I am a pastor.

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I am an author.

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I am a friend. I am, I am those things.

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You are those things.

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But God says I am who I am.

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This is translated Yahweh or Jehovah in your English Bible.

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You're going to see this just THE LORD in all caps.

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"This is my name forever" He said, "in every generation."

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And if we break it down in the Hebrew, He's saying,

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"Now I have been who I have always been.

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I am consistent and unchanging.

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You're inconsistent and always changing.

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I'm perfectly consistent and I don't change."

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Theologians call this immutability.

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God does not change.

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You need that, but that's a different sermon.

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I am who I am.

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Now this is, you know what He's saying

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when He says, I am who I am?

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"I am not shaped or changed by others."

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You and I are shaped and changed by others.

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We come from a family of origin.

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Like, you didn't just spontaneously poof here today,

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right?

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You are who you are because others have shaped you.

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No one's shaped the Lord.

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No one's shaped Yahweh.

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Yet Yahweh is saying, when He says, "I am who I am,

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I'm not shaped by others."

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And then if we go to the direct, I be who I be.

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God is ultimate reality, past, present and future.

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He is Yahweh, Jehovah, God.

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Now, if we took my intro and we took His personal name

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and we laid it across our culture in this given moment,

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you'll see the tension of how it happens.

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And so if I were to give you an assignment,

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I were to give you some divine homework today

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And I were to tell you, hey, go sit down with a friend

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that can be a Christian or a non-Christian

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and have them fill in this blank, God is fill in the blank.

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99% of your friends are going to fill in that blank with love.

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He is love. Now that ain't wrong.

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Like, in two different texts, in the same passage

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in 1 John we read God is Love.

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He doesn't have it. He is it. God is love.

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So they're not wrong. A couple of problems though.

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Namely, in our culture, love is a junk drawer word.

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Do you know what I mean by that?

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You know that drawer in your kitchen

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that doesn't make any sense.

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It's just like that one drawer you put everything

00:36:59

you don't know where else it goes?

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It's like batteries in there, they may or may not work.

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You don't know. They're just in there.

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You've got like a some sort of thing

00:37:08

from two microwaves ago that's just sitting in there.

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You've got like a chip clip that's broken.

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There's the bread tie things.

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And just you don't know so, etc.

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Well, that's how we talk about love in our culture.

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Like I do it all the time and I know better.

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Like, I love a good medium rare rib eye.

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And if you're cooking it more than that,

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just get the chicken. Stop it. Right?

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We don't even do that in Texas.

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That's a good way to get shot in Texas is to order

00:37:36

a rib eye well with some sauce.

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Just telling, hey, I am hating.

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I am. That is smoke, right?

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Just get the chicken, man.

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I don't have time for this now.

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People will say God is love, but they don't --

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If you push, if you just go, "Okay, what is that?

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What do you mean? What do you mean that God is love?"

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They will actually define indifference, not love.

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That's what I'm telling you 100.

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I'm batting a thousand on this.

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"Well, isn't God love?"

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"Well, that matters. Talk to me. What do you mean by love?"

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"Well, He just lets people live their authentic self.

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He's not judgmental.

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He's never like, He's just --"

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They -- what they describe ends up being

00:38:22

Tinkerbell from Peter Pan, not anything that's biblical.

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Right? And but I've already told you, no, He is love.

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They're not wrong.

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There's just something that shapes that love that matters.

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So you've got two times in the Bible, God is love.

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Do you know what you have 400 times in the Bible?

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God is holy.

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So it looks like His love is informed by His holiness.

00:38:53

His holiness is not informed by His love.

00:38:56

It is His holiness that makes His love

00:39:00

something that we can bank on and build on.

00:39:02

If they were opposite, then we're on sinking sand.

00:39:07

But He is holy.

00:39:09

Let me define that.

00:39:11

Holiness means: wholeness, entireness,

00:39:18

perfection in a moral sense.

00:39:22

So what kind of love does God possess?

00:39:25

What kind of love is He?

00:39:27

Whole love. Entire love.

00:39:31

Love that is perfect in the moral sense.

00:39:35

Not indifference, not indifferent.

00:39:39

This is why He hates sin, because sin destroys things.

00:39:43

He's not indifferent to sin. He hates sin.

00:39:47

Why? Because His love is holy.

00:39:49

Because His love is holy.

00:39:51

And so let me kind of make this point that

00:39:53

I think we've got to get in the Book of Revelation.

00:39:58

The whole Book of Revelation centers around

00:40:00

the throne of Jesus reigning victorious

00:40:02

over all time and space.

00:40:04

It's the whole point of Revelation.

00:40:06

Everybody else gets caught up in the ancillaries,

00:40:08

just like, "The mark of the beast was the vaccine."

00:40:10

"No, it wasn't. It was the phone."

00:40:12

"No. It's barcodes."

00:40:13

"The Antichrist is Gorbachev." "No, it's Putin."

00:40:16

"No, it's Saddam Hussein." "No, it's --"

00:40:18

I mean, we're just always all over the place.

00:40:20

We sound like morons.

00:40:22

It's not even the point of the book.

00:40:24

The point of the book is Christ's victory,

00:40:26

visible, enthroned on high.

00:40:28

And so this is the picture we get in Revelation 4.

00:40:31

Jesus is on the throne, 12 thrones on His right,

00:40:36

representing the 12 tribes of Israel,

00:40:38

12 thrones on His left representing the 12 apostles,

00:40:41

all the people of God across time and space, the church,

00:40:45

in front of Him gathered men from every tribe,

00:40:48

tongue, and nation on earth,

00:40:50

a multitude that could not be counted is what the book says.

00:40:55

And they're there.

00:40:56

They're worshiping King Jesus, enthroned on high.

00:40:59

All these symbols of covenant faithfulness around Him

00:41:03

with the rainbow behind the throne and crystals

00:41:05

and gold and the purity of sapphires all on display.

00:41:10

And then there are these four freaky little creatures.

00:41:13

I mean, they're the stuff of nightmares, y'all.

00:41:15

I mean, it's just like they've got hooves and,

00:41:18

like, bodies, like, you know, the ox

00:41:20

and feathers like an eagle, but human faces,

00:41:23

and they're flying around.

00:41:24

I mean, just the stuff of nightmares, eyes all over them.

00:41:28

And they have since their creation

00:41:31

and will continue for all of eternity,

00:41:34

singing a singular song.

00:41:37

And that song is Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty,

00:41:44

who was and is and is to come.

00:41:46

Do you hear the throwback to Exodus 3?

00:41:49

"This is my name forever and in every generation."

00:41:54

And then you got the freaky little creatures doing what?

00:41:56

Holy, holy, holy, who was and is and is to come

00:42:00

for all of eternity.

00:42:02

So right at the throne of Jesus

00:42:04

they're not fluttering about going love, love, love,

00:42:06

mercy, mercy, mercy.

00:42:07

No, they're saying, Holy, Holy, Holy

00:42:11

is the Lord God Almighty.

00:42:13

So Jesus might be your friend, but He ain't your homeboy.

00:42:17

He sits enthroned on high.

00:42:20

He is all authority, all power,

00:42:23

sitting at the center of reality as the point of it all.

00:42:28

He is holy, and that informs His love

00:42:33

and that informs His mercy.

00:42:35

And you can build a whole life of joy and safety on that.

00:42:40

Jesus in your own image?

00:42:42

He's going to betray you like you betray you.

00:42:44

Can we talk?

00:42:45

Has anybody lied to you more consistently than you?

00:42:48

Anybody meaner to you than you are?

00:42:51

I'm just telling you, man,

00:42:53

nobody's as terrible to you as you are.

00:42:57

And you want to make you God?

00:42:58

You want to give you God like status?

00:43:01

You're not even a great human.

00:43:04

You're going to try to elevate up to divine

00:43:06

when you're such a bad person to begin with towards yourself?

00:43:11

No, no, no, you need -- You need this kind of love.

00:43:14

You need holy love.

00:43:15

You need this kind of mercy.

00:43:17

You need holy mercy.

00:43:20

The giant obvious idea in the Bible is that Jesus is holy.

00:43:29

And then here's where your brain will start to bend.

00:43:32

When we think about

00:43:34

the incommunicable attributes of God,

00:43:36

that just means God's godness,

00:43:38

those things that God is and will never be,

00:43:40

God doesn't offer to make you any of them.

00:43:44

He has not offered to make you transcendent.

00:43:47

He has not offered to make you omnipresent

00:43:50

or omniscient or omnipotent.

00:43:53

None of those are on the table,

00:43:55

but holiness, this is scandalous.

00:44:00

God who is holy because of

00:44:05

the great love with which He loved us,

00:44:08

has an offer on the table today for us

00:44:11

to receive holiness from Him and to be made holy by Him.

00:44:19

Now, as we look at the build out of Scripture,

00:44:23

God instructs us pretty clearly

00:44:26

on the scope and cost of sin.

00:44:30

Like, sin is a very real thing.

00:44:32

It fractures our relationship with God.

00:44:35

And in fracturing our relationship with God,

00:44:37

we cannot know ourselves or define ourselves properly.

00:44:40

So now I have a fracture within myself.

00:44:43

And if I have a broken relationship with my creator

00:44:45

and then a broken relationship with myself,

00:44:47

how are things going to work out on that horizontal plane?

00:44:50

Not great.

00:44:52

So now, because I don't know who I am

00:44:54

and I'm unplugged from the very source of life

00:44:57

my soul was meant to run on, now I'm in constant conflict.

00:45:03

And the way the Bible talks about sin,

00:45:06

specifically the scope and cost, is it says

00:45:08

all of us are guilty of three things, like,

00:45:11

we like to tease it out, name certain sins.

00:45:13

There's nothing wrong with that.

00:45:14

But at a high level, here's the nature of all sin

00:45:17

and why the Bible says we are all guilty.

00:45:20

Number one, the Bible says that you and I

00:45:22

prefer creation to the Creator. That's Romans 1.

00:45:27

What that means is that God created everything that exists,

00:45:30

but He created it for us to experience it

00:45:33

and then be able to worship Him.

00:45:34

So the pleasures of life on earth

00:45:37

are not meant to terminate on themselves,

00:45:39

but meant to bubble up over. Right?

00:45:41

Remember that ribeye I was talking about?

00:45:43

Like, a guy who doesn't love Jesus can eat that ribeye,

00:45:46

and it'll taste amazing,

00:45:48

but he ain't got nowhere else to go with it.

00:45:50

When I eat that ribeye, I got a place to go.

00:45:53

Like I eat that ribeye, and I'm just going,

00:45:55

"Jesus, that You would make a cow taste like this."

00:46:02

Because I've been around cow. I got some cows.

00:46:04

They don't -- nothing about their smell or their feel

00:46:08

led me to believe that this kind of heavenly goodness existed.

00:46:12

Like, if you thought, I mean,

00:46:14

I'm not trying to be too funny.

00:46:16

Like, why flavors?

00:46:19

Unless there was something that was beautiful

00:46:21

and good that God wanted to communicate about Himself.

00:46:24

I got a place to go.

00:46:26

The man who doesn't know the Lord eats a steak

00:46:29

and is grateful for a steak.

00:46:31

To me, I get to worship.

00:46:33

I get to bubble up out.

00:46:35

You fill in the blank.

00:46:36

You can do that with anything that's good, beautiful

00:46:38

and true on earth given to us by God

00:46:42

for ultimately the glory of God.

00:46:44

And all of us, to the person have said, I mean,

00:46:49

"Thank you, but can I just have the stuff?

00:46:51

And will you get out of here?

00:46:53

Would you leave and just give me the ribeye?

00:46:55

Would you just give me the sex and get out of here?

00:46:58

Would you just let me have the pleasures that you created,

00:47:01

that tell me about your nature and how you are

00:47:05

and just would you -- like, it just feels weird

00:47:08

enjoying this ribeye, enjoying these pleasures

00:47:11

with you gawking at me all the time."

00:47:13

That's the nature of sin: 0refer creation to the Creator.

00:47:17

And then he goes, number 2, this is Romans 1 also,

00:47:20

we believe the lie over the truth of God.

00:47:23

Here's the lie. Let's make some eye contact

00:47:25

because this is madness.

00:47:27

We just, God help us, think we're smarter than He is.

00:47:32

I mean, it doesn't matter that

00:47:33

I had to repeat the eighth grade, but now I'm like,

00:47:36

I just think, like, the number of commands in the Bible

00:47:40

that people think, like, if you were to read that command,

00:47:42

there'd be an asterisk, and then you'd look to the bottom,

00:47:44

it sends you to the back of the book,

00:47:46

they're would be a picture of them saying, except this guy.

00:47:49

Like, we just think we know better.

00:47:50

We know better about our money.

00:47:52

We know better about our sexuality.

00:47:53

We know better about our time.

00:47:54

We know better about marriage.

00:47:56

We know better about church.

00:47:57

We know better about, despite all the actual evidence

00:48:03

that the only thing right in that Assyrian prayer

00:48:05

was a single half sentence: man is dumb.

00:48:13

And then lastly, we fail to acknowledge Him.

00:48:18

All that we have and all that we are

00:48:20

were given to us by God for the glory of God.

00:48:22

To touch it and make it our own is blasphemous.

00:48:26

It's a weird thing to watch people glory

00:48:28

in natural giftings that they had nothing to do with.

00:48:32

Like, you rap on the uterus wall, which, by the way,

00:48:35

that's the first time I've used the word uterus in a sermon.

00:48:37

Proud of myself.

00:48:38

Mark that one off the list and just go,

00:48:41

"I'd like to be this tall. I'd like to be this athletic.

00:48:43

I'd like to just intuitively have these gifts sets."

00:48:46

You didn't. You were just born.

00:48:48

You didn't ask. You didn't know.

00:48:50

You were born to a specific time, a specific place.

00:48:53

All of that stuff that's in you is given to you

00:48:55

for the glory of God.

00:48:57

To touch it like it's yours

00:49:00

is a lack of acknowledgment that everything good

00:49:04

and perfect comes down from the Father of lights.

00:49:07

No, your gifts are tied to God's glory.

00:49:11

To take them in time to your glory,

00:49:13

well that's blasphemous.

00:49:15

So that's the nature of sin.

00:49:16

And the Bible says we're all guilty of it.

00:49:18

Every one of us is guilty of it,

00:49:20

and that means every one of us.

00:49:22

So if you're in here today and you still got

00:49:26

a little, like, of last night on you.

00:49:28

You tracking with me?

00:49:30

Like you still got a little bit

00:49:32

of what you've been doing on you.

00:49:35

And praise God, a friend of yours said,

00:49:37

"You have to come to church with me today."

00:49:39

And you're like, "Well, okay. I mean,"

00:49:40

you're still you didn't want to say,

00:49:42

"I'm kind of hungover," but here you are

00:49:43

and you're with us and praise God.

00:49:45

Or maybe your story was your mom gave birth to you at church.

00:49:51

Like, she just couldn't get out in time,

00:49:52

so she just popped you out right on the altar.

00:49:55

Pastor picked you up, smacked your bottom.

00:49:56

Jesus. You're baptized right there as an infant.

00:50:00

And that's your story.

00:50:01

You got a good girl, good boy story.

00:50:03

Like my wife, my wife's great rebellion

00:50:06

was drinking two wine coolers as a junior

00:50:08

and then came home, confessed it in tears to her mom.

00:50:11

Like, we are not the same, and yet here we are.

00:50:16

Like, the Bible's going, "No,

00:50:17

both of you have done these things.

00:50:19

Both of you have preferred creation to the Creator.

00:50:22

Both of you have believed the lie over the truth of God.

00:50:24

Both of you have failed to acknowledge Me."

00:50:26

And here's here's the tension in the Scriptures,

00:50:31

the holiness of God obliterates sin and sinners.

00:50:37

When you think about God's wrath,

00:50:42

don't think like mindless rage.

00:50:44

That's not what it is.

00:50:45

His wrath is priestly.

00:50:48

The very essence of what He is

00:50:51

destroys and melts and obliterates sin and sinners.

00:50:56

So what are we going to do because

00:50:57

we have this holy God who loves us,

00:51:01

but if He gets near us, He will absolutely destroy us.

00:51:07

So what do you do? How do you fix this?

00:51:13

Well, the way the Triune God of the universe fixed it

00:51:17

was for the second person of the Trinity, God the Son,

00:51:22

co-eternal with the Father condescended

00:51:27

and put on flesh and blood.

00:51:31

That is far more scandalous than I felt in the room.

00:51:35

The one who holds the universe together

00:51:38

with the word of His power, put on His own creation

00:51:45

and dwelt among us perfectly,

00:51:49

filling the righteous requirement of the law

00:51:52

that you and I, weak as we are in the flesh, could not do.

00:51:55

And then He dies on the Cross.

00:51:59

And Christians are weird folk, like,

00:52:01

we are one of two groups that sing about blood.

00:52:04

It's like heavy metal bands and Christians

00:52:07

are the only one that have a ton of songs about blood.

00:52:11

And this is us, we're always singing about the blood

00:52:13

and talking about the blood.

00:52:15

And if you don't have a background in church,

00:52:17

some of our language is freaky.

00:52:18

It's like the blood, we're just going to

00:52:20

pray the blood of Jesus over you.

00:52:21

And you're like, "Please don't.

00:52:23

Please do not pour anybody's blood over me tonight."

00:52:27

But in the ancient Near East, blood didn't stand for death,

00:52:32

it meant life.

00:52:34

It was life pouring from their veins.

00:52:38

And the Scripture has much to say about what the blood does.

00:52:43

Like, the blood of Jesus establishes the new covenant.

00:52:48

See, the old covenant was an outside in covenant

00:52:51

based on the moral law of God

00:52:54

and the ritual law of God that we can never fulfill,

00:52:59

weak as we are in the flesh.

00:53:01

The purpose of the Ten Commandments

00:53:03

is not that you would ever nail them,

00:53:04

but to show you you can't and you need a Savior.

00:53:07

I don't know if you've ever thought about that.

00:53:09

The Ten Commandments, which, by the way,

00:53:10

hung on the wall in my kindergarten class.

00:53:13

That's how old I am.

00:53:14

But I ain't talking about my age here.

00:53:16

I don't even know why you would bring that up.

00:53:18

I'm saying they, like, they thought five year olds

00:53:20

could track with this ethical framework, right?

00:53:25

But you can't do it. I can't do it.

00:53:27

We score a zero.

00:53:29

And this is before they just let you

00:53:30

take the test again for your self-esteem.

00:53:34

This is like you score a zero.

00:53:36

You have loved other things and given your heart

00:53:39

to other things more than you love God.

00:53:40

You do covet all the time.

00:53:43

You make an accusation against God

00:53:45

that He has not been fair to you

00:53:46

and He's giving other people what you deserve.

00:53:49

Tell me you hadn't.

00:53:51

I mean, it's safe. We're in church.

00:53:53

Tell me you haven't seen something bad happen

00:53:56

to someone you don't like and thought, "Reap what you sow."

00:54:03

Tell me on the flip side

00:54:06

that you haven't seen something good happen

00:54:09

to someone you don't like and felt it unjust.

00:54:13

That's called coveting.

00:54:15

It's an accusation that God doesn't know what He's doing

00:54:18

and you do.

00:54:20

And that's crazy. It's just crazy.

00:54:23

And I think you're probably really smart.

00:54:25

That's crazy. It atones for our sins.

00:54:30

So here, make some eye contact with me.

00:54:33

The blood of Jesus Christ

00:54:36

and the consummate resurrection afterwards

00:54:38

means all of our sins past, present, and future

00:54:46

are fully, freely, and forever forgiven.

00:54:49

That's what the blood of Jesus accomplished.

00:54:51

All my sins are atoned for.

00:54:54

Not just the ones that existed before I became a Christian,

00:54:57

but the one that I've done today.

00:54:59

And I've got some coming for me tomorrow.

00:55:02

And you know what? It's already been paid in full,

00:55:04

my record of debt. That's what the text says.

00:55:08

Atoned for my sin.

00:55:11

Redeems those who would believe.

00:55:13

God's not wasting any part of my scandalous story.

00:55:17

Like, I don't have Lauren's story.

00:55:19

I didn't get baptized when I was seven.

00:55:20

I did far worse than a couple of wine coolers my junior year.

00:55:24

I was a violent kid, a kid who knew

00:55:27

how to take advantage of girls with daddy issues.

00:55:30

I was a scoundrel, a piece of trash,

00:55:33

and He still came for me.

00:55:35

And He's redeemed those things.

00:55:38

And then lastly, the blood of Jesus

00:55:40

cleanses our conscience, cleanses our conscience.

00:55:45

I mentioned this a little bit last night.

00:55:48

Years ago I was down where I kind of graduated high school,

00:55:50

preaching, and I thought it'd be a good idea

00:55:52

to go and, like, take pictures of the house

00:55:54

I grew up in to bring them, show them my kids.

00:55:56

And so we're down there and, man,

00:55:57

I just keep seeing these places

00:55:59

where I'd been a part of some really depraved things,

00:56:01

like, stuff that still, if I think about them too much,

00:56:03

I'll feel nauseous.

00:56:05

Like that kind of shame.

00:56:06

The kind of shame that'll twist you up on the inside.

00:56:09

And then the whole drive back up where I had to preach,

00:56:12

just the enemy was in my ears, like,

00:56:13

"What do you think, Holly wood think

00:56:15

if she heard your little sermon tonight?

00:56:17

What do you think Sean would think?

00:56:18

Do you think Sean would listen

00:56:20

to anything you said after that?"

00:56:21

And I would just feel the wave after wave of shame

00:56:24

starting to steal my joy and confidence in King Jesus.

00:56:27

And by the grace of God, I just remembered Galatians 2:20:

00:56:32

for I have been crucified with Christ.

00:56:33

It's no longer I who live, it's Christ who lives in me.

00:56:36

The life I now live in the flesh

00:56:38

I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me

00:56:40

and gave Himself up for me.

00:56:41

Do you hear? If I could just boil that down,

00:56:43

that Matt Chandler is dead.

00:56:46

Like, that scoundrel, that piece of trash,

00:56:49

he died on the Cross with Jesus.

00:56:51

This guy. This guy's not that guy.

00:56:54

This guy's been resurrected to new life.

00:56:56

This guy's been transferred out of the domain of darkness

00:56:58

and into the kingdom of his beloved son.

00:57:00

This guy moved from death to life by the blood of Jesus.

00:57:03

I'm not that guy.

00:57:04

That guy rightfully hung on the Cross with King Jesus

00:57:09

so that this guy might walk in resurrected life.

00:57:12

This is what the blood does.

00:57:15

It's why we need it.

00:57:17

And so follow me, don't lose what I'm saying.

00:57:19

This is the fix between the holiness of God

00:57:24

that obliterates sin and sinners,

00:57:27

and the love of God with which He wants

00:57:30

to move towards you in love, that He wants to rescue

00:57:34

and ransom and make all things new and make whole,

00:57:37

and to give you an identity that's outside of you,

00:57:41

spoken into you by the one who actually designed you.

00:57:45

So you're not left groping in the dark for who am I

00:57:48

and what should I be doing?

00:57:50

No, the Lord has an answer for you.

00:57:52

Primarily, it's, "You're My son, My daughter, who I delight in.

00:57:56

You are My beloved. You are Mine."

00:57:59

There's all these crazy verses in the Bible

00:58:01

of how the blood of Jesus has covered our unrighteousness,

00:58:05

so that when God sees us, these are the words that are used,

00:58:07

perfect, holy, blameless.

00:58:10

Anybody feeling blameless tonight?

00:58:13

I'm not. And I've been prepping to preach all day.

00:58:15

So you're doing better than me, right?

00:58:17

Like He's saying, like, "When I look at you,

00:58:22

I see the righteousness of Jesus.

00:58:24

Gosh, I'm crazy about you."

00:58:26

Zephaniah says He sings over you.

00:58:29

He just breaks into song when He looks at you.

00:58:33

Maybe this will help you.

00:58:34

Jesus does not regret what He purchased on the Cross.

00:58:42

He knew what He was buying. You get that line?

00:58:47

Like, He knew what He was buying.

00:58:48

Why do you think it's so graphic?

00:58:49

Why do you think it's so gross?

00:58:51

Why do you think the Bible is filled with such scoundrels?

00:58:54

There isn't a person in the Bible that

00:58:56

would make it through our HR process to hire at The Village.

00:58:59

I'm telling you, not a single guy.

00:59:03

We ain't hiring Moses. That dude rages all the time.

00:59:06

Never stopped raging.

00:59:08

Killed a dude with his bare hands.

00:59:09

Which that's going to leave a mark.

00:59:11

And then wasn't even smart enough to hide the body well?

00:59:14

They just covered it up with sand.

00:59:16

He's not even a good problem solver.

00:59:18

And then he gets busted. He runs out into the woods.

00:59:22

And then years later, he still flies into a rage

00:59:24

and bashes his staff on a rock.

00:59:27

It's like, this is not a good small groups guy.

00:59:30

And I can tell you what, I got a beautiful wife.

00:59:32

I don't want King David anywhere near me.

00:59:35

That brother'll send me on an errand

00:59:37

and I'll just get stabbed to death in an alley.

00:59:40

Then he'd be married to Lauren.

00:59:42

David can't. Two, too strong, like too much of a warrior.

00:59:45

Too much of a poet.

00:59:46

Dude would woo her with the harp

00:59:48

and then murder me in jiu jitsu and then steal my girl.

00:59:51

I ain't hiring David.

00:59:52

He's got some issues, man.

00:59:54

Like this is -- why do you think

00:59:56

the Bible is filled with these guys?

00:59:58

So that you would know. This is what He does.

01:00:03

This is the holiness of God

01:00:08

being satisfied by the blood of Jesus,

01:00:12

so that the love of God

01:00:13

could be experienced by us in Christ.

01:00:19

Seeing the holiness of God level sets us

01:00:23

in our relationship with Him.

01:00:25

And I think the place you see that most clearly

01:00:27

is in Isaiah 6.

01:00:28

I'm just going to -- I don't know.

01:00:30

Again, I don't know the room.

01:00:32

My guess is, it's just a guess. Could be wrong.

01:00:36

That the prophet Isaiah, just follow me here,

01:00:41

on the scale of moral righteousness,

01:00:44

probably doing a bit better than you.

01:00:47

I mean, what I do know about him

01:00:49

is he had the Torah memorized.

01:00:52

That's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

01:00:56

I'm betting half this room

01:00:57

hadn't gotten through numbers in February.

01:01:00

You swore you would in January.

01:01:03

Bible in a year.

01:01:05

You get to like numbers 15.

01:01:06

You're like, "I'm going to the Psalms,"

01:01:08

and you just break down. You can't do it.

01:01:10

That brother had it memorized.

01:01:11

He was a righteous man, until he saw the Lord.

01:01:18

This is Isaiah 6:5.

01:01:20

Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined

01:01:25

because I am a man of unclean lips

01:01:28

and live among a people of unclean lips,

01:01:31

and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies.

01:01:34

I've always wondered, did Isaiah know

01:01:38

he was a man of unclean lips before he saw the King,

01:01:40

or did it take seeing the King to help him realize,

01:01:43

"Oh, man, I got unclean lips"?

01:01:46

The holiness of God exposes our righteous acts

01:01:49

for what they are, filthy rags.

01:01:53

And that the only righteousness that can hold up

01:01:57

against the holiness of God is not disciplined,

01:02:01

self-will, goodness,

01:02:03

but righteousness imputed by someone who doesn't owe.

01:02:08

Like, I try to say this all the time

01:02:10

because it's almost culty.

01:02:12

God's not asking you to be good people. That's --

01:02:17

Show me the text: Be good. Nowhere.

01:02:22

Surrender, move towards love, follow? Yes.

01:02:27

But not, "Hey, spend all your energy

01:02:29

on trying to morally improve." Nowhere. Nowhere.

01:02:35

From the inside out, transformation occurs

01:02:38

as we submit to the Lordship of Christ as King in our lives.

01:02:42

And not homeboy in our Instagram feed.

01:02:47

Let me end with a story.

01:02:48

Well, let me say this to you, and then end with the story.

01:02:51

And I've got time.

01:02:53

If I could answer the question for you

01:02:55

just to simplify all this, like, what does Jesus want?

01:03:00

Like, what does He want? Like what?

01:03:02

Just tell me what He wants. You ready?

01:03:03

Let's make some eye contact, because

01:03:05

I don't think you're going to believe me. You ready?

01:03:08

You. He wants you,

01:03:10

but all of you, mind, body and soul forever.

01:03:16

All of life for all of us.

01:03:18

This is what He wants, and nobody else is making that deal.

01:03:22

Nobody else wants that from you.

01:03:23

Listen, I know you're not going to believe it.

01:03:25

It takes the Holy Spirit to help you believe me.

01:03:28

There is nothing in your life Jesus wants distance from.

01:03:32

There are probably things in your life

01:03:33

that make you want distance from Him.

01:03:35

That thing you want to hide from Him, that's what He wants.

01:03:38

He wants that because that's where healing is found.

01:03:41

Do you remember in John chapter four, woman at the well,

01:03:45

He's doing so good. He's talking about living water.

01:03:47

And she's like, "Sir, where can I find that living water?"

01:03:51

I'm like, "You did it! Jesus! Whoo!"

01:03:53

And you remember his question?

01:03:54

"Woman, go get your husband."

01:03:56

No, no, Jesus. She's had five husbands

01:03:59

and the dude she's living with right now.

01:04:00

Wrong question, bro. Pull the flaps.

01:04:03

Just tell her how to be baptized.

01:04:05

She just ask about living water.

01:04:07

Why? Why ask about the husband thing?

01:04:10

Well, because her point of pain was the place he wanted to heal.

01:04:13

The deeper place is what He wanted.

01:04:15

He wanted all of her, mind, body and soul.

01:04:20

So here are the other offers on the table.

01:04:23

Cincinnati wants you to choose or chase comfort

01:04:27

and give yourself over to the accumulation

01:04:30

of the stuff of future landfills

01:04:33

while marinating your soul in mediocrity.

01:04:37

The current political environment wants you to hope,

01:04:40

put your hope of the good life

01:04:42

squarely on the shoulders of a political party.

01:04:44

But it's only going to leave your soul angry & disappointed.

01:04:48

The invitation of wealth wants the hours

01:04:50

and minutes of your day, but at the cost of

01:04:52

deep meaning and connection, which is the fuel of the soul.

01:04:56

The hook up culture wants your bodies

01:04:58

but will rot your soul.

01:05:00

Not Jesus. Jesus wants all of you, mind, body and soul.

01:05:07

Nothing He wants distance from.

01:05:11

Years ago, I mean, decades ago, that's a better way to say it.

01:05:16

I had been sharing the gospel with a girl in college.

01:05:21

Just train wreck, I mean, just a train wreck of a life already.

01:05:25

She had already had, she had had a child as a teenager.

01:05:29

That's not what. That's fine.

01:05:31

Then she was currently having an affair with a married man,

01:05:34

and she was just in a class that I was in.

01:05:36

And I just started up a conversation,

01:05:38

started sharing Jesus with her.

01:05:39

And then some of my friends got involved

01:05:41

with sharing Jesus with her.

01:05:42

And sometimes we would watch her little girl

01:05:44

while she went to work or went out and did whatever she did.

01:05:46

And we just tried to befriend her and love her in the Lord.

01:05:49

And then I had a friend who was playing worship,

01:05:52

or what I thought was a concert not far from where we lived.

01:05:58

And so I said, "Hey, some of us, we're heading down

01:06:01

to see my friend Robbie Cee was his name,

01:06:02

Robbie Cee's playing a show, and we're going to go see him.

01:06:05

He's a good friend of mine. Just phenomenal musician."

01:06:07

And just kind of framed it up

01:06:08

like this is going to be really cool,

01:06:10

which is dangerous when you're talking Christian music.

01:06:12

But I'm like, I think this is going to be cool.

01:06:14

And so she's like, "You know what? I'll go.

01:06:16

I don't have to work that night."

01:06:18

And so we go and then, man, within ten minutes

01:06:20

I knew I had really screwed up.

01:06:22

What Robbie was playing at

01:06:25

was like a large True Love Waits rally.

01:06:30

And so here I've got my friend

01:06:31

who I've been sharing the gospel with,

01:06:33

who had a baby in high school,

01:06:36

who's currently having an affair with a married man.

01:06:38

And I've got her at a True Love Waits rally.

01:06:41

Which God's God, right?

01:06:42

I mean, God can do whatever He can do,

01:06:44

but I'm just probably not the best introduction

01:06:47

into the Christian community.

01:06:49

And so Robbie did the worship thing.

01:06:50

And then the guy got up to speak,

01:06:52

and maybe it was all right.

01:06:53

Let me tell you how I remembered it.

01:06:55

Because you're sensitive, like,

01:06:56

you brought a lost friend tonight,

01:06:57

you're really sensitive to what I'm saying.

01:06:59

You're wishing I wouldn't have said that.

01:07:01

You're like, why? Why didn't you just.

01:07:02

No. Do that? No, quit saying that. Say this.

01:07:04

I get it. Sorry.

01:07:07

And he's -- it was terrible, guys.

01:07:09

One I don't remember the Bible verse.

01:07:12

I just remember, you know,

01:07:13

you're going to get syphilis if you do that.

01:07:15

And who wants gonorrhea in the room? Anybody?

01:07:18

You know, I was just like, what are we talking about?

01:07:21

And then for his big kind of illustration,

01:07:23

when he first started, he like pulled out this rose

01:07:26

and he kind of smelt the rose.

01:07:29

He just talked about how beautiful

01:07:30

and perfect this rose was.

01:07:31

Then he told the room, I mean, a couple thousand kids,

01:07:33

he's like, "Hey, you got to,

01:07:35

you got to smell this thing, man.

01:07:36

Here's I'm going to pass this thing around.

01:07:38

I want everybody to smell it and feel its petals."

01:07:40

And he's like, "There you go." And she caught it.

01:07:42

Jake fell on the floor, picked it up.

01:07:43

And then there he goes.

01:07:44

He's like, "You know how you get syphilis?

01:07:47

You know how you get it?"

01:07:48

I mean, I was just like, I might fight him.

01:07:50

I might come out of fleshly retirement tonight.

01:07:56

And so he does his, ah, I'm trying to be,

01:07:59

I promise you, I'm trying to be fair.

01:08:03

Finishes, whatever that was, I refused to call it a sermon.

01:08:07

And then he's like, "Hey, where's my rose?

01:08:10

Where's my rose?"

01:08:12

Some poor kid in the back left, like, "Here it is."

01:08:15

"Bring it up here." And man, that crowd had destroyed it.

01:08:18

I mean, there's like, stem was broken.

01:08:20

It's like one pedal left and it's barely hanging.

01:08:22

I mean, it's the most janky, you couldn't even.

01:08:24

It was unrecognizable as a rose.

01:08:27

You're like some kind of flower.

01:08:29

And this jack wagon. I want to say more.

01:08:34

If I was at home, I might. Can't.

01:08:35

I'm not getting -- I mean, it's pastor Brian,

01:08:37

I could probably say it. [laughter]

01:08:39

I've heard him say worse today. It's fine.

01:08:43

He holds this thing up, and he's like, "Who would want this?"

01:08:54

And I felt rage in me like I hadn't felt in a long time.

01:08:57

So here's my friend

01:08:59

who already feels condemned by our community.

01:09:02

And this jackass confirms her shame and fear

01:09:08

by holding up this rose and saying, "Who would want this?"

01:09:12

It was all I could do. If I could time machine,

01:09:14

I could flux capacitor time machine that thing

01:09:16

I would get back and I'd just stand and go,

01:09:18

"Jesus wants it!

01:09:19

Like Jesus, it's the whole point of the gospel

01:09:23

that that's who Jesus came for.

01:09:25

While we were dead in our trespasses and sins,

01:09:29

Christ died for us. That's Romans 5.

01:09:32

And it goes on to say for those of you

01:09:34

who are struggling with sin after your conversion,

01:09:36

he goes on to say, and how much more now

01:09:40

that we are sons of God, does He delight and love in us?"

01:09:44

This is the love of God made manifest in Christ

01:09:48

that solves the problem, His holiness destroying us.

01:09:52

And hear me and I'm going to pray.

01:09:55

This is the offer on the table for you today.

01:10:02

I don't care what your background is.

01:10:03

I don't care how you've walked in here.

01:10:05

I don't care what you're struggling with.

01:10:09

Please just don't make God in your image.

01:10:13

He's just so much more than that.

01:10:16

You can't build your life on a better version of yourself.

01:10:22

You have to have morally perfect wholeness,

01:10:26

entirety, love born of infinite perfection.

01:10:32

You can build a life on that.

01:10:35

Father, I pray for these men and women.

01:10:36

I bless them in the name of Jesus.

01:10:39

Pray against any cynicism or stubbornness

01:10:42

or jaded kind of jankiness in our hearts today.

01:10:47

Pray that you might remind us that at one point or another,

01:10:50

we were that broken rose, busted, petals falling off,

01:10:54

snipped from the source of life.

01:10:58

And I thank You that Your promise is death to life,

01:11:02

darkness to light, that we flourish under Your care,

01:11:09

that we are the branches tied into the vine

01:11:13

that produce fruit in season.

01:11:15

And so pray against shame.

01:11:17

I know that that illustration in particular

01:11:19

can land on different folk in different ways,

01:11:21

but I pray that it land in the hearts of people

01:11:24

who struggle with shame in a way

01:11:26

that would drive out that shame

01:11:27

and replace it with the grace and mercy of our Savior.

01:11:31

We bless you, King Jesus.

01:11:33

It's for Your beautiful name I pray. Amen.

01:11:35

Thank you guys. [applause]

01:11:38

- Love you, man. Love you.

01:11:47

Jesus will take the rose.

01:11:50

That's the line. He'll take the rose.

01:11:52

He'll take you just as you are.

01:11:57

Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week.

01:12:02

- Man, that was so good. So, so good.

01:12:05

That thing that he shared about the rose, incredible.

01:12:09

- Just knowing that there is a holy, holy, holy God

01:12:12

out there that wants something to do with me.

01:12:15

Andy, it's stirring something in me right now.

01:12:17

And if you're like me and it's stirring something in you,

01:12:21

we want to encourage you to take that next step.

01:12:23

And that could be anything.

01:12:24

It could be prayer, having a conversation with God,

01:12:27

having a conversation with a friend.

01:12:29

But just take that next step. Take that next step.

01:12:32

- Yeah, and we'd actually love to help you take that next step.

01:12:35

That's actually the whole reason we exist

01:12:37

is not so you have more stuff to watch,

01:12:38

but so that you can be a part of a community

01:12:40

that's running after God together.

01:12:42

So if you go to Crossroads.net/Anywhere

01:12:44

or go in the app and hit the chat button,

01:12:46

myself and my team are there to pray with you,

01:12:49

to process with you, to talk with you,

01:12:51

or to help you find your next step with God in your journey.

01:12:55

Again, that's the reason.

01:12:56

We're not just content. We're a community.

01:12:58

- And speaking about community, summer's coming up

01:13:01

and I feel like there's something coming

01:13:02

that has to do with summer and community. Right, Andy?

01:13:05

- Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

01:13:06

Summer's a time where hang out, where you make new friends,

01:13:08

where you grill out, where you do barbecues, whatever.

01:13:11

We're leaning into that this summer with summer hangouts.

01:13:14

This is the way that you, your home, your dining room,

01:13:17

your back deck, your patio, your front porch,

01:13:19

your whatever, apartment complex can be the spot

01:13:22

where people connect and make new friends.

01:13:25

And man, we've got kits to help you do that

01:13:27

and want to help your place

01:13:30

be the place where connections happen.

01:13:32

You can go to crossroads.net/Anywhere

01:13:34

for more info on the summer hangout.

01:13:36

We'll even send you kits to make it happen.

01:13:38

- Well, that's everything we have for now.

01:13:39

Thank you for joining us here online

01:13:42

and we'll see you in the next one. Hasta la proxima.

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