How Embracing Weakness Can Change Your Life | Mindset Week 3

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You were made to be brave.

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You were born to make a difference.

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God designed you for heart pumping, joy-filled adventure

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and we're here to guide you to that adventurous life.

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Crossroads Church. Hey, everyone, and welcome to Crossroads.

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My name is Hannah Shepherd,

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and we are in the middle of a series called Mindset

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where we're learning about how to allow God

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to take our thoughts and emotions captive.

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At this point in isolation, if you're anything like me,

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you may have been struggling to keep your mind in a healthy place.

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Don't we all wish that there was just a secret superpower

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that could help us? Well, it turns out that God says there actually

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is. One of our teaching pastors, Kyle Ranson,

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is going to reveal that secret superpower

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in a way that can help transform us all.

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There's a clue in the next video.

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- When dark days full of fear and doubt attack our mindset,

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when our thoughts and emotions have us by the throat,

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when storms rage all around, we need heroes.

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Now is the time to look in the mirror to find them,

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because you were made to have the mighty mindset of a super hero,

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to have the strength to control your emotions,

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the ability to see through the chaos,

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to survive pandemics, defeat evil villains, and save the day.

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But to get there,

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you must first defeat the supervillain standing in your way:

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the dynamic and deadly duo known as Pride and Shame.

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If we can solve this riddle, we can unleash the hero in us all.

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- Hi, I'm Kyle. I'm one of the teaching pastors at Crossroads.

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Welcome to my workshop, where I've spent

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most of the last two months under the stay at home orders

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with my wife and three children.

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I mean, they're not here exactly.

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They're in the house right over there.

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But I spent a lot of time here in my workshop,

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more so now than even before.

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This is where I build things like this.

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Right now this is in the process of being transformed

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into an outdoor sofa.

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Now, when you build something, you've got to have

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the idea of what you want it to become in your mind.

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And I'm not quite ready to nail down my plans yet.

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I've been sketching and trying to figure out

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what I wanted to look like.

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But before I start actually cutting this wood up,

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I have to know what I wanted to become.

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I want you to think back to when you first thought

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about what you wanted to become back when you were a kid.

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For me, the first thing I wanted to become,

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the first career I wanted was that of a superhero.

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I thought that'd be fantastic.

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And not just any superhero, very specifically,

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I wanted to be Superman.

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I don't know if it was the red underwear on the outside

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or the blue tights or whatever, I thought it'd be fantastic.

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And then I learned that's not actual possibility.

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But what we're learning in this pandemic

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is that there are jobs in which you can be a superhero.

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Right? We're learning things like doctors and nurses are superheroes,

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but not just that, grocery store workers,

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delivery drivers, mask makers, meat packers are all superheroes.

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And if you're one of those frontline superheroes,

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let me just say on behalf of me and my family, thank you.

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We are so grateful for the way you're serving us.

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Now I think this thing of wanting to be a superhero is not an

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accident. If you're like me as a kid, you wanted to be one.

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I think that's a hard wired desire put in us by God.

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He actually wants us to be superheroes.

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You might be like, "Hold on, Kyle.

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Time out. Are you saying we're the superheroes?

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Because that's a little bit presumptuous.

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I thought in the story that Jesus was the superhero."

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Yeah, totally. Jesus is the superhero.

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But here's the thing, part of his mission according to Him,

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was making more superheroes.

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He actually said that in John, 14:12:

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He says you'll do greater things than Me,

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like the super heroic stuff I've been doing,

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you'll do that and even more.

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He hasn't created us to be conformed

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to the normal patterns of this world.

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In other words, if He's made you to be a mom,

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he hasn't made you to be conformed to

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the normal patterns of being a mom.

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He's made you to be, I believe, a super heroic mom.

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And if he's made you to be a husband,

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He hasn't made you to conform the normal patterns of being a husband.

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He's made you to be a super heroic husband.

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If He's made you to be a friend or a leader or a worker

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or a teacher or whatever, I don't think He's made you

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to be conformed to normal patterns of those things.

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He's made you to be a super heroic version of all of those roles.

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The key to it though is a transformation,

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not a physical transformation, a mental transformation,

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a transformation of the mind.

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Romans 12:2 puts it this way:

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Now think about superhero stories with me for a second,

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which, by the way, I know they're not true,

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but Scripture says that God has hidden His truths in creation.

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Well, movies are a created thing and if there's something

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in them that resonates with us, often times it's because

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they're revealing a deeper truth of God,

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like this verse that we just read.

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Think with me for a second about the story of Bruce Banner.

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What's the most important transformation he undergoes?

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It's not the transformation of gamma rays

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where he becomes the Hulk and big and massive.

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It's not the most critical transformation.

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It's the transformation of his mind,

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when he goes from anger, the normal pattern of anger

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to love, gentleness, and care.

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What's the most important transformation in the story of Iron Man?

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It's not Tony Stark building better and better

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and better and better suits.

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It's not. It's the transformation of his mind

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where he goes from selfishness to selflessness.

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It's the critical transformation that every superhero must undergo,

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you and I include it.

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But the transformation of your mind won't happen without a fight,

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because just like an every superhero story,

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there are enemies standing in your way and they have names.

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Their names are pride and his sinister sidekick known as shame.

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They're a dynamic duo

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whose goal is to prevent your transformation.

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They work like this: pride talks to you about your problems.

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And he says, "You don't have any problems.

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You're not the problem.

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You know who the problem is? Do you know who needs to change?

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Them. They're -- I think they're way off.

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I mean, you are amazing.

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Everything about you is amazing.

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Your skin is flawless.

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It glows all the time.

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Your farts, they smell like freshly baked bread.

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You are perfect the way you are you shouldn't change."

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And shame says almost the exact opposite.

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Shame says, "Oh my gosh, you have so many problems,

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and not just so many problems.

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You have problems that could like never be overcome.

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I mean you are -- you're hopeless.

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You are utterly hopeless.

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You should give up. You should probably just give up."

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And together they are a powerful and dynamic duo.

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Now, you will not experience transformation

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if they're not defeated. And I have to be honest with you,

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you can't do it on your own.

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You can't. But, with God's help, they can be overcome.

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The transformation of your mind goes through these two.

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Now, to understand how that works,

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we've got a first dig underneath the surface

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and talk about underlying conditions.

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This is one of those phrases that

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none of us knew even existed just a few months ago,

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but now we hear about it nearly every day,

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along with phrases like social distancing

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and flatten the curve and Tiger King

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and now Murder Hornet, whatever that is.

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I just -- it's something to be terrified of, I guess.

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I don't know. But we all have underlying conditions, whether or not

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we have something that makes us prone to COVID-19,

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we have these underlying conditions,

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weaknesses that threaten our future.

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These are the very thing God wants to transform.

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Now, how would you know which ones you have?

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You would need some form of a detector.

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Stud finder works, it's good to know.

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Thankfully, God's given us expert underlying condition detectors,

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and we've been locked in the same home with them

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for months so they've had plenty of time to do their job.

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My underlying condition detectors are named

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Sarah, Ben, Eli, and Gracie,

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and they've been pointing out my underlying conditions.

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Chances are you've been experiencing the same thing.

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I don't know what yours have pointed out,

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but mine have detected things like temper.

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Mine have detected things like pessimism.

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Maybe for you it's things like

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you just can't put a frigging dish in the dishwasher.

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It's right there. Just put your dish right here,

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right there in the dishwasher.

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Maybe it's your inability to put down a toilet seat.

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Or maybe it's something more serious.

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Maybe it's something like your drinking habit

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that's gone from a once a week cocktail to a daily event

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that happens earlier and earlier in the day.

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Maybe it's your spending patterns.

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Maybe to fight boredom you've been buying more and more

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and more and more and more.

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I don't know what it is for you,

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but the road to transformation hinges on your ability

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to have those underlying conditions transformed.

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The way to do it is to adopt the mindset of Christ.

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This is what it says in Philippians 2:

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Now you're gonna deal with both of these in your life:

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pride and shame, maybe even in the same day.

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But let's talk about how to defeat pride first.

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The key to it is in the verse we just read:

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adopting the mindset of Christ,

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which is the mindset of humility.

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Humility is a choice, a very specific choice

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to admit something critically important:

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that I have underlying conditions, that I am weak.

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The mindset of weakness is how God says

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you will defeat pride.

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Now, when all this virus coverage started,

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I heard this term "underlying conditions."

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And I, like everybody, wanted to know what they were,

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because if you have them, it makes you more susceptible to the virus.

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And I heard about things like, you know,

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age and diabetes and heart disease,

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and I thought, great, I'm fine.

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And then it literally took me probably two weeks

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into the virus to realize that lung diseases

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are also an underlying condition,

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a weakness that makes you proud of the COVID virus.

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And I suddenly remembered something very important,

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which is I have asthma.

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I had honestly completely forgotten about it because,

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praise God, I've been symptom free for almost two decades.

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But suddenly it wasn't the forefront of my mind

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and this memory came flooding back.

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I was probably four years old or so and I remember

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waking up in the middle of the night and I could not breathe.

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If you've never felt this before,

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it's like steel cable is wrapped around your chest

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preventing your lungs from expanding enough

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to fill up with enough air to breathe.

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It's the most panic inducing feeling you can experience,

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at least that I've ever experienced.

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Do you know, I don't think that asthma is

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the underlying condition that most threatens my future.

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And it's not because I don't believe the virus isn't real

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or that it shouldn't be a concern. It's not it at all.

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See, I believe there's a much more dangerous

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underlying condition that has been clearly pointed out to me

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over the last few months: it's anger.

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It's the one that threatens me from ever becoming

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the superhero God wants me to become.

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Sarah calls it the bark.

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It flares up at night mostly.

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We're at the end of the day.

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I finally will get done with work, I'll head inside.

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We'll eat dinner, we'll do everything, we'll do bedtime.

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Finally get the kids put down

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and I'll finally sit down on the couch and then

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one of them will come back out of their rooms

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and want to talk to me.

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I snap and I just bark at them, "Why are you out of your room?

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Get back in your room. Hey, I'm tired of you disobeying."

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And they go back inside.

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My nine year old Ben,

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he probably gets the worst of it from me.

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He's got this massive imagination

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like he's always making stories and drawing.

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He just gets lost in it, so much so that when you talk to him,

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he can't even hear you, really,

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like he's so engaged he can't even hear you.

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Sarah says he's exactly like me, but here's the thing,

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I've never had to deal with me before in life and

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it turns out I'm very frustrating, very frustrating sometimes.

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And so the other day, it was probably two weeks ago,

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Ben was drawing something, you know, lost in his work.

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And I forget what it was, I wanted him to do something.

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And so I gave him the assignment,

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"Ben, I need you to X, Y and Z."

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And he just ignored me, just didn't do anything, just kept going.

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And I just exploded, "Ben, I'm sick of this.

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Hey, I'm talking to you.

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You need to listen to me." And with tears in his eyes, my nine year

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old son looked at me and he said, "Daddy, I just didn't hear you."

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In that moment pride wanted to talk to me

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and shame wanted to talk to me.

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Pride wanted to say, "It's his fault.

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It's not your fault. You're fine.

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It is him. He needs to change."

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And shame wanted to say, "You're a terrible dad.

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You will always be an awful dad.

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You have no shot.

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Forget it. You're an awful dad.

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You always will be." What do you do in that moment?

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Who do you listen to?

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God says something radically different,

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if you choose to listen to him.

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He says, "Kyle, listen to me.

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Yes, you are weak, but your weakness

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makes you a perfect candidate for My power

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because do you know what I trade for weakness?

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Power." Listen to 2 Corinthians 12:9:

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God says the same thing to you,

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that His grace is sufficient for you

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and His power can be made perfect in your weakness.

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Accepting your weakness defeats pride

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and sets you up for transformation.

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In the Captain America story it was little,

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skinny Steve Rogers' willingness to accept that he was weak

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that made him the perfect candidate for transformation.

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It's the same with you.

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This idea that weak people are the perfect candidates

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for transformation is a dominant through line in scripture.

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There's this one scene where Jesus goes to a party

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and a party is filled full of people who know

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beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are weak

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because they're told it all the time by everybody else:

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the tax collectors and the sinners.

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And Jesus is at this party hanging out

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when a group of religious leaders burst in the door.

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And they come up to Jesus and they go, "Why are you here?

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What makes you think these people

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are worth you spending time with?"

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And He said something critical to them.

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He looked at them and said, "Guys, I didn't come for healthy people,

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for people who think that they've got it all together.

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I came for sick people, people who know they are weak

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and in need of transformation."

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And those guys looked at him, "oh, okay," and they walk out the door.

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Now, spoiler alert, every single person Jesus ever met was weak,

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but only those with the humility to admit it and accept it

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ever received His transformation and power.

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Are you willing to admit your weaknesses?

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Really? Would your spouse agree?

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What about your parents

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or your kids or your friends?

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Listen, I know it can be difficult to admit your weakness,

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but it's critical.

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It's critical because, listen, to weak people

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God doesn't just say you are weak.

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God says you are worthy.

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And just like weakness defeats pride, worthiness defeats shame.

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Shame focuses on what you have failed to do,

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but worthiness focuses on God

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and what He has succeeded in doing for you.

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And what He's done for you is died for you.

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Which means He said you are worthy of His life.

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That's crazy.

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And listen, it is not humility to disagree with God.

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That's pride.

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The most humble thing you can do is to agree with God

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about what you're worth.

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Now, in that Philippians verse that we read earlier,

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after Jesus chooses to take the position of humility,

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God transforms Him.

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It says this:

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God looked at Jesus, who chose to

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make Himself weak,

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and He said, "I'm so pleased with you,

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I'm going to pour my power into you."

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And the Bible says that same power is available

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to transform you and me.

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Literally the same; that's the word it uses.

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Check out Ephesians 1:

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The truth is, you are not just weak,

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you are also worthy.

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Worthy of God's presence and power

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and blessing and anointing in your life.

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- I'm so thankful for the reminder that

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I am both weak and worthy.

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And I love knowing the God's power is available to me.

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Well, some of us may not be in a place to believe that just yet.

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You can go to Crossroads.net/talk

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to receive prayer and encouragement.

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Well, when we practice spiritual disciplines

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God meets us in powerful ways.

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One of those disciplines is tithing.

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If you would like to practice that right now,

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or generosity, you can go to Crossroads.net/give.

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In this next video, we get to see some real superheroes in action.

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I'm so thankful for medical professionals.

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And I'm so glad to be part of a church that is about action.

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- Hey, I'm Justin, part of Crossroads staff here.

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Today, we're packing our first 50 gratitude boxes

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as a part of Operation Gratitude.

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These boxes are filled with love and some laughter

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and some nutrition and some energy

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for medical workers who are on the frontlines.

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And these boxes will go all over.

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Wherever we have people in need,

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we want to get these boxes out to them.

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One of the things I love about our church is

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that we jump into action.

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So we asked some friends of ours who are in the medical field,

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what do you need? What can you receive?

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Then we added some Crossroads fun to it,

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things like dart guns, water, putty, we put a joke book in there.

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We just wanted them to know that we're behind them 100%,

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so we put prayer cards,

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some ways that they can receive encouragement.

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We directed them to Crossroads.net/medical

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so they could get their physical, spiritual, mental needs met

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and to reminded them that we as a community

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are there to care for them.

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To everyone in the medical community, we see you.

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We see your work and it matters to us.

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Thank you for the work you're doing.

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- Man, what a cool example of heroes

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transforming the world around them.

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When you replace the mindset of pride and shame

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with what God says, that you are weak and worthy,

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He will begin to transform you

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into the superhero you are made to be.

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After I flew off the handle at my son,

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I didn't give into the voice of pride

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that wanted me to believe it was his fault, not mine.

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And I didn't listen to the voice of shame

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that wanted me to believe that I'm doomed

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and a hopeless, terrible dad forever.

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Instead, I chose to agree with God who says

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I am weak, but I am also worthy.

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And in the moment I stopped and I asked God to transform me,

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to give me the patience that I need

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to become the superhero dad He's created me to be, and he is.

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These last two months, I've seen God grow patience in me

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more than ever before, and I'm far from done.

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But He is transforming me into the superhero dad

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I was always made to be and He'll do the same thing for you.

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So when your wife points out that problem again

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or your boss points out a mistake

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or your friend gets frustrated for you continuing to flake out,

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rather than go down the path of pride or shame,

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instead, choose to agree with God

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that you are weak, but you are worthy.

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Because He is able to transform you

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into the superhero you're created to be,

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into a friend who shows up in the exact right moment,

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a super heroic friend,

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into a super heroic leader who is able to lead

00:22:53

through uncharted economic territories with confidence,

00:22:57

transform you into a super heroic dad

00:23:01

who loves his kids with patience and kindness,

00:23:06

who is able to transform you into

00:23:08

a super heroic son and daughter who make their Father proud.

00:23:13

He's able to do it.

00:23:15

Let me pray for you right now.

00:23:17

God, you are able to transform us,

00:23:19

to take us from wherever we are into the people

00:23:21

you've created us to be.

00:23:22

I'm asking that you would do that.

00:23:24

Would you take our weakness and our worthiness

00:23:26

and would You transform us?

00:23:29

Begin that right now.

00:23:32

Amen. Let's worship God, the God who is able.

00:23:38

- I love coming together like this.

00:23:40

My name is Robbie and I'm one of the folks

00:23:42

that gets lead worship around here.

00:23:44

We're going to spend some time singing together.

00:23:47

And so you may think, "Well, this is kind of the time

00:23:49

when I sort of like, go get a refill."

00:23:51

But I would love to invite you to stay engaged.

00:23:54

These songs help route us in our faith,

00:23:57

remind us of who God is and who we are because of Him.

00:24:00

And if you're a guitar player,

00:24:01

maybe you've got an old dusty guitar.

00:24:03

Go grab it and play along with us.

00:24:05

That's what those weird shapes are up in the corner,

00:24:07

they're guitar chords, so we'd love to have you join us now.

00:31:36

- May the Lord, my rock, be praised.

00:31:39

Who trains my hands for battle and my fingers for warfare.

00:31:44

He is my faithful love and my fortress.

00:31:47

My stronghold and my deliver.

00:31:49

He is my shield and I take refuge in Him.

00:32:13

Lord, what is man that You care for him?

00:32:16

The son, a man that you think of him?

00:32:20

Man is like breathe, his days are like passing shadows.

00:32:24

Lord, part Your heavens and come down,

00:32:26

touch the mountains and they will smoke.

00:34:16

- God, I'm grateful that we can come before You

00:34:19

and we can worship and we can engage with You

00:34:21

and You draw near.

00:34:22

You say You enthrone Yourself on the praise of your people.

00:34:26

And so thanks for drawing near to us

00:34:27

when we are scattered and connecting digitally.

00:34:30

Amen. Guys, thanks for worshiping with us.

00:34:35

It is great to connect in this way.

00:34:38

We would love to pray for you.

00:34:39

If you want to pray with a real life person through chatting,

00:34:42

you go to Crossroads.net right now

00:34:45

and we've got people waiting to pray with you.

00:34:49

Thanks for joining us.

00:34:50

And we'll see you all next week.

00:34:51

Have a great one.

00:34:52

Thank you so much for spending some time with us

00:34:56

today. I hope that you found it helpful.

00:34:58

Remember, you can go to Crossroads.net/talk to chat with us.

00:35:01

Well, next time we start a brand new series called Anchored

00:35:05

where we overturn some popular beliefs about Christianity

00:35:08

and really get to the bottom of what it means

00:35:10

to be a follower of Jesus.

00:35:11

Come back and join us.

00:35:15

- Life, it will test your resolve, man.

00:35:19

It will batter you with wave after wave,

00:35:22

but strength is forged in trial

00:35:25

and true faith, it anchors you.

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