What Are The Three Types of Grace?

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- I'm Griff, and I get to help people

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get connected with our anywhere community.

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See, Crossroads is a church that you can be a part of,

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really, no matter where you live.

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We're not just a video once a week on a screen.

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There's an actual community, real people

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that you can belong to,

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that you can talk to, you can get to know.

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And we're going to talk later about how to do that.

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But today we're exploring the book of Romans.

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It was written by a guy named Paul.

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He was what we call an apostle.

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He was a leader of the early church.

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And it was a letter to some of his friends in Rome

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on how to live a life centered around Jesus.

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And, you know, it wasn't just for the Romans.

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It applies to us today as we're still trying

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to figure out what it looks like

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for our lives to center around the person of Jesus.

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So let's get started.

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- Sing this with me, come in with a heart of worship.

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- Oh, hey, don't worry, we got one more.

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We got one more in just a minute.

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Cash is going to come out here

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like an old school choir director.

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We're going to be singing.

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We got this song I shall not want.

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A lot of you know it. You sing it so loud.

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I just want to remind you,

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this is not some modern songwriter

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with a great idea about God.

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It's actually rooted in ancient truth.

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Listen to Psalm 23, a Psalm of David.

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It might be familiar to you.

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David writes this: The Lord is my shepherd,

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I shall not want.

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Let me just say that again.

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The Lord is your shepherd, and you shall not want.

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He makes me lie down in green pastures.

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He leads me beside still waters.

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He restores my soul.

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He leads me in paths of righteousness

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for his name's sake.

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And even though I walk through

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the valley of the shadow of death,

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I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

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Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

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You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

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You anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows.

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And David finishes like this:

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Surely goodness and mercy will follow me

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all the days of my life

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and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

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Let's sing this Psalm together.

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- Worshiping God is when we put our attention

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and our priority on Him.

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And normally we think about worship as singing

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and focusing on God that way.

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But we can worship God in lots of different ways,

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like serving Him or giving to Him.

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You know, if you're new to Crossroads

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and maybe you don't even believe in God yet,

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that's totally okay.

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We're really glad that you're here and kind of leaning in.

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But for those of us who are following God

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and maybe we've been doing that for a long time,

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we figured out that what He wants for our life

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is what we want for our life.

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So we learn to give.

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And when we give, we're really taking on

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the nature of God because

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He's given us everything that we have.

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So we give because we believe that everything is God's

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and we want to worship Him in the way that we give.

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I want you to see a story of someone

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who has been around Crossroads for a long time,

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and they've experienced transformation with giving.

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Specifically, this couple went above and beyond

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a normal tithe, giving 10%,

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for something called a campaign here at Crossroads.

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And this isn't an ask of any kind,

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there's no obligation

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and there's no campaign ask coming next.

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But it's just cool to see what God did in their lives.

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So let's check it out.

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- I'm David. - I'm Stacey.

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- And we're the Shricters.

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- I started coming to Crossroads when I was a teenager.

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At that time, it felt like every message

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was directed right towards me.

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I wanted to be part of Crossroads and part of the team.

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So I started giving and I was making at the time,

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I think $400 a month.

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- I was a volunteer in an organization

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doing ministry for a while, and that led me

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into actually doing full time ministry for my career.

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And during that time, Stacy and I decided

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to get engaged and to get married.

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And I had made a commitment to Game Change,

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and Stacy had made a commitment to Game Change.

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And Stacy's commitment to Game Change

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was about three times the commitment

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that I had made at that time.

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I don't think I had much wisdom around money,

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and I was worried about our savings

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and how we were going to fulfill these two commitments

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and how was God going to show up.

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I had faith that God was going to show up,

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but when we budget and when we planned out

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and we looked at our salaries and what we were making

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and bringing in the numbers didn't match up.

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So we were like, "Are we going to have to

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get rid of everything fun in our life?"

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We committed to it.

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We kept our tithe going and we fulfilled

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both of our Game Change commitments

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and actually went slightly over our commitment.

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And in the midst of that, God showed up.

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- Yeah. And I feel like we've tried to budget

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over and over and every time we should have been in the red

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and we watched our savings grow

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even though it didn't make sense.

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So when the next campaign at Crossroads came up,

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the I'm In campaign, we had talked about a number.

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We knew what we were probably going to give,

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and that meant that we were not going to be able

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to get me a new vehicle that could hold three kids.

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And at the time we had two kids

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and we're looking to jump into foster care.

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We said, "Okay,

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this is the number God's putting on our heart.

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We're going to go for it and show up

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and hope that He works something out for us."

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I was leaving and I walked out to my car

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and my car was dead in the driveway, which was great.

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We went ahead and we made the commitment knowing,

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"Well, that was our money for a van

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that we just committed."

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Over the course of I'm In we started foster care.

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We were able to fulfill our commitment

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and then we're able to pay cash for a van.

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Again, the math just didn't work out.

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None of it made sense that we would have been able to do that.

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- And nobody handed us envelopes full of money.

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It was just God showing up in small places, in little things.

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- A friend had told me that, she said,

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"You get more free stuff than anybody I know."

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And I think that's one way that God was providing for us.

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It wasn't the $1,000 check in a mailbox,

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but it was things like we needed a new couch

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and someone posted one for free and we got it.

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- Those are areas where God's showing up

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and those are God blessing us

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and helping be generous to us

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and in turn allowing us to just receive

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that generosity into others

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and actually saying to ourselves,

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"This is actually God's money

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and we want to be generous to others in our community."

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- I'm much more likely now to give

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immediately when somebody needs something,

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whether that's my time or my money

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or our possessions that we've just seen God be so faithful,

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I don't even think twice about it now.

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I used to think that generosity was something

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you did because you had to,

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because someone was telling you to do it

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or it was something for rich people

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that just had more money than they knew what to do with.

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Now God has showed me that He's so generous

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to us all the time, whether we deserve it or not,

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this is just me giving back

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what was already His to begin with.

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- I love that story and I love that

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it's a series of small steps toward God over time

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that really equals faithfulness.

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So to learn more about giving or to set up your own tithe,

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you can go to Crossroads.net/give.

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You know, earlier I said that Crossroads

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isn't just a video once a week, because it's not.

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It's so much more than that.

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It's actually a real community that you can belong to.

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And I know that that's true because

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I see it happen in people's lives all the time.

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So I'd like to help get you connected.

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In fact, that's kind of my job around here.

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So head to Crossroads.net/groups to get started in community.

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So today we're unpacking this book of Romans.

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It's written by the apostle Paul

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to these folks living in Rome,

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and it's helping them understand

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how to live a life that's all about following Jesus.

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And Brian's talking about how grace in particular sustains us.

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But before we get to Brian,

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here's what community looks like here at Crossroads.

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Let's take a look.

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- This experience transformed my approach

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to my relationship with God.

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- My group of strangers became a family.

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- And I have been transformed.

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I realized that I can begin life anew.

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- These guys are my brothers.

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I can count on them and they can count on me.

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- Someone offered to pray over me,

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and I never had that happen before.

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I'm not sure what I believe about God yet,

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but I love the people I've met,

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and I want to keep exploring.

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- Well, good morning. Welcome to Crossroads.

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Whatever sites you're in,

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it's great to be with everybody today. Yes.

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Some of you are like, "Who is that guy up there?"

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My name is Brian Tome,

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what's known as a senior pastor around here,

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a founding pastor, wherever you want to call me.

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I've been off for eight weeks,

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or at least off of my normal duties.

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Haven't been on stage for eight weeks.

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And I'm just very thankful to be part of a community

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that's generous to me and my family

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and lets me have time off. Thank you very much.

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So I'm going to talk a little bit more about that

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because there's some things I've learned

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over the last eight weeks, but I'm really excited today

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and next week I'm going to talk about grace.

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It's this thing that very few of us fully understand

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and even fewer operate in or reciprocate.

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So let's pray before I go any further.

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God, I am thankful to be here this morning.

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There's no place I'd rather be than right here, right now.

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Nothing I'd rather talk about than the things

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that you've put on my heart

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and the things you've put inside of the Bible.

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Help me to clearly explain it.

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And my biggest prayer, God, is You just be pleased,

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be pleased and You would approve of all that said

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and You would make something happen in our lives

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that may not have happened if we were any place

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other than under Your instruction right now.

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I trust You do these things according to

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the character and identity of Jesus. Amen.

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Summer is coming over. It's about over.

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Some of us are already back in school already,

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and hopefully you've had a lot of time

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to do some fun things this summer.

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And even fun, fun is, I think, an act of grace.

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What is grace?

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Many of us don't know what it is

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or if we know what it is, we don't actually enjoy it.

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Grace isn't the prayer you pray before a meal.

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Grace isn't the way in which you move

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through a room with grace.

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That's not the kind of grace I'm talking about.

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Grace is when you get something that you didn't work for.

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Grace is when you get something that's undeserved.

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Grace is when you give somebody a second chance.

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Grace is when you give somebody the ability

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to think different or be different than you

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without judging them. It's grace.

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Grace might be what I need from you

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when I tell you something about myself personally

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I did over the last eight weeks.

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It's going to really bother some of you.

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I went to The Barbie Movie.

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Yes, I know. I know.

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That's kind of off brand for me. I know.

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So some of you, like, give me grace. Give me Grace.

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I wanted to go.

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I thought, "Hey, original screenplay.

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It's not a part three. It's not Marvel. I'm all in."

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So I said to Lib, "Let's go see this Barbie Movie."

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So please, thanks for grace.

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And then -- well, how's it go?

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I am Barbie.

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It's wonderful being Barbie in a Barbie world,

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being plastic is fantastic.

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Some really interesting things there.

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Then in the movie, I fell asleep.

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I just couldn't. I tried.

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I tried, but no one was getting killed.

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There wasn't anything like that happening I'm interested in.

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There was no World War II theme or something like that.

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I fell asleep.

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So give me some grace.

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I know I'm thankful Hollywood's putting out creative movies,

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but I just couldn't hang with it.

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See, all of us got to give a little bit of grace.

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What is grace, the way I'm describing it today?

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I'll replay a message that came out of a podcast I do

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where I had a guy on who was Hindu,

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a really, really great guy,

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and I got turned on to him

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by a couple other people in Crossroads.

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We had a great interaction.

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He's a standup comedian who is the first person

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to give stand up on all seven continents.

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I know. Like, how did you do that in South Africa?

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In Antarctica?

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He's like, "Well, actually it was on a ship

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right off the coast."

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Okay, fine. Still counts, I guess.

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Really interesting guy.

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And he was telling me about

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how he was poking fun at two people

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who were part of Crossroads, Katherine and Casey

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and who I know.

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And he said, "Look, I'm Hindu, ancient religion,

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been around a lot longer than Christianity."

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Christianity about 2000-ish years,

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which I guess if you want to mark Christianity

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as the beginning of Jesus. Yes.

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But Christianity is really the fulfillment of Judaism

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as those of us who understand Christianity.

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So it goes back longer than that.

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But nonetheless, nonetheless.

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Okay, fair enough.

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He said, "Hey, Hinduism, Judaism, a bunch of isms.

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We've been around a lot, lot longer than Christianity."

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And he said, "There's a lot of similarities.

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Similar moral code, similar commandments, higher power."

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So he said, "I'm a Hindu.

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I've been around forever and ever and ever.

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My religion has."

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And he said this. He said, "What has your religion

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actually brought to the party?

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What's it brought to the party?"

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And they thought about it.

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And he's telling the story

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and they said something that he really appreciated.

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They said, "I think that what Christianity

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has brought to the party is love and grace."

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And he thought about it and went,

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"Yeah, you're right, you're right."

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Now, that would surprise a lot of us because

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a lot of people who identify as a Christian

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don't identify with love and grace,

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at least our activities, our attitudes,

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our faces don't show love and grace.

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Our faces show consternation and judgmentalism.

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But if you look at the movement of Christianity

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and what Jesus talked about, it is love and grace.

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It's really the beginning of that.

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In fact, every religion or spirituality

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that says God is love, they're quoting the Bible.

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And it was started in the Bible.

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It wasn't in other religion or spirituality.

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The idea of forgiveness,

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that the gods would actually forgive you

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instead of take a pound of flesh.

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That's a uniquely Jesus thing.

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We talk about grace.

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It's something that a lot of us want,

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but very few of us understand.

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There's two --

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There's a couple of different revenue streams of God.

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And today, if I do my job right,

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I'm going to upset some of you because

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until you start upsetting people,

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you're not talking about grace.

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Because grace is -- it sounds unfair, it sounds outlandish.

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As soon as you start talking about grace,

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someone says, "Well, yeah, but what about this?"

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"Well, yeah, what about that?"

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"You should have been saying this

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or you should have been saying that."

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I know that. I know that.

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I know that because God's a very complex God.

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You can't define Him in a sentence.

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Could I define you in a sentence? No.

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Could I tell one story from your life

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and someone would understand everything about you

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from one story, any story?

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No, absolutely not.

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So when we take a look at the Bible,

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we've got all these stories

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and all these sentences about God.

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None of them in their singularity fully explain God

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because He's more complex than you and I.

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So you've got to give me grace, if you will.

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Some things may not get said today because

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I'm trying to deal with the grace aspect

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of God's personality that many of us

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need a refresher course on,

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or we need a deep dive in for the very, very first time.

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There are different revenue streams of God.

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One of the revenue streams of God is

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what you would call the you reap what you sow.

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When I say revenue stream, I mean

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how you get blessings from God,

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how you get good things from God.

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And there's different revenue streams that God has

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if you want to feel His fullness in your life.

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One of them for sure is obey the things that God says,

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do the things God says do.

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And then naturally, out of that,

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there will be some good things happen in your life.

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That's good. That's an obedience message.

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That's a commandments. Good. Great.

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We're not talking about that today.

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Not talking about that at all today.

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We're talking about different revenue streams.

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The revenue stream of there's nothing you can do about it,

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but God's going to love you and He's going to bless you.

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It doesn't matter what you believe,

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doesn't matter what you do,

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doesn't matter if you're going to heaven or hell,

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it doesn't matter what you did last night.

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Tomorrow there's good things that

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are going to happen to you

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simply because God is a God of grace,

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simply because He is a God of love.

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Mind blowing in terms of the history of religion,

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the history of spirituality, mind blowing.

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And it's not mind blowing to us because

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we've kind of lived in this sort of goo, if you will,

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that is an understanding of the love of God,

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because the heritage of some of our country

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was steeped in this, even though if we don't give it lip service,

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it's kind of still in the water.

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All of us, you have things that you've been given by God

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the person next to you hasn't been given.

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And the person next to you has things

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that you haven't been given.

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And it isn't because of either one of your intelligence

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or either one of your energy or anything.

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It's only because God's grace.

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He uniquely gives some things to some people,

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other things to other people, and we never work for it.

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And some of us have a harder life

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than the person next to us has a harder life.

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And yet all of us have grace.

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Living in America, I don't think it's my lifetime,

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it's never been more frustrating for me

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to live in America than it is right now.

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It's frustrating. I don't like it.

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It's just, ugh.

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I got my reasons. You got your reasons.

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We probably all agree with that.

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It's frustrating to live in America right now,

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and it's an act of grace.

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I choose to believe it's an act of grace

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that I'm here versus any other country.

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Because I could be in another country where I was born

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where there would be bombings happening,

00:33:55

where there would be incoming missiles.

00:33:57

I could be in another country

00:33:58

where there would be lack of water and lack of food,

00:34:01

and I would have never chosen

00:34:03

to do that country or this country.

00:34:05

I was just born here.

00:34:07

And I've had an easier life as a result of it.

00:34:09

It's called an act of grace.

00:34:13

The idea of grace wasn't invented by Jesus.

00:34:16

It was actually invented by God's character and His nature.

00:34:19

We're going to get into the book of Romans in just a little bit.

00:34:22

Romans has 16 chapters in it.

00:34:24

It's a New Testament Book of the Bible,

00:34:25

16 chapters, 22 different references to grace.

00:34:29

But this idea of grace isn't unique to the book of Romans.

00:34:32

It isn't unique to Jesus.

00:34:33

It is the very character of God.

00:34:36

If we go back to the Book of Exodus,

00:34:38

way, way back in the beginning of the Bible,

00:34:40

the second book in the Bible.

00:34:42

This is the book where God's characteristics

00:34:45

really start taking place.

00:34:46

It's the book where He actually reveals His name,

00:34:49

He tells us who His identity is.

00:34:53

And in this book, here's what He says in chapter 34:

00:35:17

So, yes, He's serious when we do something wrong,

00:35:20

He's serious about the consequences

00:35:22

of our rebelliousness or our sin.

00:35:24

But don't forget what overwhelms that

00:35:27

and what precedes that is His mercy, His grace.

00:35:31

Isn't that good? Isn't it good for you to know that

00:35:34

right now you're not operating on a pass/fail

00:35:37

on a minute by minute basis with God?

00:35:39

Right now He doesn't judge you based on what you did yesterday.

00:35:42

The totality of your life and your relationship

00:35:44

with Him isn't based on what happened yesterday to you.

00:35:47

Whatever you did last week that might have regrets for you,

00:35:51

He may regret it, too, but He's not holding it over your head.

00:35:56

He's forgiving, He's forbearing,

00:35:58

He's gracious, He hangs with us.

00:36:01

Friends, that's good news.

00:36:03

Now, in the book of John 1,

00:36:07

it's the earliest and maybe best description

00:36:11

of what Jesus is and what He does.

00:36:15

When it describes His core characteristics,

00:36:18

His core qualities, here's what it says in John 1:14:

00:36:49

When it says the law was given through Moses,

00:36:51

it's saying, "Hey, there's a place for obligation,

00:36:54

law, commandments, do this, that comes through Moses.

00:36:57

Right, it's in the Old Testament.

00:36:58

Great, great, great, great, great.

00:37:00

And by the way, Jesus fulfilled that law,

00:37:02

that's why when He goes to a cross,

00:37:04

He dies not for Himself and His own transgressions,

00:37:08

He dies for my transgressions."

00:37:10

Why would He do that?

00:37:11

Because He's a loving and graceful God.

00:37:14

But Jesus is full of truth, that truth and grace.

00:37:18

Very few of us can operate in both of these things.

00:37:21

This element of truth, there is a right and a wrong.

00:37:24

There are standards that God has.

00:37:27

And there also is gray areas that God gives us,

00:37:31

there also is second chances.

00:37:33

There also is forgiveness. There also is love.

00:37:35

It's crazy, very few people can operate

00:37:37

in truth and in grace.

00:37:38

So I first started wrestling with this years ago,

00:37:41

grace upon grace, I said, man, I don't have a tattoo,

00:37:43

but if I was going to mark myself up with a tattoo,

00:37:45

I designed it, I had somebody write it up for me.

00:37:47

Took a tattoo artist, put it on my shoulder,

00:37:49

the yin and the yang of grace and truth.

00:37:50

There it is right there, like I said,

00:37:52

the yin and the yang. That's it.

00:37:55

That's my shoulder. The yin and the yang.

00:37:57

No, no, I liked the first one better.

00:38:03

The yin and the yang of grace and truth,

00:38:07

they hang together with the crown of thorns

00:38:10

that was on Jesus's head as He was on a cross. Grace.

00:38:15

I want to just overflow you with grace today.

00:38:18

This is not a day for obligation.

00:38:20

This is not a day for you to hear about duty.

00:38:22

This is not a day for you

00:38:23

to hear about sucking it up.

00:38:24

This is not a day, nor is next week,

00:38:27

a time to to hear about how you got to do the right thing.

00:38:31

No, there is a time and a place for those kind of things

00:38:33

that are in the Bible. Today is not that day.

00:38:36

This is the fullness of the side of personality of God's grace.

00:38:39

So everyone just kind of go, whoo.

00:38:42

Here we go. Just relax. Relax.

00:38:45

Today should feel good.

00:38:46

It's actually okay to feel good.

00:38:49

For a long time I always thought that

00:38:51

if I felt good, something was wrong.

00:38:53

If I felt good, I was guilty because

00:38:56

God doesn't want me to feel good.

00:38:58

He wants me to be on point.

00:39:00

He wants me to be productive.

00:39:02

He wants me to be sacrificing.

00:39:04

He wants me to be doing the hard things.

00:39:06

Because I have always had an outage in grace.

00:39:09

If I seem like I understand grace today,

00:39:11

it's only because it's been years and years

00:39:13

and years and years and years of de-programing

00:39:15

my truth only aspect, my duty, my call,

00:39:19

my commitment, my obedience, all that stuff.

00:39:22

And I understand greater the personality of God

00:39:26

that He's a lot more enjoyable

00:39:28

than I ever would have thought that He was.

00:39:31

And my hope is that you'll see that

00:39:32

and you'll experience that today.

00:39:33

Romans 12:3 says this:

00:39:37

For by the grace given to me --

00:39:40

not the obligation I have, not the duty I have, but

00:39:54

We tend to think very highly of ourself

00:39:57

when we see ourselves as a disciplined, regimented

00:40:01

person who's devoted to God.

00:40:03

My life has gotten there because I've done this

00:40:05

and I've done that and I've gone here and I've gone there.

00:40:08

No, no, no, no. It's according to the measure of faith

00:40:11

that God has assigned, assigned meaning given.

00:40:14

Have you ever considered that if you have a relationship with God

00:40:17

and maybe you don't have a relationship with God

00:40:19

as you came in today, if you ever -- I'll talk to you first.

00:40:21

You came in today, do you ever wonder, like,

00:40:23

"Why is this my first day here

00:40:24

and I haven't been to church before, like, ever?

00:40:26

Why is it?"

00:40:28

Maybe it's because the grace of God who is wooing you here.

00:40:33

Maybe it's because God has given you grace

00:40:34

to desire to seek, and desire to be.

00:40:37

Maybe you're feeling something you haven't felt

00:40:39

that is the the grace of God.

00:40:42

When I came to know God,

00:40:43

if someone would have said to me early on,

00:40:45

"How did you know you came to know Jesus?

00:40:48

How did you know you received Him?"

00:40:49

I would have said, "Well, because I said a prayer,

00:40:52

the sinner's prayer."

00:40:53

The sinner's prayer is not what got me to Jesus.

00:40:56

"Well, baptism, well, I got baptized."

00:40:58

Baptism is not what got me to Jesus. "Well, I went to --"

00:41:01

You know what got me to Jesus? The grace of God.

00:41:04

All those things, the reason I was able

00:41:07

to pray a prayer to give my life to Christ

00:41:09

is because God had first touched me with His grace.

00:41:12

And why is it there was people who were just like me,

00:41:14

who heard the same things as I did,

00:41:16

grew up in the same neighbor as I had,

00:41:18

had all the similar instructions and all that stuff,

00:41:21

but yet something didn't trigger, something didn't spark?

00:41:25

Maybe it's because the grace of God came to me

00:41:27

to help me understand it at that time,

00:41:29

early in my life, and hopefully the grace of God

00:41:31

will come to them in some way, shape or form.

00:41:33

But this is what Paul is talking about by grace,

00:41:36

not by my efforts, not by my seminary education,

00:41:39

not by my discipline, not by my spiritual habits,

00:41:42

not by my prayer life, not because I read three books

00:41:45

on the necessity to understand Christian apologetics

00:41:48

and how this -- No, no, no, no, no, by the grace.

00:41:52

God does this X factor that we can't see,

00:41:54

we don't fully understand, but it's part of His nature.

00:41:57

Now there's three kinds of grace

00:41:58

I want to spend the rest of the time on.

00:42:00

There's more. These are three official,

00:42:02

if you will, theological terms.

00:42:04

I don't like just sprinkling theological terms out there,

00:42:06

but these ones are actually very, very helpful

00:42:08

and descriptive.

00:42:10

First, the first kind of grace I want to dig deeper in

00:42:13

is what's known as saving grace.

00:42:17

Saving grace. Saving grace.

00:42:19

This is the kind of grace that comes to you

00:42:21

that changes and alters your spiritual trajectory

00:42:24

for all of eternity.

00:42:26

It's the kind of grace where you're going one way,

00:42:29

you're going down a path that's leading to destruction,

00:42:31

even if it means right now you have a lot of money

00:42:33

and a lot of fun times,

00:42:34

ultimately, it's going to lead to destruction

00:42:36

because it's going to empty your soul

00:42:38

and it's going to keep you from enjoying God forever.

00:42:40

Saving grace is that grace that comes in

00:42:42

and saves you, helps you go, "Hmm.

00:42:45

Is there another way for me? Hmm. Wait a minute.

00:42:48

Should I? Wait a minute. What?"

00:42:51

You may know saving grace also as amazing grace.

00:42:55

Amazing Grace was the song written by John Newton,

00:42:58

who was a former slave trader.

00:43:00

And he finally realized, "Oh my gosh,

00:43:02

I've been, like, kidnaping and selling fellow children of God.

00:43:10

I am awful. What is wrong?"

00:43:12

And he comes this conclusion and he writes that song

00:43:15

all about coming on the backs of his horrific life

00:43:19

he's had as a slave trader.

00:43:20

He writes that song about saving grace.

00:43:25

You might have heard it. Let's see if you have.

00:43:28

Amazing Grace (how sweet the sound)

00:43:35

That saved a wretch (like me)

00:43:41

I once was lost, but now am found,

00:43:48

was blind, but now I see.

00:43:54

Yeah. Fascinating.

00:43:55

There's interesting scholarship that's gone into

00:43:57

saying that he actually put those words to tunes

00:44:04

that he was hearing the Africans singing

00:44:08

down in the births of his ship.

00:44:10

And that's probably where he got the melody to that

00:44:13

and he stuck the words into that.

00:44:16

How in the world could someone get redeemed,

00:44:19

gone a different direction?

00:44:21

Because the grace of God, there's saving grace.

00:44:24

11:6, Romans 11:6 says this:

00:44:34

If I get to know God because of my prayer,

00:44:39

it's not Grace, it's a paycheck.

00:44:41

I did the prayer, so therefore I get this.

00:44:44

I got baptized, so therefore I get that.

00:44:47

Prayers and baptism, by the way, are great. wonderful.

00:44:49

I'm not anti them, but saving Grace says

00:44:52

when you and I come into a loving relationship with God,

00:44:55

it's because of God's grace, not because I'm smarter

00:44:57

than the spiritual nincompoop next door.

00:45:01

It's because God, for some strange, stupid reason,

00:45:04

and that's what Grace is, it's strange and stupid.

00:45:06

It doesn't make sense.

00:45:08

It hasn't made sense in the history of theology,

00:45:10

history of spirituality, history of religion.

00:45:12

There's no ancient religion that believes this.

00:45:14

None, other than something that's

00:45:16

rooted in the scripture, saving grace.

00:45:21

I had a death of somebody

00:45:24

who was not close to me physically,

00:45:27

but close to me emotionally.

00:45:30

In May, a mentor from afar of mine,

00:45:34

mentor as in I listened to his sermons,

00:45:36

read his books, he died.

00:45:38

Avery influential pastor to other pastors

00:45:39

and many other people.

00:45:40

He's written a lot of books. His name is Tim Keller.

00:45:43

Tim was just a great, great, great man of God.

00:45:45

And he finished well.

00:45:46

And there's too few people who I can relate to who finished well.

00:45:49

He finished well, it was really, really impressive.

00:45:51

I got to spend some time with Tim on a couple of occasions.

00:45:53

The last time I spent time with him was, don't think --

00:46:01

I don't know if you know or not,

00:46:02

there's people who want me to sell to you all the time.

00:46:06

Seriously? Like, I can't tell you

00:46:07

how many free books I would ever get,

00:46:09

someone just hoping I'd say, "Here's a great book I read."

00:46:11

And people go -- It comes in all the time.

00:46:13

If you're an aspiring author. Great.

00:46:15

Thank you. Thank you very much.

00:46:16

I'm not going to read your book when you send it to me.

00:46:18

I'm not going to mention either. I'm sorry.

00:46:20

I'm already overwhelmed. Good for your heart.

00:46:22

I hope God helps it happen,

00:46:23

but I'm not going to be able to do it,

00:46:25

unless I get something out of it.

00:46:31

Like, Hollywood figured out years and years ago,

00:46:33

"Hey, all these people go to churches,

00:46:35

they actually buy movie tickets.

00:46:36

We can monetize that.

00:46:38

How do we get pastors to tell people to go to movies?"

00:46:41

Which I don't tell you to do, whatever.

00:46:44

But they came to me and said, "Hey,

00:46:45

we got this new C.S Lewis movie.

00:46:47

Would you like to come? Would you like to come?"

00:46:49

I knew exactly what they were doing.

00:46:50

They're going to fly me and Lib out there,

00:46:52

pay for it, give us expensive meals,

00:46:54

take us to the studio, have us go behind the scenes,

00:46:57

interact with another small group of pastors.

00:46:59

I knew exactly what they were doing, so I said,

00:47:01

"Of course, yes, I'll come." [laughter]

00:47:05

Never talked about the movie, never talked about the movie.

00:47:07

But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.

00:47:09

And that's kind of the deal, right?

00:47:11

On that bus I met Tim and Jan Keller.

00:47:14

Tim was influenced by C.S Lewis.

00:47:16

C.S Lewis, if you ever heard of was the guy

00:47:18

who did Lion Witch and the Wardrobe

00:47:20

and his friend was J.R.R. Tolkien,

00:47:22

who did Lord of the Rings.

00:47:25

J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S Lewis, and some other professors

00:47:29

at Oxford would get together every week

00:47:32

just to sharpen each other spiritually, every week.

00:47:35

Everybody who's ever been a great,

00:47:36

everybody who's ever been a great in the spiritual life

00:47:39

has had an identifiable community of people

00:47:41

that they get with an identifiable, predictable times

00:47:45

on the calendar, everyone, all the time.

00:47:48

And for Lewis and Tolkien, this is where

00:47:51

they kind of birthed this idea of this fantasy world.

00:47:53

They went different ways with it.

00:47:54

That's -- they had this small group

00:47:56

that they got together at a pub.

00:47:58

C.S. Lewis, when he wrote his whole thing on the deal,

00:48:02

one of the books was called The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,

00:48:08

made into a movie.

00:48:09

And Tim and Jean are telling me, "Yeah,

00:48:11

we're big C.S. Lewis geeks," and they showed us,

00:48:14

they showed us the script and we went toe to toe with them

00:48:17

and we got the script changed.

00:48:18

I said, "What are you talking about?"

00:48:19

He said, "Well, the original script,

00:48:21

it was the American version of spirituality

00:48:23

which looked like this.

00:48:25

Eustace, who's in the book, he starts going away from God,

00:48:29

starts going towards his own stuff,

00:48:31

and he starts growing scales

00:48:32

and he gets turned into a dragon.

00:48:34

Thick armor around him. He can't feel.

00:48:38

And then he gets an assignment.

00:48:40

He goes, this is to a sinking ship.

00:48:42

And once he sinks the ship, then God blesses him

00:48:46

and takes off his stuff and does something good with him.

00:48:48

And if you've read the book

00:48:49

or you know anything about C.S Lewis

00:48:51

or anything about Christianity,

00:48:52

you would know what Tim and Jan Keller --

00:48:55

Kathy Keller, excuse me, Tim and Kathy

00:48:57

said to the producer of the movie, "No, you can't do this.

00:49:00

This is exactly opposite of the God of the Bible.

00:49:03

This is exactly opposite of Christianity.

00:49:05

This is exactly opposite of everything C.S. Lewis

00:49:07

believed and actually wrote.

00:49:09

You don't first do the good thing

00:49:11

and then the nice things go away from you --

00:49:13

the bad things go away from you."

00:49:14

Although that may be, that is one revenue stream.

00:49:17

That is. I'm not talking about that revenue stream.

00:49:19

The revenue stream that C.S Lewis talked about

00:49:21

in that book was the revenue stream of grace.

00:49:24

In the story, as Eustace is a miserable dragon,

00:49:27

he can't feel, he's not himself any longer.

00:49:30

Which some of us might feel that way.

00:49:31

You might feel like I'm not myself.

00:49:33

I can't feel anymore. Where am I going?

00:49:34

In that whole thing, God comes in, who is Aslan The lion.

00:49:39

And the lion, Aslan, takes his fingernail,

00:49:42

pokes him in his chest and [ripping noise].

00:49:46

Rips him right down the center and rips him open.

00:49:50

And it's a painful touch, but it rips him open,

00:49:53

gives him his heart back, and he gets sensitive.

00:49:56

He starts to feel and then he goes and sinks the ship.

00:50:00

That's what Grace does to us.

00:50:02

God comes to us, and sometimes grace is painful.

00:50:04

Sometimes it comes to us in a form of conviction,

00:50:06

like, "Oh, no, I shouldn't, no."

00:50:09

Sometimes grace comes

00:50:10

and it's not exactly what we want to do,

00:50:13

but it is still a gift.

00:50:14

And then as things work out, we then end up

00:50:17

doing something different.

00:50:18

But the starting point was grace, the amazing grace of God.

00:50:25

I want you to get to grace

00:50:27

wherever you can be, get to Grace.

00:50:30

Outside I think is a great place of grace.

00:50:31

This is why we do camps, Couples Camp, Woman Camp,

00:50:34

whatever it is because I think it expands our mind

00:50:37

when we get out to where actually

00:50:39

another form of grace is common grace.

00:50:42

There's saving grace and there's common grace.

00:50:46

Matthew 5:44-45,

00:50:49

Jesus describes what common grace is. He says this:

00:50:55

Stop right there.

00:50:57

Why would you love somebody and pray for somebody

00:50:59

when they have nothing to deserve

00:51:01

your love and your prayer?

00:51:02

Nothing. Jesus telling us to be graceful.

00:51:09

Because that's what God does.

00:51:11

God blesses us when we have done nothing to deserve it.

00:51:21

Common grace means that there are certain blessings

00:51:23

that everybody gets, no matter what you believe

00:51:25

or anything, like the rain and the sun.

00:51:27

It's common to everybody.

00:51:29

Take away the rain or take away the sun,

00:51:31

and life isn't going to work at all. It's common.

00:51:34

Part of why I love getting outside at camps,

00:51:37

there's this a thing about God's grace that's at those camps.

00:51:40

There is God likes HVAC.

00:51:43

God likes likes hazing machines and LEDs.

00:51:47

But as anyone will tell you,

00:51:48

there's a kind of grace that's prevalent at camps.

00:51:51

Is it the rain, the sun thing?

00:51:53

Is the people have gone to a hard place,

00:51:55

they're pushing themselves? Is it that?

00:51:57

I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is,

00:51:59

but there's something profound.

00:52:01

I just want to encourage you, guys,

00:52:02

coming up at the close of Man Camp signups.

00:52:05

Women Camp is a little bit later.

00:52:06

Please, please do yourself a favor,

00:52:08

increase the likelihood that you're going to

00:52:10

have a fresh touch of grace.

00:52:11

Because I can tell you right now,

00:52:13

if you want something new or more from God,

00:52:15

it's not going to happen probably

00:52:17

inside the same old, same old.

00:52:18

Push yourself. I'd love to have you at Man Camp.

00:52:21

We'd love to sign up with you

00:52:22

and walk you through that whole thing.

00:52:24

Information is up there on the screen,

00:52:28

or at least it was before.

00:52:30

When I was in, when I did my break the last eight weeks,

00:52:33

one of the greatest things I did in Alaska.

00:52:36

We drove to Alaska, hang out there and drove back,

00:52:39

camped the whole way, all the way up, all the way back.

00:52:42

One night in a hotel in a month.

00:52:43

So we're doing all this stuff and I've got to tell you,

00:52:48

the things that we saw, I saw God's grace after God's grace.

00:52:51

Like, what was the biggest sign of God's grace?

00:52:53

Was it all the bald eagles we saw?

00:52:56

We saw so many bald eagles who got bored of them?

00:52:58

"Oh, bald eagles. Oh, that one's carrying a fish it just caught.

00:53:00

Okay, whatever," yawn, yawn.

00:53:03

Was it moose? Oh, moose, smoosh moose, whatever.

00:53:06

They're so old. So many of them."

00:53:08

Was the most awesome thing, was the most awesome thing bears?

00:53:13

Two bears fighting 30 yards away.

00:53:16

We're 30 yards away. We don't have any gun,

00:53:19

and they're fighting 30 yards away from us.

00:53:22

Was that the most awesome thing?

00:53:24

No, no. The most awesome thing was going to a place

00:53:30

where cars were launched off of a cliff.

00:53:34

[indiscernable announcer]

00:53:36

Unbelievable, cars coming off the cliff.

00:53:38

Better than you could possibly imagine.

00:53:40

Watch two's up, here's a third.

00:53:43

[cheers]

00:53:47

My gosh. Oh, wow.

00:53:54

Oh, my gosh. Wow.

00:53:59

God bless America.

00:54:01

I'm telling you right now, you have not lived

00:54:04

until you've seen 20 cars driven off a cliff

00:54:07

because a brick was on the accelerator pedal.

00:54:09

It was unbelievable. My gosh.

00:54:12

I found out about this place, about,

00:54:14

I don't know, a month and a half ago

00:54:16

I came across a YouTube video of this thing.

00:54:18

This, I don't want to get into the whole story, of this thing.

00:54:20

We realize we're only an hour and a half away

00:54:23

from this place, and it's happening tomorrow.

00:54:26

Let's go.

00:54:28

So we show up at 9:00, pay 20 bucks a person.

00:54:31

We go in, we go in, and there's a horn up in the deal.

00:54:36

[horn sound] Everyone's talking, "Hey, how you doing?"

00:54:38

[horn sound] Everyone goes, like, silent hush,

00:54:41

like the very presence of God

00:54:42

is going to appear at any moment. [horn sound]

00:54:45

All sudden, 10,000 people.

00:54:49

Look up, here comes a car. Woo.

00:54:54

Ahhh, everybody starts screaming.

00:54:56

It was amazing.

00:54:57

Now, why would I call that grace?

00:55:00

Why would I call that grace?

00:55:01

I'll tell you why, for me, there was a time

00:55:04

not too long ago when I would have

00:55:06

never gone to something like that

00:55:08

and I would have judged anybody who did.

00:55:11

Now, I know that some of you view me as the fun guy,

00:55:14

do stupid stuff guy.

00:55:15

That's really relatively recent, like,

00:55:18

the last decade or so.

00:55:20

I'm more naturally a truth guy.

00:55:23

I had to operate at the grace guy.

00:55:25

I sat there going, "God, thank you so much

00:55:27

for helping me see Your grace."

00:55:28

Because there's a time when I would have said,

00:55:30

"$20, I'm not paying $20 to get in this thing.

00:55:33

How many people could I help who are in poverty for $20?

00:55:37

I'm not going to go.

00:55:38

I'm going to go spend nine hours

00:55:40

sitting on a chair staring at a cliff

00:55:42

when I could be out doing something productive.

00:55:45

I'm not going to do that. What is that?

00:55:46

That's a problem with our culture.

00:55:48

It's a problem of our country. People are going to see that."

00:55:50

That's me, I would have said that 20 years ago.

00:55:54

Instead, no, this is like the grace of God.

00:55:56

Like, just have a good time.

00:55:58

Have you ever considered God wants you to have fun?

00:56:03

People who are about law and about truth

00:56:05

don't consider that and don't live that.

00:56:06

That's why people don't want to be around you,

00:56:08

because it's not the truth that attracts us to people.

00:56:15

We need people, we need integrity, for sure.

00:56:17

It's grace. It's the soft, mushy stuff.

00:56:20

It's the smile. It's the love.

00:56:24

There is this common grace that's there to us.

00:56:29

And when you start to understand the grace of God,

00:56:31

I'm telling you, your demeanor will change,

00:56:35

your perspective on God will change, and it gets freeing.

00:56:40

This year I've been on a fairly strict Bible reading plan,

00:56:43

strict for me anyway.

00:56:46

Over the last several years, my Bible reading plan

00:56:49

has persisted or consisted, excuse me,

00:56:52

of reading the chapter that's in the Crossroads app,

00:56:56

which I haven't done in the last eight weeks.

00:56:58

I've taken a break from all my normal rhythms like that.

00:57:01

And when a bunch of us do that, I encourage you

00:57:03

to go check out the Crossroads Anywhere app.

00:57:04

You can get the Bible on there, community.

00:57:06

It's really, really good.

00:57:07

So it's been that and then some other stuff

00:57:09

that I've read as well.

00:57:10

We've done a facelift on that, on that app.

00:57:12

But this year coming into it, I sensed that

00:57:14

it was right for me and God wanted me to do something

00:57:17

different or in addition to the Crossroads app

00:57:19

with my Bible reading plan.

00:57:20

So I've been on a more strict Bible reading plan

00:57:23

that takes me through the Old Testament in a year,

00:57:27

the New Testament, twice in a year,

00:57:29

and the Book of Psalms twice in the year.

00:57:31

And by the grace of God, and I do mine in the grace of God,

00:57:34

because I would have never been a person who when I was 16,

00:57:37

no one knew me when I was 16, who said,

00:57:38

"Oh, you're just one of those naturally discipled people

00:57:41

or naturally disciplined people."

00:57:43

No one who knew me at 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

00:57:48

would have said that, nobody.

00:57:50

But by the grace of God, I've been developing things

00:57:53

and I'm pretty disciplined now, right?

00:57:55

So I said, "Okay, here we go. We're going to do this."

00:57:57

And I'm eight months in, coming almost nine months in,

00:58:01

and I'm on track, right?

00:58:02

I'm feeling good about that.

00:58:04

So the other night I'm on my front porch.

00:58:06

That's where I go at the end of every day.

00:58:09

Lib goes up in bed. Me and Peanut go out there.

00:58:11

And I'm just kind of sitting there, it's dark, it's quiet,

00:58:13

and I just think and hang out there before I go up to bed.

00:58:18

And I get this thought comes out of nowhere.

00:58:21

And thought is, "I've been reading a lot about God,

00:58:28

but I haven't been talking to God.

00:58:31

I've been reading about God, not talking to God."

00:58:36

Immediately what comes over me is a sense of guilt,

00:58:41

of shame, also of panic, like, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,

00:58:45

I'm going to be preaching here in three days.

00:58:48

And oh, no, I'm not qualified to preach

00:58:51

because I haven't had the same prayer life I had before.

00:58:55

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

00:58:56

And as soon as I think this, like, Oh no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

00:59:00

As soon as I think that the voice of God comes to me

00:59:03

and it's a prompting, it's internal.

00:59:05

It's not anything I can show you on a tape recorder,

00:59:07

but I know it's Him. It's a thought.

00:59:09

He comes across my mind.

00:59:10

It's not a thought I would generate.

00:59:12

And he says, "Brian, you're good. You're fine.

00:59:15

I understand. We're good. You're good."

00:59:19

And I was like as quickly as I had this dread,

00:59:21

like, oh, no, that quickly the grace of God

00:59:23

comes over me like, okay, I'm good.

00:59:26

I'm good to go. I'm good to go here.

00:59:27

Because my relation with God

00:59:29

is not dependent on my discipline.

00:59:31

While it's important, my relationship

00:59:33

and God's love for me is not dependent

00:59:35

on how well I've served Him.

00:59:37

It's dependent on His grace.

00:59:39

It's dependent on His love.

00:59:41

It's dependent on His patience and His forbearance.

00:59:44

And thank God He's got a lot of it

00:59:46

and He's got a lot for you.

00:59:48

He's got more patience, more forbearance,

00:59:50

more love for you, more grace for you

00:59:52

than you can ever imagine.

00:59:55

He's good. He loves you. He's into you.

00:59:59

And when you get this, it equips you.

01:00:01

So then I got up this morning.

01:00:02

I got to wake up at 5:00 in the morning

01:00:04

to get in here for everything I'm doing,

01:00:05

run through everything else.

01:00:06

I'm like, I am excited. I can't wait.

01:00:09

Not because, okay, I get to go back and earn my paycheck now.

01:00:13

No, it's because I get to go

01:00:14

and I get to step into the grace of God

01:00:16

because He's been so good to me, and He's good to you.

01:00:19

[applause] He's good to you.

01:00:21

Don't believe that He's holding out on you.

01:00:23

He's not. Ephesians 3:20:

01:00:32

This is the grace of God.

01:00:34

Lib and I, we don't own a second home

01:00:35

or a condo or a timeshare.

01:00:36

When we go some place, we got to rent, right?

01:00:39

So we rent this house not too long ago,

01:00:41

and I think it was by Christians

01:00:43

because they probably read this verse.

01:00:44

And the name of the cabin was Immeasurably More.

01:00:49

I'm like, yeah, that's kind of cool.

01:00:50

It was cool until I saw the rules for the cabin.

01:00:53

I've never rented anything at AirBnB

01:00:54

that had more rules, never, like thick book,

01:00:59

like, rules on the pink plates must be washed this way.

01:01:02

These things must go on the bottom.

01:01:04

I mean, seriously thick, I thought, like,

01:01:06

they think and they're wearing their faith out there.

01:01:08

Like you think it's about immeasurably more rules.

01:01:12

Some of us are stuck from getting closer to God

01:01:15

because we think God is about immeasurably more rules for us.

01:01:18

If I get closer to Him,

01:01:19

He's going to tell me more stuff to do.

01:01:21

No, it's about immeasurably more grace,

01:01:24

immeasurably more love for us.

01:01:26

The last kind of grace I'll just touch on

01:01:28

because I'm going to get in this a bit more next week

01:01:30

is actual grace.

01:01:33

This is called actual grace because,

01:01:36

not because this is the actual grace,

01:01:38

but because there are specific acts of grace

01:01:42

that are unique to you and I

01:01:45

that can't be described or defined.

01:01:47

And it's just is what it is.

01:01:49

Romans 16:20 says:

01:01:56

The immeasurable riches.

01:01:59

He never says immeasurable commandments.

01:02:02

He never puts on you immeasurable expectations,

01:02:06

never puts on you immeasurable guilt.

01:02:10

Because He's a God of grace,

01:02:12

immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness

01:02:16

towards us who are in Christ Jesus.

01:02:19

So immeasurable salvation, saving grace is great.

01:02:22

It's a one. It's a one kind.

01:02:24

Immeasurable, the grace of having a financial opportunity,

01:02:27

grace of having a friend, grace of having a healthy body,

01:02:29

grace of having 45 or 65 or 85 beats per minute,

01:02:33

grace of having whatever it is.

01:02:34

Grace, grace, grace. Immeasurable.

01:02:36

There's things that you get

01:02:38

the person next to you doesn't get.

01:02:39

There's things the person next to you,

01:02:41

they get that you don't get.

01:02:42

And if you don't understand grace,

01:02:43

you get really bitter because you'll go to God,

01:02:45

like, no fair. No fair.

01:02:49

My kids learn never to say that. They were itty-bitty kids.

01:02:53

They go like, you know, they're trying to get what they want.

01:02:55

And we always say no fair,

01:02:56

because it's a way for us to get what we want.

01:02:58

God, you're not giving me what I want,

01:03:00

so I'm going to just say you're not fair.

01:03:01

You're not righteous. You're not just.

01:03:03

Really what we should just say is I'm selfish

01:03:05

and I want things the way I want them.

01:03:07

That's what we really should say.

01:03:08

But instead it feels better to say God's not fair.

01:03:11

God, says, "Well, fine.

01:03:12

You're not getting all this, but there's a lot

01:03:13

of other awful things you could be getting

01:03:15

you're not getting either.

01:03:16

So I tried to help my kids understand that

01:03:18

you got to see God as grace.

01:03:20

If you want God as fairness, what that means is

01:03:22

as soon as you slip up, you go straight to hell,

01:03:24

because that's fair. Oh, you messed up. Go to hell.

01:03:27

There you go.

01:03:29

None of us want that, right?

01:03:31

None of us want that.

01:03:33

So asking for fairness puts us in

01:03:36

a very spiritual, precarious position.

01:03:37

So my kids go, "No fair. No fair."

01:03:39

I say, "Fair. You want fair?

01:03:42

How many meals have I bought for you?

01:03:43

You haven't bought me any meals.

01:03:44

I'm not going to buy any more meals for you

01:03:46

until you catch up. Fair?"

01:03:49

I would tell my youngest daughter, Mariah.

01:03:51

"That's fair. How many times you wipe my butt?

01:03:54

I wipe your butt for two years.

01:03:55

I'll tell you from now on, from now on,

01:03:57

whenever I'm done in the bathroom,

01:03:59

'Mariah, come in here.

01:04:00

You got to catch up, because that's fair.

01:04:02

Come on. Right here. Help me out.'"

01:04:06

[laughter] True lie. I'm not exaggerating.

01:04:08

I'm just letting you in my life.

01:04:09

This is an act of grace, you know?

01:04:13

It's actual grace, unique things that God gives us

01:04:18

and blesses us with.

01:04:20

See, many of us have an inoculated form of God.

01:04:24

We've got just enough God to inoculate us.

01:04:28

I mentioned Tim Keller before.

01:04:30

Tim said this, I should have hit his quote earlier on.

01:04:33

I'm almost done here, folks. Hang in there.

01:04:35

He says this, he said:

01:04:47

Many are rejecting a god that is not the full God,

01:04:51

it's a God of rules and regulations and perpetual anger.

01:04:55

He's a god of grace. He does get angry. He does have rules.

01:04:59

What we're talking about is grace here today.

01:05:01

And our culture has gone further and further away

01:05:04

from understanding grace and acting grace.

01:05:07

Only in today's modern American culture,

01:05:09

never before, would we have actually done

01:05:11

something like cancel culture and we cancel.

01:05:13

Cancel culture is anti grace, it's anti God, its anti Jesus.

01:05:18

And by the way, we all do it.

01:05:23

Like, easy to get upset about somebody else,

01:05:25

but you know, easily be upset, like canceling somebody

01:05:28

who is an evangelical and believes in

01:05:29

what the Bible says about sexuality. Cancel.

01:05:31

And then same time just cancel Bud Light,

01:05:35

cancel them all. It's the same thing.

01:05:39

It's like [grumbling]

01:05:44

Man. I'm telling you what, man,

01:05:46

just be very careful because there is a reap what you sow.

01:05:49

If you want to encourage God to cancel you,

01:05:51

not that He ever would.

01:05:52

If you want to encourage Him, just stay on the cancel train.

01:05:55

It's toxic. It's poisonous to your soul,

01:05:58

judging people who think different than you.

01:06:01

Not cutting somebody slack who votes different than you.

01:06:06

This anti-grace culture, it means

01:06:08

we're becoming anti God and we're getting further

01:06:11

and further away from the life that God's given us.

01:06:13

Last story. So I've been off for 8 weeks,

01:06:16

but I also, I've been still doing work,

01:06:19

just not my normal stuff.

01:06:21

I got an email last week, a woman, she emailed me,

01:06:26

a Catholic priest and another Protestant pastor.

01:06:28

And she was upset and she asked us

01:06:32

why we didn't say anything about Issue One.

01:06:34

I had a pastor, in case you aren't in Ohio,

01:06:38

political issue, Issue One.

01:06:41

To be quite honest with you,

01:06:42

I still don't know what it is because I don't care.

01:06:50

I know -- I know that really bums some of you out

01:06:52

and I don't want to bum some of you out,

01:06:54

but it is what it is.

01:06:55

So some pastor, some pastor comes to me and he goes,

01:06:58

"What are you doing about issue one?"

01:06:59

I said, "Issue one, what's issue one?"

01:07:01

He tried to tell me. I was like, "I'm going to do it.

01:07:03

I'm not doing anything about it."

01:07:05

This woman wasn't happy about that.

01:07:07

So she, she emailed me and she said,

01:07:10

"I go to all three of your churches

01:07:12

and none of you spoke about Issue one

01:07:13

and here's why you should and," blah, blah, blah.

01:07:16

I'm thinking I was like, what a great lead in,

01:07:18

you just told all three of us

01:07:20

you're not committed to any of us.

01:07:21

That's great. That's -- You just, like, told everybody,

01:07:23

"Hey, by the way, I'm a church shopper

01:07:25

who's not committed anywhere.

01:07:26

I just do what I want, but you should listen to me."

01:07:29

Oh, yeah. We're all going to listen to you. Yeah, sure.

01:07:32

So you didn't say Issue One, [grumbling]

01:07:34

And my only response was this,

01:07:37

and my response to all of us as we live

01:07:38

in a church that's very diverse, where we have,

01:07:41

believe it or not, Republicans, Democrats go to heaven, too.

01:07:46

Believe it or not, Democrats,

01:07:49

Republicans actually care for the poor, too.

01:07:52

We live in divided times and we have a church

01:07:54

that does have different, it's wonderful.

01:07:57

We have people have different bumper stickers

01:07:59

and different beliefs about this or that.

01:08:01

When you come around election season,

01:08:03

you're going to see as many donkeys

01:08:04

as you see elephants on bumper stickers in the parking lot.

01:08:08

And we work really hard to maintain that

01:08:12

we give you the grace to follow your conviction

01:08:17

on something that may not be spelled out

01:08:20

exactly as clear as somebody else thinks it is.

01:08:23

So I said to this, I said to her,

01:08:26

and we've taken hits on that a lot

01:08:27

of not being more this being more of that.

01:08:30

And then if we do say anything, we take even more hits.

01:08:32

It's always a lose thing.

01:08:33

So I said to her, my simple response was,

01:08:38

"We don't point people to the ballot box.

01:08:42

We point people to Jesus." [applause] That was it.

01:08:47

And I would say that to you,

01:08:49

God doesn't want to point you to a specific thing.

01:08:54

He wants to point you to His Son

01:08:56

He wants to point you.

01:08:57

He wants you to get over the background

01:09:00

or the lies and the guilt

01:09:02

and the what I ought to have done

01:09:04

and what I should have done and the failures.

01:09:08

He's over it.

01:09:09

Give yourself the grace to get over it, too.

01:09:12

Because He loves you. He's for you. He's with you.

01:09:17

And there's nobody else ever anywhere

01:09:20

who is more powerful than Him that

01:09:22

thinks more for you and of you than Him.

01:09:26

He's good. He's love. He's the king, I tell you.

01:09:30

And He's a man, a God of grace.

01:09:34

God, thank you for your truth and your identity.

01:09:37

I pray that I would walk in this

01:09:41

more powerfully than I currently do.

01:09:42

I want the most of You and I want to believe this

01:09:46

24/7, all the time

01:09:48

and experience the power of Your grace.

01:09:51

I pray that this happens with all of us,

01:09:53

that this week would be a little different

01:09:54

because we have pep in our step of Your grace

01:09:56

instead of Your obligations.

01:09:58

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

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