We Endure

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- This is us. It's who we are.

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We're not an institution. We are a movement.

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And we're not just playing church

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and we are not backing down.

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That's what Alli is going to be talking about today,

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about how we endure.

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I'm Andy, the Anywhere community pastor,

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and I want to help you get connected with Crossroads

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no matter where you live.

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We have nine physical locations

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and a community meeting online and all over the place

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in homes, dorm rooms, restaurants,

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bars all over the world.

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And we have tons of great opportunities for you

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to connect at Crossroads.net/Anywhere.

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Or you can even chat in with us at any time

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during the service using the chat button

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in the lower right corner.

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Now, I know for me, at some of

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the most difficult times in my life

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when I've had to endure, times when I've lost family members,

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times when I've had to process how is God good

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even in the midst of this?

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Songs have actually been a really helpful tool for me.

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A really helpful tool for me to remember

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who God says that I am and who God says that He is.

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These songs are a way for us to turn our attention towards God,

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and no matter what we're going through,

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remember His goodness and faithfulness.

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- If we've never met, my name is Justin

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and I'm one of the music folks around here,

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one of the pastors around here.

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And I don't know if you walked in this space

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for the first time or joining us online for the first time,

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but if you're online, maybe you saw my buddy Andy

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kind of welcome you.

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And Andy's one of the smiliest, I think that's a word.

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Like, he's one of the kindest people I know.

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And if you walked into this room,

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then maybe you interacted with, like, five people

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who just were smiling when you came in today

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and they handed you a cup of coffee

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or they opened the door for you,

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and maybe you hear that song that we just sang

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and add that to those smiles and you're like,

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"Do you all not experience pain?

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Like, are you all just like butterflies and daisies

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and you're just living in the clouds?"

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Do you know there's a whole book in the Bible called grieving?

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My buddy said it's called whining.

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It's not really called whining, but there's

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a whole book in the Bible called Lamentations.

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Lament, a whole book about grieving, a whole book

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that teaches us to bring the depths of our pain

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into the presence of God.

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And in the midst of lament, grieving,

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these words the writer writes:

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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

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His mercies never come to an end.

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They are new every morning.

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Great is Your faithfulness.

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And then we just got done singing to our souls,

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which maybe to you is a little weird, but

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it's not because we say to the depths of my being,

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say, no matter what you face, I want you to know this.

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And he says, "This I say to my soul,

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the Lord is my portion.

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Therefore I will hope in Him."

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There is a space for pain and grieving and lament.

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It's been all of our news feeds this week.

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Maybe it's been you personally.

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And thousands and thousands of years old

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is this ancient truth and tradition that

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there's a space for that

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and that there's a God who meets us there.

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And so this passage is a couple thousand years old

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that says in lament great is His faithfulness.

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There was a song that I grew up singing

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because I grew up in church.

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My mama took me there often.

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We grew up singing this old song that's 100 years old today.

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In 1923, this song was written

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called Great Is Thy Faithfulness.

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Sharday, would you lead us in it?

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Sharday, we're talking about it, you said

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you grew up singing this in your grandmother's church.

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- Yes. My grandmother's old Baptist church

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in southern Alabama, Great is Thy Faithfulness.

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- This is nothing new.

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This is thousands of years and 100 years old.

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But it is true. That's the line we walked in.

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- He's more than a story.

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- The next verses of that scripture

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they say the Lord is good to those who seek Him.

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I don't know about your day,

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but my day has not felt like this moment.

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Anybody else? Can I get an amen?

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Like, I don't walk around with a piano player

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who can just play softly, and a guitar player

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who could, like, make some swells.

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I don't know if you do.

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If you do, super cool. I'd love to get in on that.

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God's the only one

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who is faithful through all the generations.

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And He's good to those who seek Him.

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I think you came here seeking Him

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and just have some space with Him. Just take a moment.

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- You're worthy, Jesus, and we thank You

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for this beautiful moment and this beautiful reminder

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of who You are in the midst of our lives.

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You're worthy and that's why we sing to You.

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

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- The Story of God told through the land of Israel

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is written in the pages of Scripture

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and carved by the very finger of God into the land itself.

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Join us on a journey to discover your spiritual roots.

00:22:29

Uncover the six essential elements of identity

00:22:33

deep within you, revealed through the life of King David

00:22:36

and perfected in the life of Jesus.

00:22:39

The fourth season of Real Encounters with God: Downline.

00:22:43

All new on location in Israel.

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New places, new encounters, real encounters with God.

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- I am looking so forward to that series starts next week.

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I think and hope you are as well.

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And as fate or as God would have it, that series

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is happening at the perfect time because

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on all of our minds is what's taking place in Israel.

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It's horrible. It's awful.

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When people come across your borders

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and senselessly kill and hurt people

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inside of your country who are, by the way,

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both Israelis and Palestinians.

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I've been over to Israel about 15 times.

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Anybody who tells you it's a simple problem

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has not been over there and interacted with the folks.

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It's not simple.

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It's hard to describe it in a way

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that doesn't have to be caveated.

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But there's a bunch of people inside of Israel's borders

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who are hurt by this, and it is heartbreaking.

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It's atrocious.

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Last number I heard was 1300 confirmed death.

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That's the last I heard.

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That's like in America with our population base,

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45,000 Americans losing their life.

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We were shocked and rocked when we had 3000 people

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lost in the 911 tragedy.

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We're talking about 3200 plus people

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who are seriously injured,

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which is like 112,000 people in America

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having that kind of stuff.

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200 people, last I heard, were jammed in tunnels

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underneath Gaza and were being held as hostages,

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likely tortured. Not good stuff is happening there.

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And our heart is breaking

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and we're going to be praying about that.

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But we're also, so you know,

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your church right now is working on this.

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We have a partnership with an organization

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called Convoy of Hope.

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We do a lot of stuff with them in these situations.

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We released a convoy $100,000.

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That $100,000 is going to go into supplies

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that are bought to help the economy in Israel,

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and then is going to impact the comforting

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and helping of 20,000 people.

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That's part of what we're doing.

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And we are also praying, and I want to pray right now,

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but I want us to have an extra awareness.

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We have a connection here.

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One of the guys who's in our Real Encounters video series,

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Tsuriel, I like to call him Turell.

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That's my nickname for him.

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Tsuriel is a pretty intense guy.

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He's with the IDF.

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He was actually in the in the Special forces with the IDF,

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which means that he's one of the very few people

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in Israel who can carry 24/7.

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It's nice to have him as your guide, I'll just say that.

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And he got called up and he sent me,

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sent us this email for us to pray.

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I'll just read it to you because I think it speaks for itself.

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Here's what he says:

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Psalm 122:6 tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

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It's a good thing to pray for all of the things

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that are happening internationally,

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all of the conflicts. That's good. That's fine.

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But this is the one thing that we're actually commanded

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as believers to pray for the peace of Jerusalem,

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that multinational ethnic city.

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We need to not just think about it and debate about it,

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we need to pray for it.

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So we're going to pray right now.

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God, I'm asking that You would bring a grace

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upon that city of Jerusalem, upon the region

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in which that city is, a peace that passes understanding.

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We don't understand how these awful things happen,

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and we want to come to a place

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where we don't understand how things just got better.

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There's a lot of warriors are on the ground

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who are trying to make it right.

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We're asking You to make it right.

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Bring the X factor of Your presence.

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I pray that You would be with those folks

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in a powerful way who are rescuing,

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who are nurturing, who are holding.

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I pray for the emotional trauma and recovery

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of people who have seen loved ones killed before their eyes,

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and are now dealing with someone

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who's being gone from their life.

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I pray, God, that You would somehow bring peace

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between all of these warring factions in the Middle East.

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Jesus, You are a Savior.

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I pray not just that You would save the oppressed,

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but I pray you would save us

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from our violent ways towards each other.

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Do something in that region that we don't understand.

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Pour your grace on it and bring people to You, Jesus.

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Help people see You as the way, as the Savior that you are.

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Have Your way rule,

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and I pray these things in the name of Jesus.

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- Like I said earlier, no matter where you live,

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whether you're close to one of our locations

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or a part of a Anywhere community all over the world,

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there are ways for you to get connected

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and get involved with Crossroads.

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And the best way to do that is to download

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the Crossroads Anywhere app, enter your location

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and click on happenings.

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You'll see specific custom

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location-based opportunities just for you.

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The app has great content, articles, messages,

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videos, music and more, but honestly,

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that's not what I love the most about it.

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The internet is full of great content.

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What I love the most about the app is that

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it can help us connect with God and each other.

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It's one of the few apps that actually gives me something,

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and I feel like doesn't take something from me.

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Now did you know in the last month

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there were over 333,000 prayers prayed

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just in the Crossroads app? It's amazing.

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In the app, you can share ways that you need God

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to show up and the entire community can rally around you.

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It's actually what I want to do right now.

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I was actually looking in the Crossroads app earlier today,

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and I saw a prayer that I want to highlight.

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Michelle C. put her prayer request up in the app,

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but a few weeks ago she was at Woman Camp,

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building friendships with people all over the country.

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But this week, due to a preexisting medical condition,

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she found out that she has cirrhosis of her liver

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and will likely need a transplant.

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So, I want you to join with me in praying

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for this woman who needs help, is just in her 30s

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and is an on an organ transplant list.

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So, would you join with me in praying for Michelle right now?

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God, we have seen You move powerfully through prayer

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from the pages of the Bible to our own lived experiences

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we have seen You heal people, and we ask

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that You would move powerfully

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and do that for Michelle right now.

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God, restore her body to function

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exactly as You designed it and intended.

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In Your name and according to Your character

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as a good father who heals. Amen.

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Seriously guys, download the Crossroads Anywhere app

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and connect to a community

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that regularly sees God move through prayer.

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Now, last week Brian talked about how we sacrifice

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and if you missed it,

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just make sure you check it out. It's awesome.

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But one of the ways that we actually

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sacrifice as a church is through giving.

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We know it's not easy to set money aside

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that could go to all kinds of other things,

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but instead to say to God, "I'm gonna put You first

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in my life, and that includes my finances."

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I would be driving a better car

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if I did not give to Crossroads, not an 18 year old 4Runner, no.

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We give because we think it's important,

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because we know that God shows up faithfully.

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So that's a strong challenge and not something

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that I want you to take lightly.

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If you're newer to church and still figuring out

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what you believe about God or finances, hey, no stress.

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But we're so confident that giving is a spiritual practice.

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And if you, man, if you lean in,

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you will experience God showing up.

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It's literally a money back guarantee,

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w do a thing called the Tithe Test.

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If you sign up, you get 90 days to test God in this

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and see if He doesn't move in your life.

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If you've got questions or want to join

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the team of faithful givers who makes

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all this stuff possible head to Crossroads.net/give.

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What I want you to hear from me is we want more for you,

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we don't want things from you.

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Now, today we're talking about how we endure as a church.

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And I don't know about you, but when I hear the word endure,

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it just doesn't sound very positive, right?

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But when we endure, there's so much goodness

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on the other side, when we lean in,

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when we push in, God really does meet us there.

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These are real stories of real people

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who have endured through the good and the bad,

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and seen God show up.

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- You know, one of the things that is often unsung

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about Crossroads is people who do really gritty ministry

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in the context of our church, recovery ministry, right?

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People whose marriages are on the brink,

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and people who have walked with folks

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through life's challenges. Right?

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Grief ministry. Right?

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I think about how many people have been blessed

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that don't go to Crossroads, because this was a place

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where they could actually access what do I --

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What does it look like to grieve healthily?

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And so when I think about endurance,

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I think about how many people honesty lead

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and minister out of their brokenness,

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because the people who do that gritty ministry are in it,

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not as people who are at a distance,

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but as people who have walked through it.

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And man, there's so many lives that have been changed,

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so many families that are still intact,

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so many people who are literally still alive

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because there are people in this church

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who have been willing to endure

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in the gritty, unsung ministry that all of that often is.

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And so, I mean, that's a powerful part

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of the witness of what God's doing here.

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- And I think there's something beautiful

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that we've all found here, we've all had to get past

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this moment of realizing Crossroads is us,

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and us, we ain't perfect. You know?

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Like, we have problems

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and you have to endure past those problems.

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And when you do, there's something, I don't know,

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like freeing about it.

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There's just a unique power that I think

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our community has because of

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everybody enduring through all of it.

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- That's right.

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- It is the people behind the scenes

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that nobody even hears about, like, one, Missy Abshire.

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And she would write these amazing, encouraging notes.

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And then she's been going through

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all this health stuff recently because

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she's been just hitting that nail for so long,

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she's still at the coffee kiosk

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when she can make it or whatever.

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And I remember just recently they were like,

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"Hey, write her an encouraging note."

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So I wrote a note and she writes me a thank you note.

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I was like, are you kidding me?

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Like, those are the kinds of people that I'm like,

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yeah, I want to be in ministry with those people.

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- I think about Peter Zimmer who was a volunteer

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who 15 years ago, I dressed him up as Jesus.

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He's still here still here.

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I just found out he wrote my wife

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an incredible encouragement note, like, a two months ago

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that just super blessed her.

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And there's person after person who that same story is true for.

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- That's so true. Chris Mackley, right?

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Just like these behind the scenes people who,

00:33:59

man, how many kids she's invested in and Kids' Club

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and how, I mean, just behind the scenes people

00:34:04

who are still here and still --

00:34:07

- Scott Visor running video for 28 years.

00:34:09

- 28 years.

00:34:10

- Alli Patterson. - Yes.

00:34:12

- Was your small group leader in middle school,

00:34:14

how long ago, like? - 28 years ago. - Wow.

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- And then she led a small group that Sarah,

00:34:21

my wife, was in and she has been here.

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Her son Luke was a small group leader for my son Ben

00:34:27

and East Side student ministry for a while.

00:34:29

There's just this, like, endurance

00:34:32

and faithfulness in her too.

00:34:33

So I just want to call that out. - She's amazing.

00:34:35

- I don't know if you all remember

00:34:37

there was this thing that happened called COVID-19.

00:34:41

As a by the way, talk about endure, this is so dumb.

00:34:45

Um, maybe two weeks before COVID started

00:34:49

I got our social media team started reporting to me. Right?

00:34:52

We got a new team, new people, and then the coronavirus hits

00:34:57

and we're like, you know, what'd be a great idea.

00:34:59

Because when it hit, everyone's panicking.

00:35:01

And in my mind it was like, "This is like the bird flu.

00:35:04

You know, everyone's upset about, it's going to be fine.

00:35:07

Relax, everybody."

00:35:08

And so we got a Corona beer and a hazmat suit,

00:35:14

and we made a video about how it was dumb

00:35:15

and it was going to go away and you shouldn't worry.

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And it went viral in a bad way.

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It had like a million views and 24 hours.

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And then we realized this is the worst thing

00:35:25

we've ever made, and we took it down off the internet.

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Anyway, we endured past that. Many people did.

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- That was only the beginning. - That was the start of it.

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- Of the endurance.

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- Yeah, that was the best moment.

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And then it got -- it just got worse and worse.

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And, you know, I think about our church

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who endured through so many twists and turns

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and uncertainties and hard moments and, and all of it.

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And I think the really amazing thing is that

00:35:51

our church has not just endured,

00:35:53

but has come back stronger

00:35:56

and not come back in the sense that we were --

00:35:59

We are who we were in 2019, but come back stronger and better.

00:36:02

We didn't go backwards, we moved forward

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and that's just not the case around the country.

00:36:07

That's just not the common story.

00:36:09

The common story you still hear churches talk about,

00:36:12

"Hey, about half the people who were here before are here now,

00:36:16

or at best 60% who were here before, they're here now."

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And God's done something different with us.

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And, you know, at the end of the day, that's just His favor.

00:36:26

You don't earn that stuff. You don't --

00:36:28

You don't perform for it.

00:36:31

And I also look at it and I say, "You know,

00:36:33

if God were to look at us

00:36:35

and say, 'Hey, I want to bless you, '

00:36:37

I think it's because there's a history of endurance here

00:36:40

that we could we could do it, you know?" So.

00:36:45

- Hey, everyone, great to be with you.

00:36:47

I know, I love to hear the stories that those guys remember

00:36:50

over the last 20 something years at Crossroads.

00:36:53

I've been here, it's probably been 22 years

00:36:57

since I sat in the back row of a dark service and cried.

00:37:01

And so much of what I have seen God do

00:37:04

in our community is because I've stayed.

00:37:08

I've stayed. My name is Alli Patterson.

00:37:10

If we don't know each other,

00:37:11

I'm one of the teaching pastors here

00:37:13

and it's really great to be with you guys.

00:37:15

And today we're talking about enduring, endurance.

00:37:20

We've been exploring this unique recipe

00:37:22

of qualities that make up our community,

00:37:25

that kind of blend together to give Crossroads

00:37:28

a specific flavor, if you will.

00:37:30

Like a specific piece of the character,

00:37:32

the heart, and the mission of God.

00:37:34

And today is our last one.

00:37:36

We've gone, like, we run, we go, we sacrifice,

00:37:39

we laugh, we challenge, and today we endure.

00:37:42

We keep going, even when it gets hard.

00:37:45

Let me pray for us as we get started.

00:37:47

Lord, I know that You're here with us.

00:37:52

And I pray that every word that comes out of my mouth

00:37:56

would be helpful for others to know You better

00:38:00

and to end up coming closer to You.

00:38:03

And I ask all this in Jesus's name. Amen.

00:38:07

Well, I'll hit you

00:38:08

with my own personal definition of endurance.

00:38:11

And this isn't the dictionary definition,

00:38:14

this is the Alli definition.

00:38:15

And I think about endurance as

00:38:18

a life that can take a hit and keep moving forward.

00:38:23

And I use the words take a hit on purpose,

00:38:25

because that's how we talk to each other

00:38:27

about what life throws at us, about the difficulties,

00:38:30

pain, struggle, we say things like that.

00:38:32

We say, "Oh, she really took a hit on that one

00:38:36

or the hits just keep on coming."

00:38:38

And I was thinking about this idea of taking a hit

00:38:42

that when we have a life or when we have a faith,

00:38:45

or when we have a community that can take a hit

00:38:48

and keep moving forward, that is enduring.

00:38:52

And that's the kind of faith, the kind of life,

00:38:54

the kind of community that I want

00:38:56

and that I want to be a part of.

00:38:57

And I don't mean to suggest with that language in any way.

00:39:01

I just know we're in a big community, and I know that

00:39:03

we have every manner of different story in the room.

00:39:06

And I don't mean to suggest for a moment

00:39:08

that you should be enduring physical hits.

00:39:11

I very much am using it in the vernacular,

00:39:13

just in the regular way that we talk to each other

00:39:16

about the struggles and difficulties of life.

00:39:18

But I actually did want to feel physically

00:39:23

what it feels like to take a hit.

00:39:25

And I happen to have a friend that owns a gym.

00:39:29

And I just think sometimes experiencing something

00:39:31

in the physical can help us understand

00:39:33

more of what we need to know in the spiritual.

00:39:36

And so, just for fun, this week I went

00:39:38

and saw a friend of mine who owns a gym.

00:39:40

She actually does a little boxing for fitness.

00:39:42

She does classes at this gym and I decided to go with her

00:39:46

and see and I said, "I really want --

00:39:49

I've never had on boxing gloves.

00:39:50

I've done a little kickboxing back in the day,

00:39:52

but I've never had on boxing gloves.

00:39:53

And so can I come to a class?

00:39:55

Can I just work out with you?"

00:39:57

She was like, "Yeah, sure, come on over."

00:39:58

And so she was kind of, you know,

00:40:00

she's training me a little bit and I'm going, okay.

00:40:03

You know, my first instinct when when she first

00:40:06

started coming at me was to stiffen up, you know,

00:40:10

to, like, brace myself for her hit.

00:40:11

And when she would hit me, if I was the stiffer

00:40:15

and more rigid I was, the more I would, like,

00:40:17

lose my balance and be unable to take the hit.

00:40:20

And so when she was kind of coaching me through it,

00:40:23

especially when it was my turn to put on the pad and,

00:40:25

like, she does this all the time, right?

00:40:27

So, you know, especially when she was giving me a few hits,

00:40:30

I thought, "Oh, this is really fascinating," because

00:40:32

she kept saying things like,

00:40:34

"Yeah, you want to engage your core,

00:40:36

but you want to be able to absorb it and come right back."

00:40:39

And so she was showing me all these techniques

00:40:41

and we had a lot of fun.

00:40:42

But I walked away thinking, "Okay,

00:40:45

so I already had this definition of endurance

00:40:48

as the ability to kind of take a hit and keep going."

00:40:51

And she gave me all this other language for it,

00:40:54

you know, all this other, this other understanding of it.

00:40:56

So I left the gym thinking, "You know what?

00:40:59

There's a difference between being hard and being tough."

00:41:04

What we want and what I see

00:41:07

in our community here at Crossroads is we're tough.

00:41:10

Like, we can take a hit and keep moving.

00:41:14

And I want to have a life that can take a hit

00:41:16

and keep moving because we know it's coming, right?

00:41:19

Like, anything that you pursue over a long period of time,

00:41:22

you're going to run into some issues with,

00:41:24

I don't care if it's a job, a marriage,

00:41:25

a friendship, a career, whatever,

00:41:28

you're parenting, children, whatever you're doing

00:41:30

that's going to take a long time

00:41:31

or build over a long period of time,

00:41:33

you're going to take some hits.

00:41:35

And so what did I do when I left the gym?

00:41:38

Of course, I looked up scientifically speaking,

00:41:42

what is the difference between hard and tough?

00:41:46

And it turns out there is a difference.

00:41:48

And as I looked up hard, it was more like this brick.

00:41:53

And this brick has, I would say, I mean,

00:41:56

I didn't measure it, but I would say

00:41:58

according to the definition of hard, it would be hard.

00:42:02

It is hard.

00:42:04

Like if I, if I drop it,

00:42:07

if I dropped it from two more stories,

00:42:09

it would, it would split on contact.

00:42:11

One blunt force it would break because it's hard.

00:42:14

And the harder something is, the more a force will break it.

00:42:19

On the other hand, this is a sponge.

00:42:24

This was the example when I looked this up,

00:42:26

this was the example of tough.

00:42:29

Interesting, right?

00:42:30

Totally different than the brick, not going to break.

00:42:33

I could be on the top of the building

00:42:35

and I could drop that thing and pick it back up again,

00:42:38

and it would be exactly the same.

00:42:40

It's got a softer surface,

00:42:42

but a tougher exterior to absorb impact.

00:42:45

I don't know how you could break this thing, right?

00:42:47

You could keep hitting it over and over and over again

00:42:50

and it will not break.

00:42:53

Whereas the brick, on the other hand, maybe in one fell swoop.

00:42:58

You know, it kind of reminded me of a moment in college.

00:43:02

I had this marketing class.

00:43:03

I was a marketing major in college.

00:43:05

I know it doesn't feel right now,

00:43:06

but I took an intro to marketing class in college

00:43:10

and the professor said, "Okay,

00:43:12

I want you to think of a product or a slogan that you remember

00:43:16

and introduce yourself to the class with that product.

00:43:19

Tell us what the slogan is, why it represents you."

00:43:22

So I thought about it,

00:43:23

we only had about 60 seconds to come up with something.

00:43:25

And so I stand up and I say,

00:43:27

"My name is Alli and I am a Dulcolax Laxative."

00:43:34

The slogan at the time was strong yet gentle,

00:43:38

like I was trying to put these two qualities together

00:43:41

somehow into some representation of what

00:43:44

I think I was trying to say is I'm tough, but I'm not hard,

00:43:50

and that was the best I could come up with.

00:43:53

I don't know, really I think I just get

00:43:55

a $500 cash bonus from Brian Tome

00:43:57

if I figure out a way to talk about poop.

00:43:59

So, the funny thing is,

00:44:03

you're not sure if I'm kidding, are you?

00:44:05

Right, you really want to know.

00:44:07

I'm not going to tell you that one.

00:44:09

No, but it's these qualities and we have to decide.

00:44:12

These have an inverse relationship.

00:44:15

You're going to have to decide

00:44:16

do you want to be hard or do you want to be tough

00:44:21

because they're inversely related and you can't be both.

00:44:23

And tonight we're going to talk about

00:44:25

four qualities of a life, of a faith, of a community

00:44:29

that's tough, that can take a hit and keep moving forward,

00:44:33

that actually can endure over a long period of time

00:44:36

and over a lot of force and impact.

00:44:39

That's what we want to be.

00:44:40

That's what I think arguably we have been up until this date.

00:44:44

But the alternative is this.

00:44:47

See if I can break this one more time. Shall we try?

00:44:49

The alternative -- She's like, "Yeah, do it."

00:44:52

Oh, man. That's all right.

00:44:55

Got to be a story higher or something.

00:44:57

The alternative is this.

00:44:59

The alternative is we live life brittle, hard,

00:45:03

and we just wait for the thing

00:45:04

that's going to come along and break us.

00:45:09

The first quality of a life that is spongy

00:45:13

is you have to be real. Real.

00:45:18

I've had people tell me they come to Crossroads

00:45:20

for this reason alone, that they have spent time

00:45:23

in other churches, or they gave up on church at one point,

00:45:26

or they were made to go to church

00:45:27

for a long period of time,

00:45:28

and it never felt real to them.

00:45:32

Over many, many years we have tried to be real,

00:45:38

tell real stories, be real people.

00:45:41

That's why we talk about our own lives,

00:45:43

our own mistakes, our own struggles,

00:45:45

our own sin, our own stories.

00:45:46

Because what are we doing if we're not doing that?

00:45:49

We can all just show up here and be real together.

00:45:54

When I first started teaching here,

00:45:56

which was quite a long time ago now,

00:45:58

but I only used to teach about once a year.

00:46:00

And y'all were very used to men and very used to Brian.

00:46:03

And so we would have these internal conversations

00:46:06

about my voice and how it was really different than Brian.

00:46:09

And, you know, is that okay or not o

00:46:12

kay. And I got really frustrated in a meeting years ago

00:46:15

and I said, "Hey, hey, people don't like Brian

00:46:19

because of his motorcycle and his fart jokes.

00:46:23

People like him because that's real for him.

00:46:27

He actually likes those things.

00:46:30

The magic is the real.

00:46:32

It's not the motorcycle, it's the real.

00:46:34

And so we just need to give anybody with a microphone

00:46:37

the opportunity to be themselves, to be equally real,

00:46:42

because that's what people respond to."

00:46:44

And interestingly, that's what endures.

00:46:47

Nobody goes to bat for very long for a fake, right?

00:46:51

Nobody. Nobody wants that.

00:46:54

The Bible actually likens a life of faith

00:46:57

to enduring a long distance race.

00:47:00

I used to run marathons, and so I think

00:47:01

that's actually a great analogy for a life of faith,

00:47:04

because a marathon is a journey in and of itself.

00:47:06

And my worst marathon I ever ran was bad because it was fake.

00:47:13

I tried to get into the New York City Marathon by lottery.

00:47:16

My brother lived there and I really wanted to go run it

00:47:18

and I didn't get in.

00:47:20

But I had a friend whose company

00:47:22

actually sponsored the New York City Marathon,

00:47:24

and she had some corporate entries,

00:47:26

so she gifted me a corporate entry from her team

00:47:29

because they had some that they could give away.

00:47:31

So she gives me this corporate entry and I'm like,

00:47:33

"Score, I'm in."

00:47:34

So I booked my flight, I train, I go to New York

00:47:37

and I couldn't find on the morning of the race

00:47:40

I had the bib with my number on it,

00:47:42

but I couldn't find where I was supposed to start.

00:47:44

There was like tens of thousands of people in big fields.

00:47:47

You have to start by bullpen according to your number,

00:47:50

which is according to your rough finish time and all that.

00:47:53

And so I'm asking people,

00:47:54

I got this weird number, it's got some letters.

00:47:56

I'm sure it's got to do with this corporate entry I got.

00:47:59

And they keep waving me over.

00:48:01

Go over there, go over there. It's way over there.

00:48:03

So I finally get way over there and it's actually a big tent.

00:48:06

And the tent was interesting.

00:48:09

So I walk in and I'm like, "Oh, this is nice, you know?"

00:48:12

So I go in and there's food, there's water,

00:48:16

there's bathrooms that aren't porta potties.

00:48:19

There's like gels for, you know,

00:48:21

quick carbohydrates before the race, it was awesome.

00:48:25

And then I look around to see who else is in this tent.

00:48:31

I can tell you it's not corporate people.

00:48:34

It was the people who are actually

00:48:36

going to win the New York Marathon.

00:48:39

I was standing in the tent and they had put me

00:48:42

because of my entry in this tent with all the,

00:48:44

like, top runners in the world.

00:48:47

And so I'm standing in this tent going like,

00:48:50

"Oh my, oh, this is not going to go well for me, you know?"

00:48:54

So we get, you guys, I'm not kidding.

00:48:56

We get a police escort to the front of the Verrazano Bridge.

00:49:00

Planes going over, National Anthem.

00:49:03

I'm on the start line of the New York City Marathon.

00:49:09

Me? Nobody in front of me.

00:49:11

I'm on the start line with, like,

00:49:13

ten other women who are about to win the race.

00:49:17

And I was like, "Oh, be careful.

00:49:20

These are not your people.

00:49:22

This is not your race.

00:49:24

This could go very, very badly, you know?"

00:49:27

But it's really I mean, what are you going to do?

00:49:29

They're taking off at like five minutes a mile

00:49:33

and they're going to run that for the whole race.

00:49:35

And so, you all, it was not good.

00:49:38

It was real, real, real bad.

00:49:41

So I finished about 25 minutes behind the time

00:49:44

that even I projected myself to finish at.

00:49:47

It was the worst race I've ever run,

00:49:49

and it was because it was fake.

00:49:51

It wasn't mine. It wasn't my people.

00:49:55

It wasn't my course. It wasn't where I should have started.

00:49:58

It wasn't the encouragers I needed.

00:50:00

It wasn't the partners I needed.

00:50:02

Nothing about it was my race.

00:50:04

Listen to what Hebrews 12:1 says:

00:50:20

If our faith as a community,

00:50:22

if your faith as an individual,

00:50:25

if you have a race to run, a long distance race to run,

00:50:29

you need to be on your course with your people,

00:50:34

even if the other ones have bathrooms and food.

00:50:38

Because if you're on the wrong course,

00:50:40

everything about it is off.

00:50:42

And some of us don't really like the one we're on.

00:50:45

We want different gifts.

00:50:46

We wish we had different skills.

00:50:47

We really wish we had a different family.

00:50:50

Maybe some of us wish we had a different partner.

00:50:52

We spend all of our time looking at the other races,

00:50:57

the other courses, the other runners,

00:50:59

forgetting that the endurance that Jesus gives

00:51:02

is for our race.

00:51:03

It's when we fix our eyes on Him on our course,

00:51:07

where He shows up as the pioneer,

00:51:09

the one who's been where you're going,

00:51:11

and the perfecter, the one that knows how to get you there,

00:51:14

even making you better along the way.

00:51:16

But it only happens on your course.

00:51:19

He has supernatural endurance for you,

00:51:21

but He doesn't have it when you're running

00:51:23

the race of somebody else.

00:51:25

And that's exactly how I think of our community as well.

00:51:28

Crossroads has a very specific kind of race,

00:51:32

and it's not like every other church.

00:51:35

I'll bet most of you know that by now,

00:51:38

the race that God has us running,

00:51:40

it feels a little bit different.

00:51:41

It doesn't fit in a lot of places, but it's our race.

00:51:46

It's the one where we get supernatural endurance

00:51:49

from Jesus, who's been exactly where He wants us to go

00:51:53

and knows exactly how He wants us to get there.

00:51:57

And I got to tell you, I have no patience,

00:52:00

like, zero patience for running a fake race as a community.

00:52:06

To me, that starts to look like religion,

00:52:08

like we're just playing church.

00:52:10

I can't stand it, I can't stand it.

00:52:13

And I don't want empty do gooding.

00:52:16

I don't want religious gesturing.

00:52:18

I don't want any of that because nobody lasts in a fake race.

00:52:24

It ends up feeling like a brick.

00:52:26

And I got to tell you, you break one thing,

00:52:29

you know, that hard exterior, all the religious things

00:52:32

you're supposed to be doing in church,

00:52:34

you miss one and it's broken and you're done.

00:52:39

But if your community is real,

00:52:42

if you're running your race, you're spongy,

00:52:47

you last because you can mess up and you can come

00:52:51

and you can be real together, you can have real faith.

00:52:54

This is the life that Jesus offers us.

00:52:57

He offers us the grace to be imperfect,

00:53:00

to be able to show up and be real together,

00:53:03

not to put on the jacket of another community

00:53:08

or of what we're supposed to be doing,

00:53:10

or of what religion says we're supposed to be like.

00:53:13

We get to show up together

00:53:15

and we get to have a real encounter with Jesus.

00:53:17

That's what we've done tonight.

00:53:21

And that's that's the beauty of being in a space

00:53:24

where you get to show up and be exactly who you are,

00:53:26

and you're invited into your race,

00:53:29

your long distance race with Jesus

00:53:31

from exactly where you are right now,

00:53:35

whatever that looks like, as long as it's real.

00:53:40

The second thing, you have to be, not only real

00:53:43

if you want to a life of endurance,

00:53:46

you have to be rooted.

00:53:47

Not just real, but you have to be rooted

00:53:50

in something beyond yourself.

00:53:52

Galatians 5 actually says that endurance

00:53:55

and some other things related to endurance is a fruit.

00:53:59

And if it's a fruit, that means it's growing off of something,

00:54:02

it's rooted into something.

00:54:03

It's getting nourishment from the core.

00:54:06

When I was in the gym with Jen,

00:54:07

she kept talking about the core being,

00:54:10

you know, engage your core.

00:54:12

And this is where the rootedness of our faith comes in.

00:54:15

There has to be something in the center

00:54:17

that's constantly nourishing us, that's holding us down,

00:54:21

that's giving us strength in the middle.

00:54:24

Here's what Galatians 5 says:

00:54:36

Forbearance, faithfulness, self-control.

00:54:40

These are all elements of the fruit of the Spirit

00:54:43

that are deeply connected to a life of endurance.

00:54:46

And this kind of thing, these kinds of fruits,

00:54:49

they actually grow in the lives of people

00:54:52

who are rooted and connected to the Spirit.

00:54:54

When you come to faith in Jesus,

00:54:56

you get connected to the Spirit, in a way

00:55:00

the Holy Spirit comes to live in you and to dwell in you.

00:55:03

But that actually doesn't mean you have deep roots.

00:55:06

You have to decide, "I'm going to develop

00:55:09

and grow and strengthen and deepen my roots."

00:55:13

Listen to what Jesus says about unrooted believers:

00:55:35

Jesus was talking about not people

00:55:37

that don't believe His Word,

00:55:40

not people that don't receive Him.

00:55:41

He's talking about people that don't have roots.

00:55:46

You know, our world of social media tells us that

00:55:52

we can grow in like 90 curated seconds

00:55:54

of Christian influencers on Instagram or something.

00:55:59

There's two ways that you develop roots, there's two ways.

00:56:03

You'll never outgrow these. They'll never change.

00:56:06

They go for me, you, every other believer,

00:56:08

from the first one to the very last one.

00:56:11

And they're really simple.

00:56:12

You need the Bible and you need the body.

00:56:15

You need the Bible. You need the very words of God.

00:56:19

And the Spirit is alive in that space

00:56:21

in a way that you can't experience any other place.

00:56:24

You don't know the strength that is being put into you

00:56:27

as you read the Word of God.

00:56:29

And you need the body.

00:56:31

You need to connect yourself to a body of believers,

00:56:35

a community because the Spirit of God

00:56:41

also resides in a community of His people

00:56:44

in a way that you can never have by yourself.

00:56:48

Both of these areas the Bible and the people of God,

00:56:52

the body of Christ, they house the very Spirit

00:56:55

and Word of God in ways that you can't access alone.

00:56:58

And so these are the things that you need

00:57:01

deeply, deeply rooted in your life

00:57:04

from now until forever, until forever.

00:57:07

And the roots just keep getting deeper and deeper and deeper.

00:57:11

Isaiah 48 says this:

00:57:23

The Word of God is the only thing that will ever

00:57:25

root you to the center, to strengthen you,

00:57:28

nourish you, build you from the core

00:57:30

so that when that hit comes you don't fall away,

00:57:34

when the sun gets hot you don't get scorched,

00:57:37

when you take a hit you can actually stand.

00:57:40

You can't stand long

00:57:42

unless you're rooted to the Word of God.

00:57:44

And it's not to do with how you first believed.

00:57:46

It's got to do with how you live every single day

00:57:50

after that, either deepening roots or not.

00:57:55

I saw a glimpse of it.

00:57:56

It's really hard to quantify what's happening,

00:58:00

you know, when you connect, when you pull yourself out of bed.

00:58:03

I do it too, I pull myself out of bed

00:58:05

and I'm like, "Okay, let's go to church." You know?

00:58:09

I work here. This is what I do.

00:58:10

And I still do that on Sunday morning sometime, too.

00:58:14

I know, but when we do that, when we show up in community

00:58:16

and when we get into our Bible, when we open the Word of God,

00:58:19

and we just keep doing that, enduring in that day

00:58:22

after day after day after day,

00:58:24

something starts to happen in our life

00:58:26

that's really hard to quantify.

00:58:28

But I saw a little glimpse of a piece

00:58:30

of what enduring in community really looks like,

00:58:33

or what it's looked like here for me.

00:58:34

And it looks like these women in this picture.

00:58:38

You may have caught in the video that Kyle mentioned

00:58:41

I was Lena Schuler's small group leader

00:58:43

when she was a 7th grader.

00:58:46

If you don't know, that's Brian Tome's daughter,

00:58:48

our senior pastor, Lena is his daughter.

00:58:51

And I was assigned that small group having no idea.

00:58:55

I did not know that Lena was his daughter.

00:58:58

I was very new in the church

00:58:59

and I was just volunteering, trying to do something.

00:59:02

I get assigned to this small group of girls.

00:59:04

The other young woman in that picture

00:59:06

was also in that small group of girls.

00:59:09

And so I get -- I have a corporate job at the time,

00:59:12

and I'm volunteering in middle school ministry.

00:59:15

And I had no idea that fast forward many years later,

00:59:18

that I would get the privilege of actually

00:59:20

marrying Lena to her husband,

00:59:23

visiting her in the hospital when her first baby was born.

00:59:26

I now work for her father, Lord --

00:59:30

God knows what he's doing.

00:59:32

He knows exactly how to connect you

00:59:35

to all the right places in community.

00:59:36

I wish I could tell you the stories

00:59:38

about Brooke's dad and my husband being in

00:59:41

the first small group of men together

00:59:44

that went through some crazy stuff,

00:59:46

and my daughter, who was in that picture,

00:59:48

has a baby blanket from Brooke's parents

00:59:50

that's still under her pillow on her bed.

00:59:54

None of us set out to do any of that,

00:59:58

but over a long period of time

01:00:01

of just staying in the same community,

01:00:03

of rooting yourselves to the relationships

01:00:06

that God puts in your life, this is what happens.

01:00:09

And because he knows what He's doing,

01:00:11

and He knows what he wants to give you,

01:00:13

and He knows how he wants your life to go.

01:00:15

And too often we just cut Him off at the knees

01:00:18

because we get annoyed at something,

01:00:20

or somebody hurts our feelings,

01:00:21

or we don't like something that was said.

01:00:23

And we just go, "I'm out, I'm out."

01:00:26

But what -- what if you stayed?

01:00:29

What if you stayed?

01:00:31

What if you stayed in your job?

01:00:32

What if you stayed in your marriage?

01:00:34

What if you stayed in this community for long enough

01:00:36

to see what will God do if I stay?

01:00:44

Endurance is a fruit that grows out of

01:00:46

the life of rooted people who stay rooted to the Word of God

01:00:51

and the context of the body and the context of the Bible.

01:00:56

The third thing, third thing you need to, you know,

01:01:00

if you want a life that that's spongy, you want to be --

01:01:02

We want to be a community that endures.

01:01:05

You got to take risks.

01:01:07

And I know this one doesn't kind of sound immediately

01:01:10

like it's related to endurance,

01:01:14

but I hope to convince you otherwise.

01:01:16

I've seen Crossroads, this is like a hallmark of Crossroads.

01:01:19

I've seen Crossroads take all kinds of risks,

01:01:22

and it's interesting because

01:01:24

they have a very specific flavor.

01:01:26

The kind of risks that I'm talking about

01:01:29

are not like a bet it all on black kind of risk,

01:01:31

you know, not that kind of risk.

01:01:33

There are very specific flavor.

01:01:34

We've done things like built a stable for horses

01:01:41

on the stage and brought wild horses to every single service.

01:01:45

Have any of you been here for those?

01:01:47

Yeah, that was a huge risk, a huge risk.

01:01:50

We've done things like build CityLink Center

01:01:54

in the city of Cincinnati, audacious enough to believe

01:01:58

that we could actually make an impact in generational poverty.

01:02:01

That was a huge risk.

01:02:04

I was actually on staff the first time I worked here

01:02:07

where we did -- the decision got made

01:02:09

that we were going to go from one location

01:02:11

to multiple locations.

01:02:13

And I got to tell you, that was a huge risk.

01:02:19

And even what we heard tonight.

01:02:22

I've watched our community do this

01:02:24

over and over and over again.

01:02:25

When there's hurting people in another part of the world,

01:02:30

we suddenly redirect a significant portion

01:02:33

of a ministry budget so that we can help

01:02:35

in an emergent, sudden situation. That's a risk.

01:02:39

There were things that were going to be done

01:02:42

with the money that we had. Right?

01:02:43

So you know what that's like

01:02:44

when that happens in your life, but it's a risk.

01:02:46

And all these risks, the risks to be obedient

01:02:51

to where we think Jesus is leading.

01:02:54

It's not a crazy whim.

01:02:56

It's not a random idea kind of risk.

01:02:59

It's a risk to actually follow where we think God is leading.

01:03:02

Like, one where you would stand there in front of God

01:03:05

and you would say something like, "Okay, God,

01:03:08

I think this aligns with Your Word

01:03:10

to the best of my ability to understand You,

01:03:12

I'm pretty sure we should move in that direction."

01:03:18

And then we do it.

01:03:20

That is a hallmark of this community.

01:03:22

It's a hallmark of people who like this community.

01:03:25

It's a hallmark of of people that want to stay

01:03:27

around this community, because those kinds of risks,

01:03:31

they actually do something.

01:03:32

They do something in our heart, in our mind,

01:03:34

in our life, in our faith.

01:03:35

I want you to hear a story Jesus told

01:03:38

kind of explaining why that's connected

01:03:41

to a life that endures.

01:03:44

Jesus told this story at the end of a big sermon He gave.

01:03:47

This was like his conclusion to the sermon, and He says:

01:04:33

The guy who stayed standing was the one

01:04:36

who came to Jesus, heard His Word, and then actually did it,

01:04:41

actually moved to be obedient to the words of Jesus.

01:04:45

He said, "Why do you call me Lord

01:04:46

and not actually do what I say,

01:04:48

not actually build a life based on My words?"

01:04:53

And to the outside person watching you do that,

01:04:58

it will always look like a risk.

01:05:00

It will always look like a risk.

01:05:02

Even if you take at face value

01:05:04

the two guys building the houses.

01:05:05

What did the one do? It said he dug down deep

01:05:08

and he laid the foundation on rock.

01:05:13

I could see like six risks in that, right?

01:05:15

He's risking first the extra time

01:05:19

that it would take to build that way.

01:05:21

Guy over here,

01:05:23

he's got his house done a little quicker than you.

01:05:26

What about the money that it would have cost him

01:05:30

to lay the extra foundation?

01:05:34

Or the reputation of him as a good builder or a good steward?

01:05:41

You know, there's this other guy over here

01:05:43

who's building faster than you.

01:05:44

He's doing it better than you.

01:05:46

He's doing it less expensive than you.

01:05:50

Whenever we follow Jesus into a life of obedience,

01:05:53

it always looks like risk to other people.

01:05:55

Maybe you risk your reputation.

01:05:57

Maybe you risk your money.

01:05:59

Maybe you spend more time doing something.

01:06:01

Maybe it looks like you just took a big left turn

01:06:04

and you forfeit something that other people were after.

01:06:08

I got that a lot when I left the corporate world

01:06:10

I left a career that was that was doing just fine,

01:06:14

and I actually lost a friend who could not understand,

01:06:17

"Why would you do this? I don't understand you.

01:06:21

Why are you walking away from this?

01:06:23

Why are you taking this risk?"

01:06:24

For me that was a risk of obedience

01:06:27

and to her it just looked like I was giving up money

01:06:30

and progress in a career that I had worked to build.

01:06:33

It looked like a risk that

01:06:34

she couldn't understand why I would take.

01:06:37

Whenever you try to build your life on Jesus and His Word,

01:06:40

it will always look like a risk.

01:06:42

And that's why I say taking those risks to be obedient,

01:06:46

that kind of risk

01:06:47

is always connected to someone who endures.

01:06:50

Because that guy, maybe you had a question about him

01:06:55

until the flood came, right?

01:06:56

When the flood comes, it becomes very, very obvious.

01:07:00

When you take a hit, it becomes really obvious

01:07:04

why you don't want to be the brick.

01:07:06

When the flood comes and your life takes a hit

01:07:09

and you built it well, that's what it says,

01:07:12

his house was well built, and you can take it

01:07:16

and you can keep on moving.

01:07:21

This is really personal for me, this idea,

01:07:23

because when I look back at the 25, 30 years

01:07:27

just passed in my life, I would say

01:07:31

I built my world both ways.

01:07:34

I built it like the guy without the foundation.

01:07:36

And then it crashed. And then I tried to start over,

01:07:39

and I tried to build it on the words of Jesus.

01:07:42

And it was longer and slower and in many ways more painful.

01:07:45

But my life has taken hits that I've been able

01:07:48

to keep standing in, and it's so important to me,

01:07:51

like, so deeply who I am and what my life bears out,

01:07:56

this idea of building something that can stay standing.

01:08:00

That's exactly why I wrote the book that I wrote.

01:08:02

It's actually called How to Stay Standing,

01:08:05

and the title was taken from that parable.

01:08:09

It's so personal to me because all I want,

01:08:13

all I want is to be able to say, "It really does work.

01:08:17

Like, when you risk following Jesus,

01:08:19

at the end of the day, you go, 'Oh, You're there.

01:08:22

You're real. You're right. You're for me. You're good.'"

01:08:26

And you'll never know unless you actually risk following.

01:08:33

And as I am very not surprised that Brian's book,

01:08:37

he has a new book coming out too.

01:08:39

It's a tactical guide, it's like a workbook for men

01:08:41

that goes with his Five Marks of a Man book.

01:08:43

He talked a little bit about that a week or two ago.

01:08:46

I am not at all surprised that we would both write

01:08:49

completely different books to completely different people

01:08:52

with one central heart,

01:08:54

which is move, do it, follow, risk, go.

01:09:00

Because what you're going to find is

01:09:02

not only does your life get well built,

01:09:04

but you meet a God who loves you

01:09:06

and who is for you more than anybody else you will ever know.

01:09:09

And so that's why we want to do,

01:09:11

we're offering book studies, both of us, same time,

01:09:14

starting in a couple of weeks of our books.

01:09:16

And it's because of our common heart,

01:09:19

because of the way our community is put together.

01:09:22

This is just in the people that endure here to take risks

01:09:27

to actually build a life on Christ.

01:09:31

And you could develop all three of these.

01:09:34

You could be real, you could be rooted, you could take risks,

01:09:37

and you could be doing that all day long.

01:09:40

And the fourth one, if it's not in place,

01:09:43

could negate all the others.

01:09:46

You have to be after something that's worth it.

01:09:50

You've got to have a reward that's worth it at the end.

01:09:58

If you don't, when you take a hit,

01:10:03

even if you can stand, you might go, "You know what?

01:10:07

I'm just tired of this. It's just not worth it anymore.

01:10:11

I'm tired of getting hit.

01:10:12

I might still be standing,

01:10:14

but I got a black eye every other day

01:10:16

and I'm sick of it, I'm done."

01:10:18

And so whatever's at the end of the road for you,

01:10:20

it has to actually be worth it,

01:10:22

there has to be a reward that is actually worth it.

01:10:26

So I went back and thought about this.

01:10:28

There was 11 people that gathered in a living room

01:10:32

not quite 30 years ago, and they sat down together

01:10:34

and they were like, "What if we started a church?"

01:10:36

And that church became Crossroads.

01:10:38

And I wondered what were those 11 people after?

01:10:43

And actually, we know because some of them have endured

01:10:46

and they are still here today, actually.

01:10:49

And the answer to that is they wanted their friends,

01:10:52

they wanted people, the people they loved,

01:10:56

the people that felt alienated from church,

01:10:58

that hadn't given up on God,

01:11:00

but didn't have a place that felt like they could go.

01:11:02

They felt like outsiders in religious communities.

01:11:04

They didn't know the lingo.

01:11:06

They didn't know how to do it right,

01:11:07

and they hadn't given up on God,

01:11:09

but they might have given up on church,

01:11:12

at least church done like it used to be done.

01:11:15

And that's what they were after.

01:11:18

They were after their friends, their neighbors,

01:11:21

their city, their coworkers.

01:11:23

And with that at the heart, I got to tell you,

01:11:25

that is still the heart of Crossroads.

01:11:28

That is still what this community is about today.

01:11:30

If you endure in this community,

01:11:34

that has to be what you're about.

01:11:37

I will tell you point blank,

01:11:39

if we were about something else, I would be gone.

01:11:42

I would be gone because there's been

01:11:43

plenty of hits along the way,

01:11:45

plenty of communal hits, plenty of personal hits.

01:11:48

If we weren't truly and deeply about people,

01:11:52

I would have gone by now

01:11:54

because I didn't sign up to build a megachurch.

01:11:58

I signed up to try to get the people I love

01:12:01

in my city, in my nation, in our world,

01:12:04

to meet a God who thinks that they were worth it.

01:12:09

And that's the heart of this community.

01:12:12

That's always been the heart of this community. Always.

01:12:15

And it's the only thing worth taking hits for.

01:12:18

I got to read you the rest of that passage in Hebrews,

01:12:20

because this is the same prize that Jesus was after:

01:12:49

The writer of Hebrews wants us to endure,

01:12:53

and he offers up Jesus.

01:12:55

He says, Consider Jesus. Look what Jesus did.

01:12:59

And those little words buried right in the middle

01:13:01

of the passage tell you what he was after.

01:13:03

It says, "For the joy set before him."

01:13:06

What was the joy? What was the joy that was set before Jesus?

01:13:09

What in the world

01:13:11

would have been worth going to the cross for?

01:13:14

What would have been worth it?

01:13:17

What would have been worth the shame, the humiliation,

01:13:20

the judgment, the opposition, the hits,

01:13:24

the literal physical hits, in this case,

01:13:27

and the eventual unjust trial and His murder?

01:13:31

What would have been worth that?

01:13:34

What was the joy set before Him?

01:13:38

It was you. It was me. It was people.

01:13:43

There is nothing else that's worth that kind of hit,

01:13:46

but that is worth everything to Him.

01:13:48

That is worth everything to Him.

01:13:50

And He went to the cross with you in mind.

01:13:53

He went to the cross

01:13:54

knowing those hits were coming in advance.

01:13:56

He went to the cross knowing that you were going to come,

01:13:59

knowing you were going to be created.

01:14:01

And that's why this place exists,

01:14:04

because we want to be about what He wants.

01:14:06

We want to care about what He wants.

01:14:09

We want the prize at the end

01:14:10

after all the black eyes to be worth it.

01:14:13

And there's only one, and it's you. It's you.

01:14:16

That's what this community exists for.

01:14:18

If this is your first time here,

01:14:22

I hope there's somebody in the room tonight that

01:14:24

this is their first time here.

01:14:25

Because I want you to know we did this for you.

01:14:29

We did this for you.

01:14:30

And I'm so happy that you're here because

01:14:33

God knew you were going to be here.

01:14:34

If this is your second time, if this is your thousandth time,

01:14:38

everybody here, we -- we have done this

01:14:42

so that there's a place that we can be real,

01:14:45

that we can be rooted, that we can be in this thing together,

01:14:48

that we can pursue and be pursued by the God

01:14:51

who looked at you ahead of time

01:14:54

and came anyway for all the hits and said, "You're worth it.

01:14:59

You're worth it. He's worth it. She's worth it."

01:15:02

And I'll tell you what, you're also worth it to this community.

01:15:05

You're so valuable here that I will tell you

01:15:08

you are worth every dollar that was given for the app

01:15:11

you're watching on the website you're connecting through,

01:15:14

the seat you're sitting in.

01:15:15

You were worth the bad press, the picketing we've had.

01:15:20

You're worth the names people have been called,

01:15:22

all the personal criticism.

01:15:24

You are worth every trip around the world

01:15:27

where somebody went to meet you in a school

01:15:30

or in a prison or in another country.

01:15:33

You're worth every single bit of it and more.

01:15:36

You're worth the second mortgage

01:15:38

that most of those first 11 people gave on their homes

01:15:41

to make this place happen.

01:15:43

You were worth it then, and you're worth it now.

01:15:46

And you're worth it because Jesus says you're worth it.

01:15:49

That was the joy He went to the cross for, it was you.

01:15:55

So we endure because He endured.

01:15:58

And I hope that we're here long after

01:16:01

anybody in this room is still here, still taking hits,

01:16:05

still trying to tell people there's a God

01:16:07

who's crazy about you, who would come again,

01:16:10

who would take every hit again.

01:16:11

And He's dying for you to know

01:16:13

that you are worth that much, too.

01:16:16

You're worth it and that's why we exist.

01:16:19

That's why we want lives that can endure

01:16:21

because we care about what He cares about.

01:16:24

So, let me pray for you right now, because,

01:16:28

needless to say, I'm so glad you're here.

01:16:32

Lord, I just ask for Your blessing of grace

01:16:36

over this community who truly, in all our fumbling

01:16:40

and all our getting it wrong, truly, deeply

01:16:43

wants to be about what You care about,

01:16:47

the people, Your people.

01:16:50

And Lord, I pray for Your people all over the world tonight.

01:16:54

I ask that You would comfort, that You would encourage,

01:16:58

that You would strengthen, that You would lift up,

01:17:00

and that most especially You would tell them

01:17:02

You are here and that they were worth it.

01:17:05

And I pray that in the name of Jesus, Amen.

01:17:10

- We believe that the church is called to love God

01:17:12

and for us to love one another.

01:17:14

This is who we are.

01:17:15

And throughout this series we've looked at

01:17:17

how we as a church run, how we go, how we laugh,

01:17:20

how we challenge, how we sacrifice, and how we endure.

01:17:24

Over our 27 year history, we've been doing these things

01:17:27

and we're not done yet.

01:17:30

The series is called This Is Us, but the point

01:17:32

isn't to talk about ourselves at all.

01:17:34

The point is to invite you along into

01:17:37

a community of people running after God,

01:17:39

and to join us on the journey.

01:17:41

Now, if any of the last six weeks have resonated with you

01:17:45

and spoken to you and like, man,

01:17:47

that's not just something I want to watch.

01:17:48

That's something I want to be a part of.

01:17:50

Hey, I've got a really simple next step for you.

01:17:52

I just want you to email me. Email me really.

01:17:54

My personal email Andy.Reider@crossroads.net.

01:17:58

I'd just love to have a conversation with you

01:18:00

about how we can connect you with a community

01:18:03

of people all over the world running after Jesus,

01:18:05

and how your journey with God can have

01:18:08

intentional next steps that keep you growing

01:18:10

and keep you moving forward.

01:18:12

Send me an email. I'd love to connect with you.

01:18:15

Now make sure you don't miss next week

01:18:18

as we kick off one of the series I'm most excited about:

01:18:20

Real Encounters with God season four.

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