Faith Means Movement | Why Faith Isn’t Just About Agreeing With God

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[music: Count Me In by Crossroads Music]

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- Well, hey, welcome to Crossroads online.

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We are a church made up of normal people

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that are following God on the adventure of faith.

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And part of how we get ready for that adventure

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is actually by doing what you're doing now,

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by being together, whether it's online

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or in buildings like this one, to grow,

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to connect with others

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and to connect with God through worship.

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And hey, you might not have realized it,

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but you can actually listen to our messages online

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in Spanish every week.

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Just go to Crossroads.net/watch

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and look for the Ver en Espanol button.

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And if you attend one of our physical sites

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starting this fall, every single Crossroads location

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will have Crossroads en Espanol where Spanish speakers

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can experience the Crossroads weekend messages

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in their own language no matter where they are.

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But right now, we're actually going to get to do

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what unites us all: worship.

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We all carry names like stress, fear, anxiety,

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failure, whatever it is, but Philippians 2 says that

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Jesus has a name that's above all of those names.

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We're going to sing about that right now.

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- Everyone, so glad you're here.

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We're going to start our time off singing.

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So why don't you stand on your feet? Let's sing together.

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If you know it, sing along.

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- You can go ahead and take a seat for just a few minutes.

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This is not the message portion of the service.

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We have more songs to sing coming up,

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but I want to talk to you for a few minutes.

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And the reason is because it's been a week in our nation,

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maybe in your family, maybe in your neighborhoods,

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wherever you work, a week of headlines that are unsettling,

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punctuated by the murder of a man

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who was a very public and vocal believer in Jesus, Charlie Kirk.

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And I'll tell you what, here at Crossroads,

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anytime there's big headlines like this,

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people come at us and they go, "Well, do you have a comment?

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What are you going to say? Give us your soundbite."

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There's this pressure to throw soundbites onto things.

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And at Crossroads we don't do that.

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That's not the game we play because it's not helpful.

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But Brian and I talked and prayed

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over the last 4 or 5 days or so about what to do.

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And the reason we take time is because

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it's what the Bible says to do.

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James 1:19 says: Let every person be quick to hear,

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slow to speak, slow to anger.

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As we sat back and said what's going on in this moment

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and what's the right thing to do?

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And I had this moment a couple of days ago

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where I realized, you know, if something was going on,

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as a parent. I have three kids, if we've never met before,

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by the way. Hi, my name is Kyle.

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I'm our lead pastor here at Crossroads.

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Brian's our senior pastor.

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What I'm going to share is our heart for you.

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As a parent I stepped back and I went, "You know,

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if something blew up in my kids world at their school

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and everybody was telling them what to think about it

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and what to feel about it,

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was sowing seeds into their heart about it.

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And I said nothing, I stayed silent, I'd be a bad parent."

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We said the same thing here.

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There is so much going on.

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All of your feeds are full, your newsfeed,

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your social feeds about what to think and what to feel.

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And there are seeds being thrown onto your heart.

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And if we as pastors don't say something,

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it feels like we're just abdicating.

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We're just punting on the responsibility

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that God's given us.

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Now, what everybody wants is the sound bite, right?

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What's the sound bite?

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Well, I'm sorry to tell you, I don't have a sound bite.

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No one's life has ever been summarized in a sound bite,

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and Charlie Kirk is no different.

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I never met the guy. Watched some of his videos.

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Some of it I looked at and there's things I agree with,

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like his stance that the Bible is the source of truth.

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It's the foundation for everything, his firm conviction,

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his firm faith in Jesus. Yes.

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And there's things I go, "Oh, I can't get --

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I can't go there with you on that one."

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Like some of the things I've heard and read

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that he said about civil rights.

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There's no sound bites you can give to this guy.

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There's no sound bite you can give to Moses.

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There's no sound bite you can give to David.

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You're going to hear Alli talk about Rahab.

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There's no soundbite that ever summarizes someone's life.

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But I know this: when someone is brutally murdered,

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it's not a time to celebrate. It's a time to mourn.

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Murder is not justice.

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And whether or not I agree that

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you lived your life perfectly, and you made every decision

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and every application of your faith

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that I would have made, I have to step back and say,

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"If you say that you called him Savior,

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like we just sung, you're in heaven right now,

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and I want to celebrate that and say,

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'God, thank You for being exactly what You say You are.

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You're a savior of all of us.'"

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But I'm not here to give you a soundbite statement

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and eulogize a man I never met.

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I'm here because right now you've been stirred up.

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Anybody angry this week at any moment?

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Anybody exhausted at any moment? Anybody?

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Anybody tempted to become apathetic in a moment this week?

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If you are, then your heart has been churned up.

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You are what the Bible calls plowed up ground.

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Now, plowed up ground is fertile ground.

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But see, this is a vulnerability and it's an opportunity.

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It's a vulnerability because the seeds of public opinion,

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the seeds of your social feed,

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the winds of your social feed,

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the winds of popular opinion,

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they're blowing seeds across you

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and some of those seeds are weeds.

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They're weeds called hatred. They're weeds called division.

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There's weeds called anger.

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And I think right now in our life,

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we tend to downplay those things as like the okay stuff.

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God's okay with this,

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and there's bigger sins he's not okay with.

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No, no, not at all.

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This is what the Bible says in Galatians 5:19.

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Now the works of the flesh are evident,

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sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,

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idolatry, sorcery, all bad.

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Then he goes on enmity, strife, jealousy,

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fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,

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envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

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The Bible lumps it all together and says

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this is not -- these seeds are not the fruit

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that God wants to grow up in your life. They're not.

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But they're being thrown over all of us.

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Parents, if you have kids, they're thrown over your kids.

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I was driving here this morning to come talk to you guys,

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and I was taking my son to Crossroads East Side.

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He volunteers there in middle school on Sundays

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and was dropping him off.

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And we were talking about Charlie Kirk

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and talking about what I was going to share a little bit.

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And I just asked him. I was like,

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"Hey, did this come up at your school?"

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He's like, "Oh, yes. It's all people were talking about."

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And we talked for a little bit.

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And then he said, "You know, one of the things I heard

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is it took him four hours to die.

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I don't think that's true.

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It looked like he died immediately."

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And I went, "Wait, did you -- did you see the video?"

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He goes, "Yeah, I wish I hadn't, but I saw it."

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Parents, if you have a kid with a phone,

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do you know they watched a man get brutally murdered this week?

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It's our job as parents to come in and to say,

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"Hey, let's talk about the seeds

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that might want to get planted into your heart."

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My plea to you as your pastor is just to take a moment,

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just to take a step back and to say, "Hey, God,

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is there any seed that's been stuck into the soil

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of my churned up heart that You don't want to be there?

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Is there any anger in me?

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Is there any bitterness growing in me?

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Is there any apathy?"

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And see, for all of us,

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those seeds might come in for different reasons.

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Maybe you're angry over the murder or the death,

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or maybe you're angry over the fact that

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this was the headline and not the school shooting

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that happened this week. I don't know.

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But the seed is the same and the anger was the same,

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and it wants to root into your heart

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and spring up and choke out the life that God has for you.

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Don't let it, don't let it.

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My plea to you as your pastor is don't let it.

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Just take a minute right now

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in the quietness of your own heart, I just want you

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to think over the last 3 or 4 days of your life

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and just have an honest conversation with God.

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Were you angry? Bitter?

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Was there anything in you that wanted vengeance?

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Was there anything in you that looked at somebody else,

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another person, and defined them as your enemy?

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That's a seed.

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Ask God to rip it out of your heart

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right now before it grows into a weed.

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Just say, "God, pull it out. I don't want it."

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Now, when you're churned up, it's also an opportunity.

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It's an opportunity for God to give you something new,

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to plant His seed that grows into

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the fruit that He wants for you,

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and the fruit that He wants for your family

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and the fruit that He wants for our church.

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That Galatians verse that goes on and says this:

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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,

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patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

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gentleness, self-control.

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Against such things there is no law.

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Anybody in need of more of one of those things in this room?

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Is there anybody who could use more love? I can.

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I could use more gentleness.

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I would love God to come and plant a seed in me

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that grows into self-control, that stands out

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to my neighbors who don't know Jesus. I could use that.

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And so, right now, in the quietness of your heart,

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I'll read the list again.

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I want you to just grab one and just say,

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"God, would You plant that seed of Your Spirit in me?"

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Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

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faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

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It's a moment, Crossroads.

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It's a moment for us as a church.

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My heart for us, Brian's heart for us is

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let's be different. Let's be different.

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When the rest of the world is sowing seeds of despair,

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can we sow seeds of hope?

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When the rest of the world is sowing seeds of hatred,

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can we sow seeds of love?

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When the rest of the world is sowing seeds of division,

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can we sow seeds of unity?

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Can we be a church that does that?

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See, when we talk about pressing in for more of God's Spirit,

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this whole thing we're in of going, "God,

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would You bring a revival in me, an awakening in me?"

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We're asking for more of God's Spirit,

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which means we're asking for more of the things

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that stand out as so different

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from all of the rest of the world's reactions,

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the things we need.

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Like I said, I don't know Charlie Kirk.

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I never met the guy, but I know a name.

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I know a name that silenced the grave.

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I know a name that when people came after Him

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and mocked Him and spit on Him and offended Him,

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He went to the Cross and he died for them.

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That's Jesus. This is the God who we follow.

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Would you pray with me, and then we're going to sing.

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God, I bless You for being different over and above me.

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Your name is higher and above my name.

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Your name is higher and above the name of Crossroads.

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Your name is higher and above every name.

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And God, we would be remiss not to ask You

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to be healer and comforter and protector

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to a family who lost their father and their husband.

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God, would You surround the Kirk family in your love?

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Would You surround them in Your embrace, God?

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And would you plant more of Your Spirit into our hearts.

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Amen. Amen.

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- Yeah. We pray to King Jesus.

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Every day, every day I'm tempted

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to get on the throne of my heart and on my life.

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And every day my aim and what I'm setting in motion

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is every day I try to climb back off that throne,

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put You in Your rightful place and say,

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"You are my King and You alone.

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I am no kind of king and You are a perfect king."

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And so I say again and again and again and again,

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"You can have my whole heart. You be my king,

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because I'm tired of trying to be my own.

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I've given up on that. I give up on that.

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King Jesus, I love You. I sing to You

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because You have changed my life.

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

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And you know, we often say that our songs

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are prayers set to music, set to melodies

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so we can hold these together.

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That song has been one of my favorites

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over the last few months, and it's going

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to sound self-serving to say this, but it's not.

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Our team wrote that song, and I can say

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it's one of my favorites because

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I didn't have anything to do with it.

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I walked into the room the first time I heard this

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after our team of worship leaders had written this song,

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and I was like, "That's the song I want to wake up

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and sing every single day.

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That's the words I want to pray every day."

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So we don't announce this to say it's anything fancy.

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These are crayon drawings for our dad

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that we put on a refrigerator. Okay?

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But we write all of these songs so that

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you can take these prayers with you every single day

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and opt in and say, every single morning,

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"Count me in for what You've got going, Jesus." Yeah.

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And so that song comes out

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on all the music platforms tomorrow.

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We made it for you, go find it, use it,

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and use it in your daily life. Okay? Cool.

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All right. Great great. Great, great.

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Hey, if we've never met, my name is Justin.

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I'm glad to be in this space with you.

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Glad you're joining us online.

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Why don't you turn to somebody next to you,

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give 'em your name, and then you can have a seat.

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- The history of revival is very clear,

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God goes where He's wanted.

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You're where you are right now

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because of where you've been.

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And so the fact that we opted in to revival

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means that something is dead

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or we need something refreshed,

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and that means something new has to come in

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and we've got to open ourselves up.

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- Now, revival, it's not just a thing we sing about,

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it's not just an idea, it's actually also an event.

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It's coming up October 31st through November 2nd,

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where we're showing up for two and a half days

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of worship, bonfires, connection, community

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and just seeing what God wants to do.

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So if you've ever thought, "Man, I love Crossroads,

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but I want more face to face connection,"

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man, this is your chance for like a family reunion

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with people you haven't even met yet.

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It's going to be incredible.

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We had over 10,000 people show up last year,

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and we're expecting God to do something amazing,

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amazing this year.

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And if you don't live near one of our physical sites,

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part of our Anywhere Community, hey,

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we know travel can be tricky.

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We want this to be an incredible experience for you.

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So we'll remove all the barriers we can.

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We'll pick you up from the airport.

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We'll help with food, camping gear, any way we can.

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You can get all the details on that

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and on revival at Crossroads.net/Anywhereweekend.

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Now, this 10X vision that we believe God has given us

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not to get comfortable, but to lean in and expect Him

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and ask Him to do 10X more than we can imagine.

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And you might be wondering, what does that look like

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and how can I be a part of it?

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I've got a video to show you what's going on right now.

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But first, if you're part of one of

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our faithful givers who makes 10X possible,

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man, thank you.

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And if you're curious about how you can partner with that,

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or want to know what Crossroads believes about money,

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you can get more info and join the team at crossroads.net/give.

00:26:56

- In November 2024, God called Crossroads to a moonshot,

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to grow the four territories He gave us 10X in ten years.

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Our community pushed themselves,

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faithfully committing $210 million

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above and beyond our regular giving.

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As soon as money comes in, we release it

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to resource the territories God called us to expand.

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We dream of an awakening.

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It's not about us, it's about God.

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Because many have begun

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fulfilling their Push commitments,

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we've continued growing our base camp property

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and have started work to vastly improve

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the experience for all who attend camps and revival.

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This is just the beginning.

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- Hey, welcome to Base Camp!

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It's so great to be a part of a church

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that embraces adventure and to be able to get out here

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and have the time and space off the grid,

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no distractions to connect with God and each other.

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It's just a gift.

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- And something different. You know?

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It's not the same old, same old because

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there's a unique calling God has given us

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to do stuff like this, to get people out in the wild,

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have adventure, get connected with God, each other.

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It's really rich.

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- It is great, man, and we're working on

00:28:06

some things out here right now to make it even better.

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And we're working on different projects,

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like uh, widening the road. - Traffic jams?

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- Gone. We're widening the road.

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- Ugly barns? - Oh, yeah. Gone. Gone.

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How about spooky house? - Oh! Burned to the ground.

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Gone. - Oh. So good.

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- So we're just trying to make more room

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for more folks to be able to get out here

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and get out and experience the adventure.

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We're leveling out where the main tent is

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so that we can get a bigger tent for fall camps

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and for revival, so that more people

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can come out here and have a great encounter with God.

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- When we are committed to the Push for 10X,

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try to 10X the impact of God, we knew this was

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one of the things that we have a unique responsibility

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for in the Kingdom of God is camps.

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And so while stuff is happening all over the world,

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this is a place that people don't see

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unless they come to camps or to Revival,

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which is coming up sooner than you know.

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It's pretty good. - That's right.

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And we're doing one more project.

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It's our lake and amphitheater.

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- Lake and amphitheater. I have to see where it is.

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- Let's go check it out.

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So you see, right over here

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is where the amphitheater is going to be.

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- Yeah.

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- And then back in here you can see where this ravine is.

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That's where the lake is.

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- That's great. That's great.

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- It's so great. - It is.

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- Well, why are we doing this? Why are we doing a lake?

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- It's not just because it's functional,

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because we baptized hundreds of people,

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hundreds of people every year in the cow pond that we have here.

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It's also actually primal. You know?

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God separates the waters in Genesis, the book of Genesis.

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He creates, creates the earth.

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Moses takes the nation of Israel through the waters,

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God separates the water there.

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We have Jesus getting baptized,

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John the Baptist baptizing people,

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us being told to baptize people.

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Rain is a big thing. Water is primal.

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It's part of the vision we've had for a long time.

00:29:56

We're pretty excited about it.

00:29:57

- So what if you don't like to camp?

00:29:59

We hear that all the time.

00:30:00

You know what? We understand. We totally understand.

00:30:03

But we also believe strongly that

00:30:05

when you step out into the woods

00:30:07

and get out of your comfort zone

00:30:09

and sleep on the ground in a tent,

00:30:11

it unlocks things inside where you

00:30:14

actually understand who you were created to be,

00:30:17

and a bigger, in a deeper way.

00:30:18

And you also understand kind of what God's calling you into.

00:30:21

It creates resiliency.

00:30:23

- And if you look at church history,

00:30:26

every time there's been a great move of God,

00:30:29

every time there has been what's known as an awakening,

00:30:31

where the masses have been awakened

00:30:34

in their spiritual quest for Jesus

00:30:36

and have come to know Christ,

00:30:38

every single time it happens outdoors.

00:30:41

And if you don't want to camp,

00:30:43

hey, there's still Revival for you.

00:30:45

You can come and go any time to Revival and you can get revived.

00:30:48

It was amazing last year.

00:30:50

We have huge plans for this year.

00:30:51

I got a good friend of mine, John Tyson,

00:30:54

who's going to be coming and speaking at the Revival.

00:30:57

Woo, he's going to bring, he's going to bring it.

00:30:59

I'm telling you right now.

00:31:00

We have some new things happening with Man Camp.

00:31:02

We brought in some outsiders.

00:31:03

Bear Grylls coming to Man Camp,

00:31:05

has become somewhat of a friend of mine.

00:31:07

It's going to be amazing.

00:31:09

Dante Bowe, Grammy Award winning artist,

00:31:12

part of Maverick City, he's become a friend of mine.

00:31:15

He is camping and he's bringing two of his friends.

00:31:17

It's going to be great.

00:31:19

In fact, every camp, in its own way, it's going to be great.

00:31:22

Revival is going to be great.

00:31:23

And even if you never come, you're a part of this

00:31:26

if you're help funding it,

00:31:27

you're funding transformational life change

00:31:30

that's impacting our church and our Kingdom.

00:31:32

God's doing a big, big thing,

00:31:34

and we want you to be blessed by it and be a part of it.

00:31:42

- Hey, everybody.

00:31:44

So good to be with you this weekend. My name is Ali.

00:31:47

I'm going to be out at Woman Camp in two weeks.

00:31:49

Where all the women that are going to be there with me?

00:31:51

Okay, I can't wait to go out to Woman Camp.

00:31:54

And you know what you can do?

00:31:55

I'll give you a little peek behind the scenes.

00:31:57

You could pray for some rain right now

00:32:00

and then no rain at camp.

00:32:01

Did you see all that mud, like, or I should say,

00:32:04

the potential mud, all the dirt.

00:32:06

We could really use some grass to grow for real.

00:32:08

So join us in praying for rain now

00:32:10

and then no rain at camp, especially not Woman Camp.

00:32:13

Just, you know, because I don't want to be there in the rain.

00:32:16

So I can't wait to be there with you in a couple of weeks.

00:32:18

But today we are jumping back into

00:32:20

another epic story of the Bible.

00:32:22

And I was thinking about how Kyle, Chuck, Brian and I

00:32:26

in this last 5 or 6 weeks where we have been

00:32:29

talking about epic Bible stories, have chosen

00:32:32

at least one of our stories

00:32:34

from the same time period in Scripture.

00:32:35

And I was thinking, oh, that's really interesting

00:32:37

that we all chose these epic stories from the time

00:32:40

where God freed His people from slavery in Egypt,

00:32:44

brought them through a generation in the wilderness

00:32:46

and out the other side into the life

00:32:49

that He had promised them generations earlier.

00:32:51

And we keep returning to this same era, I think,

00:32:55

because, yes, there are epic Bible stories

00:32:57

there to be told, for sure.

00:32:59

But I also think it's because

00:33:00

that's what we want God to do in our life.

00:33:03

That's what we want.

00:33:04

We want God to take us out of an old life,

00:33:07

get us through the difficulty and dryness

00:33:09

of the wilderness and into a better place.

00:33:12

And that is what we were going to talk about today.

00:33:14

The story that we're going to talk about today

00:33:16

is the first step that Israel took into the Promised Land,

00:33:21

into the life that God had for them.

00:33:23

And I'm going to pray right now that

00:33:25

He helps you and I take that same step in our life.

00:33:28

Lord, be with us right now and show us the step,

00:33:32

show us the step that's in front of us

00:33:34

that You want us to do the same way

00:33:36

You wanted for Your people way back then.

00:33:40

In Jesus's name I pray. Amen.

00:33:43

Well, the first step that Israel took

00:33:46

into the Promised Land actually led them

00:33:48

straight into an epic battle.

00:33:51

We're going to start in a battle today,

00:33:53

in the Battle of Jericho.

00:33:54

Last week, Brian kind of set the stage.

00:33:57

He talked a lot about the wilderness where Israel

00:33:59

kind of looked back at their time in slavery

00:34:04

almost with fondness and with rose colored glasses,

00:34:07

and grumbled at God in the middle of this wilderness

00:34:10

that He had them in after He rescued them.

00:34:12

And so what God did in that space was

00:34:15

let the entire generation die off.

00:34:19

He was like, "Okay, I'm going to wait for

00:34:21

the next generation to go into the life

00:34:24

that I promised you."

00:34:25

So they've been in the wilderness for 40 years.

00:34:27

There's a leadership change that takes place

00:34:29

from Moses to Joshua.

00:34:31

And now where we pick up our story today,

00:34:34

they're camped right across the Jordan River,

00:34:36

which is like the borderline to the land

00:34:38

that God had moved them toward and had promised them.

00:34:41

And so they're camped out across the Jordan River.

00:34:43

They know the time is near,

00:34:45

and they're looking with almost a bird's eye view

00:34:48

at the city of Jericho.

00:34:50

Jericho sat right across the line

00:34:53

into this land that they'd promised, and they knew

00:34:56

as soon as we take the first step,

00:34:58

we're going to face a battle.

00:35:00

That was in the scriptures called the Battle of Jericho.

00:35:04

And they knew it was going to be a big one

00:35:05

because Jericho was a walled city,

00:35:08

a well-supplied city, a city with a king

00:35:10

and a stable population,

00:35:11

and they were going to fight back.

00:35:13

So you would think that what God was going to do

00:35:16

to prepare them for this battle was maybe, like, train an army,

00:35:20

because they'd been in the desert all that time,

00:35:23

not exactly a well-trained army,

00:35:24

or maybe tell them how to secure the right weaponry

00:35:28

and all of that kind of stuff

00:35:30

that you might do for battle prep.

00:35:31

And instead, he actually told them to do some things

00:35:34

that if you step back and look at it, are pretty weird.

00:35:39

Have you ever been the weird one?

00:35:41

I was thinking about, maybe been that

00:35:44

a couple of times in my life.

00:35:45

I was thinking about when we are the one

00:35:47

that has to be the weird one

00:35:49

and we maybe don't even know it.

00:35:50

I just moved my oldest son back into college, year two,

00:35:53

and he's living in a house of nine guys, right?

00:35:59

That's what we said.

00:36:01

So we move him in and it got me started

00:36:04

thinking about my own college experience,

00:36:05

where you get the experience of living with other people,

00:36:08

and there's nothing like doing that to discover that

00:36:11

your family is actually the weird one.

00:36:14

So I remember this conversation that we had

00:36:17

when we were talking about how you did Thanksgiving

00:36:19

when I was in college, and we're all like,

00:36:21

you know, here's what we do.

00:36:23

Here's where we go, here's our traditions,

00:36:24

you know, that kind of stuff.

00:36:26

So I was talking to my friends and I was like,

00:36:28

"Oh, yeah, we go to my grandma's house

00:36:29

and it's all the aunts, uncles, cousins,

00:36:31

turkey dinner and all the things.

00:36:33

And, you know, then that night we go to the dog tracks."

00:36:39

And there was just silence.

00:36:42

And one of my friends goes, "The where?"

00:36:47

I was like, "Oh, yeah, we --

00:36:49

I mean, it's open on Thanksgiving night.

00:36:51

Did you know that? We go to the dog track."

00:36:52

And she's like, "People race dogs?"

00:36:59

And I was like, "Oh, this is weird. Oh, this is weird.

00:37:05

I just grew up with this.

00:37:07

And, I mean, I could tell you my uncle's theories

00:37:09

on which one to bet on. You know?"

00:37:11

I just, I don't know, I guess it took me

00:37:14

living with other people to get, you know,

00:37:17

to reflect back to me that that, that is weird.

00:37:20

And that look that you're giving me right now,

00:37:22

I need you to freeze that on your face.

00:37:24

Because that is the exact kind of look that

00:37:27

you should think Israel would have had on their face

00:37:30

when God began to give them the instructions

00:37:32

of how they were to go into the Promised Land.

00:37:35

It was that kind of outlandish.

00:37:37

It was that kind of odd, you know?

00:37:39

Where you just want to go, "You want us to do what, God?"

00:37:43

Here's what He says their are literal first step

00:37:46

should be into the life that He promised them.

00:37:49

These come straight from Joshua 6:

00:37:52

March around the city once with all the armed men.

00:37:55

Do this for six days.

00:37:58

Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns

00:38:00

in front of the ark.

00:38:02

On the seventh day, march around the city seven times,

00:38:06

with the priests blowing the trumpets.

00:38:08

When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets,

00:38:12

have the whole army give a loud shout;

00:38:14

then the walls of the city will collapse

00:38:17

and the army will go up, everyone straight in.

00:38:20

That was the plan. Not a normal battle plan.

00:38:23

What normally would have happened is

00:38:25

they would have put a siege around the city.

00:38:27

They would have built ramps to get over the walls

00:38:29

or tunnels to get under them.

00:38:30

They may have sent a message to the king

00:38:32

to discuss their terms of surrender.

00:38:35

They would have set up their battle,

00:38:37

their weaponry around the edges of the city.

00:38:39

They might have even impaled a few people on poles

00:38:42

near the city gate to scare them.

00:38:44

You know, none of this stuff was taking place.

00:38:46

And to make matters even more odd,

00:38:49

if you read a couple chapters before this,

00:38:51

you would learn that God, a few days earlier,

00:38:54

had said, "Here's the thing I want you to do right now.

00:38:57

I want all the fighting men to be circumcised."

00:39:02

So let me summarize this little plan for you.

00:39:05

Do something really painful to your private parts,

00:39:07

march around in a circle a whole bunch of times,

00:39:12

and yell really loud.

00:39:16

That was the plan.

00:39:18

That does not sound like a normal plan.

00:39:21

Just some very odd instructions ending in a big yell.

00:39:24

Maybe if you're a teacher, you're like,

00:39:26

"That was my classroom on Tuesday, you know?

00:39:29

Very weird instructions and a lot of yelling.

00:39:32

That's pretty much what it's like."

00:39:34

You know, when my kids were little, I would --

00:39:37

I'd have them act this out, and it kind of drove home

00:39:39

exactly how kind of odd this would have been

00:39:42

for the nation of Israel.

00:39:43

So I would have them go, like, we'd build, you know, the

00:39:46

real lightweight blocks that are like cardboard blocks.

00:39:49

So we would build a big wall of those

00:39:50

and I would read the instructions and I'd be like,

00:39:52

"Okay, march around," and they'd march around the wall.

00:39:55

And I'd be like, "Go to sleep."

00:39:56

So they'd lay down and, "Get up again, do it again."

00:39:59

And by the fifth or sixth time they're like,

00:40:01

"What are we doing?

00:40:04

Do we have to do this again?"

00:40:05

I'm like, "You're not done, you know?

00:40:07

Now it's day seven. Keep going. One more lap, you know?"

00:40:10

And if they actually made it all the way to the end,

00:40:12

I would like go, "Okay, now!" You know?

00:40:14

And we'd yell really loud and knock down the wall,

00:40:17

but they hardly ever got there because they were like,

00:40:21

"What is this? I'm bored."

00:40:23

And they'd just give the wall an elbow

00:40:26

and watch the bricks tumble down anyway.

00:40:28

I mean, that has to be similar to the build up

00:40:32

what Israel was experiencing there.

00:40:34

"You know, is this really what you want us to do, God? Why?"

00:40:38

And there was there was one verse that I did not read you.

00:40:41

And it's right in between the instructions

00:40:43

for days one through six and day seven.

00:40:46

And here's what this says, and it completely changes the game.

00:40:51

Then the Lord said to Joshua,

00:40:53

"See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands,

00:40:58

along with its king and its fighting men."

00:41:02

Right in the middle of these instructions,

00:41:04

right before they step foot over the Promised Land,

00:41:07

God says, "You know what?

00:41:08

I've actually already decided

00:41:10

what's going to happen in this battle.

00:41:12

You win. I've delivered the city.

00:41:14

I've delivered the king.

00:41:15

I've delivered all the fighting men into your hands."

00:41:18

And what happened with that word

00:41:20

is it switched the issue at hand.

00:41:22

The issue was less about what God asked them to do

00:41:25

and how they felt about that

00:41:27

and it became much more about do they believe God?

00:41:33

Do they believe Him?

00:41:36

Do they believe that He's delivered the city

00:41:38

into their hands, because they're looking at it,

00:41:40

and it looks like it's going to be a fight.

00:41:44

And they look like the ones

00:41:45

that aren't very well set up for the fight,

00:41:47

especially with this strategy.

00:41:49

So the question becomes do they believe the Word of God?

00:41:52

Do they believe Him when He says, "I have already decided"?

00:41:56

Now on day one, probably. Right?

00:41:59

"All right. Just, you know, holster our weapons

00:42:02

and do a lap. Sounds fine."

00:42:04

What about day four? Day five? Day six?

00:42:08

Do you think they were itching for this to be,

00:42:11

you know, let's do this?

00:42:13

Do you think they had enough faith to not do,

00:42:16

not do what other armies would have done?

00:42:19

So maybe they're doing the instructions, but also,

00:42:22

you know, "Let's just build a siege ramp

00:42:24

just in case we need it."

00:42:27

And what about all the way at the end,

00:42:29

the seventh lap on the final day?

00:42:31

Do you think they actually did the yell?

00:42:33

Because, I mean, you know, "Who cares about the yell?

00:42:38

Is that really a big deal?

00:42:39

You mean to tell me God's going to do

00:42:41

or not do something because I yell or don't yell?

00:42:44

Ah, must not be a very big deal."

00:42:46

Did Israel actually do all of these things?

00:42:49

Well, Hebrews 11 tells us exactly what they did.

00:42:55

And I'm wondering what you think you would do

00:42:58

if God gave you a word, gave you some instructions,

00:43:01

gave you a way to approach the life that He promised you,

00:43:04

and He put a promise on it.

00:43:08

He promised you a victory. He promised it.

00:43:12

Would you live like that?

00:43:15

Would you approach it like that?

00:43:16

Would you do what He said?

00:43:18

Here's what Hebrews 11:30 says that Israel did.

00:43:24

By faith the walls of Jericho fell,

00:43:28

after the army had marched around them for seven days.

00:43:31

So the writer of Hebrews tells us they did what God asked.

00:43:36

They made it to the seventh day.

00:43:37

They made it all the way around.

00:43:38

They must have done the final yell

00:43:40

and the walls come down.

00:43:41

And to be honest, this is like a shining event

00:43:44

in the history of Israel.

00:43:46

The much more common thing in their history

00:43:49

was for them to disobey God, but this time

00:43:51

they actually followed through and did it.

00:43:54

They obeyed Him.

00:43:55

And the weird battle plan that God used

00:43:58

in this approach to their new life is named right there

00:44:03

in two little words it says: by faith.

00:44:08

The walls of Jericho actually did not fall by force,

00:44:12

they fell by faith.

00:44:15

They fell as Israel put their faith

00:44:18

in that promise into action,

00:44:19

as they actually moved into the land of promise,

00:44:22

the way that God asked them to do it.

00:44:25

The epicness of this battle was about

00:44:27

the faith that Israel had in that one little sentence,

00:44:31

that one little promise that

00:44:32

no matter how untrained they were,

00:44:34

how underprepared they were,

00:44:36

no matter how odd they thought His plan was,

00:44:39

they actually did what He said.

00:44:41

They believed Him so much that they moved on it.

00:44:46

The very first step into the life that

00:44:48

God had promised them was entirely about faith.

00:44:53

And that's really good news for a lot of us,

00:44:54

because we often, I don't know about you,

00:44:57

I'll just speak for myself.

00:44:58

I often feel in the face of something that

00:45:01

maybe this is the way you want me to go, God.

00:45:03

I sort of feel like Israel did, like, underprepared,

00:45:07

not as well trained as maybe I should be.

00:45:11

Maybe just in the face of something

00:45:14

that looks really daunting.

00:45:16

And the good news for us today is this,

00:45:17

the encouragement from this battle is that

00:45:20

the promises of God in your life,

00:45:21

they're delivered by faith, not by strength,

00:45:26

not by training, not by excellent plan making.

00:45:29

See, God wants steps of genuine faith.

00:45:33

And He's promised you, He's promised you some things.

00:45:36

He's promised you a life of power,

00:45:38

a life of love, a life of hope.

00:45:39

But it's not by your strength that those things

00:45:42

get delivered into your life. It's by faith.

00:45:45

In Hebrews 11, that same chapter, it's like

00:45:49

an amazing chapter all about faith.

00:45:52

And it actually gives us a definition of faith,

00:45:54

I love that. Like, just tell me what you mean, God.

00:45:56

Well he does. Here's what He says.

00:45:58

Hebrews 11 defines this kind of faith.

00:46:01

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for

00:46:05

and assurance about what we do not see.

00:46:08

This is exactly where Israel was,

00:46:10

confident in what they hoped for.

00:46:13

God told them, "I have a promise for you.

00:46:16

Not just the life that I'm bringing you into,

00:46:18

but specifically in this battle,

00:46:20

I've already determined that you're going to win it.

00:46:23

Be confident in My promise, and be assured that

00:46:26

what you don't see, all the things that could be here

00:46:29

that we could be doing, be confident

00:46:32

that I have those things covered.

00:46:34

Be assured of that."

00:46:36

You know my definition of faith, not that,

00:46:39

you know, the Bible's is probably better.

00:46:40

I'm just going to give you mine.

00:46:42

Ali's definition of faith is believing God so much

00:46:46

that you're willing to move,

00:46:48

believing God so much that you'll move.

00:46:51

Because I think often we make the mistake in our life

00:46:54

of defining faith as like a mental agreement with God.

00:46:59

Like a good word. Thumbs up. I agree. What He said.

00:47:05

You know, that kind of thing.

00:47:07

That's not what biblical faith is.

00:47:10

It's taking our belief in God and His Word

00:47:14

so deep that it comes out in our actions,

00:47:18

that those things are inextricably connected,

00:47:20

that faith is an active thing

00:47:22

that's marked by some kind of obedient action.

00:47:27

And the last one standing in the battle

00:47:29

for the life that you promised is the person

00:47:31

who's willing to move that way,

00:47:33

who's willing to believe God to the extent

00:47:35

that they actually behave out of it.

00:47:38

And it's like God wanted us to, like, really get this,

00:47:42

because right in the middle of this battle of Jericho

00:47:44

we learn one person's story that drives this home

00:47:49

like maybe no other in the Bible.

00:47:51

It's a story that gets recounted

00:47:53

a number of times throughout Scripture,

00:47:56

in all kinds of different ways.

00:47:57

God saved one person, one, from the city of Jericho.

00:48:03

He given Israel specific instructions to go in

00:48:06

and take everyone out.

00:48:07

And then He made an exception, one person.

00:48:12

And we find that person's story mentioned

00:48:15

three times in the New Testament,

00:48:16

one time in a very interesting place

00:48:19

in the family tree of Jesus himself.

00:48:22

Here's what it says in Matthew 1:1,

00:48:25

the person that God saved out of Jericho,

00:48:27

her name was Rahab.

00:48:30

This is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah,

00:48:33

the son of David, the son of Abraham.

00:48:35

Now the family tree goes on, the son of, the father of,

00:48:39

and the son of and the father of and the son of.

00:48:41

That's the part you usually go, and the next page, you know?

00:48:45

But if you read a couple verses down,

00:48:47

you would find this: Salmon, the father of Boaz,

00:48:49

whose mother was Rahab.

00:48:53

There's only a couple of women

00:48:54

mentioned in that family tree.

00:48:55

If you want to do something interesting,

00:48:57

you should go find out who all those people are.

00:48:59

One of them is Rahab, whose mother was Rahab.

00:49:03

The easy answer to, you know,

00:49:05

why did God pick her to save out of Jericho?

00:49:08

The easy answer would just be to, like,

00:49:10

leave it on the surface.

00:49:11

Go, "Well, obviously she's going to be in Jesus's family tree.

00:49:15

She can't die there. So God was like, 'You. I'll take you.'"

00:49:18

Well, what if I told you she was the City of Jericho prostitute?

00:49:24

Would you have any other questions?

00:49:27

Want to know anything else about this person

00:49:29

who somehow ends up in the family of God,

00:49:32

ends up birthing someone

00:49:35

that eventually leads to his Messiah.

00:49:38

If you understand the story of Rahab,

00:49:40

if you get why it was that God

00:49:42

looked over all the city of Jericho,

00:49:44

an entire walled city with a very well-developed population,

00:49:48

and He went, "You know who I'll take? I'll take her."

00:49:52

If you understand why God chose her, why he saved her,

00:49:56

why he preserved her out of that city,

00:49:58

it will change your entire life.

00:50:00

Because Rahab was no prize. No prize.

00:50:04

She was exactly who you think she is.

00:50:07

She was a woman. Gasp!

00:50:10

She was foreign to the nation of Israel,

00:50:12

which is in their law, looked at extremely differently.

00:50:17

So she was an outsider to the nation of Israel entirely.

00:50:20

And she was a prostitute, violating any moral code

00:50:26

that would have existed in any nation at that time.

00:50:30

She was a prostitute.

00:50:31

Rahab was as low as you could get in terms of status.

00:50:36

But see, her story adds to what the Battle of Jericho

00:50:39

already shows us, that faith trumps everything

00:50:42

because it not only trumps the strength

00:50:44

that an army could build, it actually trumps

00:50:46

the status that any one person could have.

00:50:50

We have to wrestle with the fact that

00:50:52

this was God's choice out of the whole city,

00:50:54

and faith is always also greater than status.

00:50:58

I want you to hear how her story begins.

00:51:02

Then Joshua, son of Nun,

00:51:03

secretly sent two spies from Shittim.

00:51:06

(Brian Tome favorite Bible city.)

00:51:10

"Go look over the land," he said, "especially Jericho."

00:51:14

So they went and entered the house

00:51:16

of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

00:51:19

They went and entered the house of a prostitute.

00:51:23

Anybody want to talk about that?

00:51:25

That seems a little crazy, doesn't it?

00:51:27

Well, it's not quite as crazy as you might think,

00:51:29

because in that time it would have been pretty common

00:51:32

for prostitutes to be running the inn.

00:51:34

I mean, that makes sense.

00:51:36

Spend the night. Get a little add on. You never know.

00:51:40

Some of you are like, "Hmm. Okay."

00:51:43

Seriously, that's what was happening.

00:51:46

There was an inn. It was her home.

00:51:47

It was very likely built into the actual wall

00:51:50

of the city near the city gate.

00:51:53

And that makes sense as well.

00:51:55

Travelers pass by, so the spies

00:51:57

would have come through the city gate.

00:51:58

And nearly the first place they would have been

00:52:00

encountered with would have been Rahab's home,

00:52:02

which was very, very likely being run as an inn.

00:52:06

And so the spies come into this home.

00:52:09

And the King of Jericho finds out about it.

00:52:11

And he's like, because they're you know,

00:52:13

they know that Israel is encamped. It's very clear.

00:52:16

And so he's like, "Hey, heard about two guys, you know?

00:52:20

Um, I want you to bring them out to me.

00:52:22

Who are these dudes?"

00:52:23

And Rahab, he wants Rahab to give up

00:52:26

whoever these two men are that came into her home.

00:52:28

And here's what she says back to the king's men.

00:52:32

"Yes, the men came to me,

00:52:33

but I didn't know where they'd come from.

00:52:35

At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left.

00:52:38

I don't know which way they went.

00:52:39

Go after them quickly. You might catch up with them."

00:52:42

(But she had taken them up to the roof

00:52:45

and hidden them under the stalks of flax

00:52:47

(she had laid out on the roof.)

00:52:49

This is the moment that Rahab's unusual,

00:52:53

unexpected story of faith begins.

00:52:56

In Hebrews 11:31,

00:52:58

that same chapter in the book of Hebrews,

00:53:00

recounts her story very briefly,

00:53:03

looks back on it and says this about it.

00:53:05

By faith the prostitute Rahab,

00:53:08

because she welcomed the spies,

00:53:11

was not killed with those who are disobedient.

00:53:14

So she had a story that began with this,

00:53:18

with this welcoming of spies,

00:53:20

with this deception to the king.

00:53:22

And the two little words

00:53:23

that started that sentence again were what?

00:53:27

By faith she did that.

00:53:30

But how could that be?

00:53:32

The New Testament looks back on this act,

00:53:35

let's face it, an act of treason by a prostitute

00:53:38

and calls it faith. What?

00:53:42

I mean, for real, you could see her actions

00:53:45

in a lot of other ways.

00:53:47

I think it's fair to ask, how again,

00:53:50

is this a big act of faith?

00:53:52

What is going on there?

00:53:56

And I want to give you a glimpse

00:53:58

to the last part of her story that we get.

00:54:00

Because when God decides what an action is and means,

00:54:05

He's looking not on the surface

00:54:07

or not just on the surface,

00:54:09

but all the way down into what motivated it,

00:54:13

all the way down underneath the surface.

00:54:15

And God had no problem also having

00:54:18

that information about you and me.

00:54:19

Two people can do the same thing, right,

00:54:22

for wildly different reasons.

00:54:25

And actions that you or I might misinterpret on the surface,

00:54:29

God knows precisely where they have come from.

00:54:32

And here is where they came from.

00:54:33

God sees through her actions,

00:54:36

and we get a little glimpse of this in the text.

00:54:38

It says: Before the spies lay down for the night,

00:54:41

she went up to the roof and said to them,

00:54:43

"I know that the Lord has given you this land,

00:54:47

and that a great fear of you has fallen on us,

00:54:50

so that all who live in this country

00:54:51

are melting in fear because of you.

00:54:54

We've heard how the Lord dried up the water

00:54:56

of the Red sea for you when you came out of Egypt,

00:55:00

and what you did to Sihon and Og,

00:55:01

the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan,

00:55:04

whom you completely destroyed.

00:55:06

When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear,

00:55:09

and everyone's courage failed because of you.

00:55:11

And pay really close attention to this last sentence,

00:55:15

she says, "For the Lord your God is God in heaven above

00:55:20

and on earth below." She believed.

00:55:26

Did she have all the information? Definitely not.

00:55:29

But her actions were born inside of belief.

00:55:33

She would have been in a position, honestly,

00:55:35

because of what she did, to have a lot of information

00:55:38

from travelers and from passersby and from people

00:55:41

that were coming in and out of the city.

00:55:43

And she had learned at some point

00:55:45

about the God of Israel and what He had done.

00:55:48

And she actually believed it.

00:55:51

She believed that His power had done those things.

00:55:53

She believed the story of the miracle

00:55:55

of the parting of the sea and that God was behind it.

00:55:59

She believed that He had given her

00:56:02

the land that her people occupied.

00:56:05

Who told her that?

00:56:07

It was currently a walled, protected,

00:56:09

very established city,

00:56:11

but she believed it belonged to them.

00:56:15

She actually believed God.

00:56:17

She believed so much that when the time came

00:56:21

that she could act on that belief, she took it.

00:56:24

And she took it no matter what it looked like on the surface,

00:56:28

no matter what you or I would look at

00:56:30

and call a lie or a deception

00:56:32

or an act of treason or whatever, she looked at

00:56:34

and said, "I have the opportunity right here,

00:56:37

right here, to move by faith in that God,

00:56:41

the real God, the one of heaven above and earth below."

00:56:45

That is what she did,

00:56:46

no matter what it looked like on the outside.

00:56:48

Faith is action. It's an action of belief.

00:56:53

And Rahab moved, and was it perfect? Definitely not.

00:56:56

Could you criticize it? For sure.

00:56:59

Did she have limited information about this God? Yes.

00:57:02

Did she understand their law and her place in it?

00:57:05

Certainly not.

00:57:07

But her actions could definitely be questioned

00:57:10

in other contexts, but the one thing you couldn't say

00:57:14

is that it wasn't by faith.

00:57:18

That's about all you could say that it was.

00:57:22

And frankly, God is far, far more interested in that,

00:57:26

far more interested in who's it coming from

00:57:29

and what her status is, and whether it's fair

00:57:31

for her to be the one and how much she knew

00:57:34

and when did she know it,

00:57:35

and does she understand everything about Him?

00:57:37

He wants to know, "Can you take the little bit

00:57:40

that you do know about Me and actually move on it,

00:57:45

actually do something as a result of your belief?"

00:57:48

See, real faith is always

00:57:49

a belief that results in an action.

00:57:51

And it's not for the sake of the action.

00:57:53

It's because the action tells you

00:57:55

how deeply held that belief is.

00:57:59

James gives this story of Rahab in the New Testament

00:58:03

in the letter of James.

00:58:05

He uses her story to demonstrate exactly that point.

00:58:09

Here's how he puts it.

00:58:10

In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute

00:58:15

considered righteous for what she did

00:58:17

when she gave lodging to the spies

00:58:20

and sent them off in a different direction?

00:58:22

As the body without the spirit is dead,

00:58:24

so faith without deeds is dead.

00:58:29

James is pushing at the same point.

00:58:31

Faith is not a thumbs up to the Word of God.

00:58:33

Faith is a belief so deep

00:58:36

that you can't help but sit on it,

00:58:38

that you can't help but stand on it,

00:58:39

that you can't help but move on it.

00:58:43

And let's go back to the story for a minute,

00:58:45

because Rahab didn't stop there.

00:58:47

This story goes on as she hides the spies for the night,

00:58:51

and then she sends them off with some instructions

00:58:53

based on her knowledge of the land

00:58:55

and where the king's men went and all that.

00:58:57

And then she negotiates herself a deal.

00:59:00

She says, "Okay, I've been good to you.

00:59:03

I believe in your God, and I've been good to you.

00:59:05

So when you attack this city,"

00:59:07

which she knew they would,

00:59:09

"When you attack this city, will you save me?"

00:59:14

And they work out this bargain

00:59:16

where she's going to hang this long red cord

00:59:19

from her window and when the attack happens,

00:59:23

which she doesn't specifically know,

00:59:27

her bargain with the spies is that

00:59:29

she and she alone will be saved.

00:59:34

And I just want you to think back to

00:59:36

what we said about the battle,

00:59:37

how they encircled the city,

00:59:39

and they did all the odd things that God told them to do.

00:59:42

And they blew the trumpet and they yelled really loud.

00:59:44

And then it was God who made the walls fall.

00:59:48

So the fact that we know that Rahab survived

00:59:52

means not just the spies took that bargain, God did.

00:59:58

God was like, "You know what? Okay, we'll do it.

01:00:02

You, I'll take you."

01:00:05

And so just imagine with me the seventh lap

01:00:09

on the seventh day.

01:00:10

And they're they're going around the city

01:00:13

and she knows, "Oh, this is different. Today's the day."

01:00:16

And she's got hope and fear

01:00:18

and all the things you would feel if you were Rahab.

01:00:20

And suddenly, according to Joshua 6:20,

01:00:23

the people shouted a great shout,

01:00:25

and the wall fell down flat.

01:00:37

And when it fell, there was one piece that didn't fall,

01:00:43

and it would have been Rahab's house.

01:00:46

Just imagine that.

01:00:48

In the wall, the home of a prostitute

01:00:52

was the only piece of the wall that didn't fall.

01:00:55

The only person that survived this battle

01:00:58

because they came in the city,

01:00:59

they did exactly what God told them to do.

01:01:01

They wiped everyone out.

01:01:02

And then they honored the bargain of a prostitute,

01:01:06

and they saved her.

01:01:07

And she became part of the people of Israel.

01:01:11

Now, I love the story of Rahab.

01:01:14

It says so many things about God.

01:01:16

It says so many things about who He is

01:01:19

and how He behaves toward us and all those things.

01:01:21

But I have a little bit of beef with God about this,

01:01:25

because every time her story shows up,

01:01:27

except in the genealogy,

01:01:29

they call her Rahab the prostitute.

01:01:31

And I'm like, can you cut a girl a break?

01:01:34

I mean, like, really?

01:01:36

That's what you want to call her?

01:01:38

Like, this is a pretty impressive amount of faith

01:01:41

and why are you going to call her a prostitute all the time?

01:01:45

Can't she be Rahab the faithful?

01:01:48

Rahab the one and only?

01:01:49

You know, David got a man after God's heart,

01:01:52

and Peter got the rock, and she gets Rahab the prostitute?

01:01:56

I'm like, seriously, God?

01:01:58

And almost -- And by the way,

01:02:00

I really do talk to God like that.

01:02:01

Like, when I find something in the Bible that

01:02:03

I'm like, I don't understand this, and I don't like it,

01:02:07

I just tell Him that.

01:02:09

And you'd be amazed at the way He'll answer you.

01:02:11

Almost as soon as I asked the question out loud,

01:02:14

which I did say out loud,

01:02:17

I had the answer right in my hands

01:02:21

because I asked the same question: why her?

01:02:26

Calling her Rahab the prostitute,

01:02:28

preserving that aspect of who she is,

01:02:31

who she was, and what her place was in this story,

01:02:34

it forces you into the question: why her?

01:02:40

And the only answer there is, the only one is faith.

01:02:46

That's the only excuse for her survival.

01:02:50

And it's also the story of Scripture from beginning to end.

01:02:54

Faith equals salvation.

01:02:57

It's faith that saved Rahab, and nothing else.

01:02:59

It's faith that saves you and me, and nothing else.

01:03:02

Rahab's story makes that clear,

01:03:04

and it echoes with the gospel

01:03:07

because Jesus came to make us a salvation

01:03:10

by faith available to all people.

01:03:15

And Rahab's story, it just is rich

01:03:18

with the echoes of the gospel.

01:03:20

And Paul captured these words about Jesus's work

01:03:23

in Galatians chapter two.

01:03:25

Know that a person is not justified by works of the law,

01:03:29

but by faith in Jesus Christ.

01:03:31

You and I are saved by nothing else but faith,

01:03:34

faith, and faith alone.

01:03:36

Faith in Jesus and nothing else.

01:03:38

Faith in Jesus being the Son of God who came down

01:03:42

and lived a life you can't live

01:03:43

and died a death in your place and rose from the grave

01:03:47

into a life that you and I are invited into.

01:03:50

How? By faith.

01:03:54

That's the big plan.

01:03:56

That's the winning strategy.

01:03:58

And that faith, how do we know it's real?

01:04:01

When we believe it so much that we can't help but move.

01:04:06

We can't help but act, even when it's weird,

01:04:10

even if it's risky, even if nobody else understands it.

01:04:13

That's the kind of faith that God is watching for,

01:04:15

that God is noticing.

01:04:17

And we say we like it. We really do.

01:04:19

We say, like, "That sounds great.

01:04:21

God offers, you know, by His grace, faith.

01:04:24

And if I believe, then I'm saved.

01:04:26

Oh man, what a sweet deal." And it is a sweet deal.

01:04:29

But then we give ourselves away

01:04:30

because we say things like this.

01:04:32

"I'm a pretty good guy. I'm better than that guy.

01:04:36

At least I didn't do that.

01:04:39

I mean, you mean to tell me that

01:04:40

God's going to save that person over me?

01:04:43

I don't think so."

01:04:44

You know, we talk like that, and we give ourselves away

01:04:47

that we really, really don't get it.

01:04:50

There was probably a super hard working,

01:04:53

keep your nose clean kind of guy in the city of Jericho.

01:04:56

How do you think he felt the day the walls fell

01:04:58

and God picked the prostitute over him? By faith.

01:05:08

When we get this, when we understand that

01:05:11

that's what God wants from our life,

01:05:12

it starts to change everything.

01:05:14

It starts to change the kind of risks you'll take,

01:05:17

the kind of people you value,

01:05:18

the kind of places you're willing to let God take you.

01:05:21

It makes you less afraid overall,

01:05:23

but it also makes you much more afraid

01:05:26

to just live the comfortable American life.

01:05:28

And at the end of the day, be left going,

01:05:30

"At least I'm a little better than that guy,"

01:05:32

because God is watching and waiting for one thing

01:05:36

and one thing only, and it's faith.

01:05:38

And He's scanning the cities and communities

01:05:41

just like He was Jericho.

01:05:42

And He's watching for the people

01:05:44

that are really willing to move by faith.

01:05:47

And He's going to go, "I'll take that one.

01:05:52

That's what He loves. That's why He saves.

01:05:55

And it always has been, and it always will be.

01:05:58

And it's faith of messy people

01:06:00

and imperfect circumstances with limited knowledge

01:06:03

and all the rest of it.

01:06:05

Faith was the first step that Israel took

01:06:08

into the life of promise.

01:06:09

It was the last step Rahab had left when she was saved.

01:06:14

And it's what God is watching for in our life as well.

01:06:17

Will we move by faith?

01:06:20

Will we believe Him so much we can't help but act on it?

01:06:25

So what's in front of you right now?

01:06:27

What's in front of you that God might be

01:06:30

setting up as a chance, the way that H

01:06:32

e sent those spies right into Rahab's house,

01:06:35

He often will bring us circumstances

01:06:37

where we get to decide

01:06:38

will we move by faith here?

01:06:40

So what is it between you and God?

01:06:42

Because this can look a million different ways.

01:06:44

It can be misunderstood by all.

01:06:46

It can be the boldest thing you've ever done

01:06:50

or the quietest thing you've ever done.

01:06:52

I want to give you a few examples from that chapter

01:06:54

in Hebrews that tells us what other people God noticed,

01:06:59

what they did by faith. These are just a couple.

01:07:01

By faith Abel gave sacrificially.

01:07:05

By faith Noah built something no one had ever seen before.

01:07:08

By faith Abraham moved to a new city.

01:07:11

By faith Moses walked away from his wealth

01:07:14

and his privilege to be counted among God's people.

01:07:17

I want you to have a story by faith.

01:07:20

What's yours?

01:07:21

By faith Jens did this.

01:07:24

By faith Mike went here. By faith.

01:07:27

And I was thinking about some of mine

01:07:29

and I'll just throw you a few of my examples

01:07:31

as I look back and I even I was thinking

01:07:33

about them in the car on the way here this morning.

01:07:35

And I was like, "Oh, I think that was by faith, too."

01:07:38

I just kept thinking of these little moments

01:07:40

where maybe nobody else would ever know,

01:07:42

but God sees through it to the bottom.

01:07:44

By faith I stayed married when we could have walked away.

01:07:47

By faith I've invited someone who hated me

01:07:50

to have a cup of coffee with me and talk.

01:07:53

By faith I don't work one day

01:07:55

from beginning to end every week.

01:07:57

By faith I left a career I worked really hard to build.

01:08:00

By faith we had a fourth baby when a lot of people

01:08:03

thought that was a weird thing to do.

01:08:05

By faith I remember pressing the button

01:08:07

on my seminary application submission button

01:08:11

and I said to God, "I don't know

01:08:12

what You're going to do with this,

01:08:14

but I think this is You."

01:08:17

By faith God writes epic stories in our life.

01:08:22

The way into the life that He promised you

01:08:24

is a step by faith.

01:08:26

And as you consider it, I just want you to remember

01:08:28

these words from Revelation.

01:08:32

They will wage war against the Lamb,

01:08:34

and the Lamb will triumph over them

01:08:36

because He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings,

01:08:39

and with him will be his called, chosen,

01:08:42

and faithful followers.

01:08:44

When you believe Him enough to move, you win,

01:08:47

you're going to be the last one standing.

01:08:49

Let me pray for you.

01:08:53

Father, I think there's all kinds of moves of faith

01:08:59

sitting right here in this room,

01:09:01

hidden all over our community at every site.

01:09:05

I think there are people listening right now

01:09:07

that might only ever hear this message

01:09:11

because You want to kick them into a move of faith

01:09:14

so that You can write an epic story with their life.

01:09:17

So do that in us, Lord.

01:09:19

We want to be people that move by faith.

01:09:23

Help us to do it.

01:09:25

It's in your precious Son's name, I pray. Amen.

01:09:28

- Hey guys, thank you so much for watching.

01:09:30

We want you to have, like Alli said, a by faith story,

01:09:34

a story that's marked by adventure,

01:09:35

by trusting God, and by seeing Him show up.

01:09:38

And that's what we exist to do, to help you grow

01:09:41

and take steps that might feel risky,

01:09:42

but are worth it to see you grow

01:09:44

in your connection with God and with other people.

01:09:46

You can chat in with us on the website

01:09:48

or in the app, or send us an email.

01:09:50

Myself and my team would love to pray for you,

01:09:53

chat with you and help you find your next step.

01:09:55

Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next week.

Faith Means Movement | Why Faith Isn’t Just About Agreeing With God

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