Latest / REZ CHURCH Podcast / Is Your Faith Invisible? - September 28, 2025

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Is Your Faith Invisible? - September 28, 2025 · REZ CHURCH Podcast

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Good morning. According to Open Doors World
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Watch List, about 13 people are killed every day globally for
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the Christian faith. Now that means that on average
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here, even in modern times in what we would call the civilized
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world in 2025, that about every two hours someone is killed for
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following Christ during our service.
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More than likely someone will lose their life here on earth
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for proclaiming Christ is king while we sit and worship him
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freely in this religious freedom.
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Someone will lose their life for this.
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My name is Daniel. I'm the lead preaching pastor
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here at Rez Church and we're in week 3 of a series called Why
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Are Things So Bad? And two weeks ago we looked at
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the first of three reasons that the Bible says there is
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suffering and pain in this world and that is that this world is
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broken. Everything has been fractured
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since that moment in which humans rebelled against God.
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And now all of humanity, in fact all of nature groans to be set
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right. That's one of the reasons we
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suffer. Last week we looked at the
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second reason the Bible says we suffer.
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And that is that often times what we we're experiencing is
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simply the consequences of our own actions.
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Amen. Yeah, I can relate to that.
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And today we're going to look at a third reason that the Bible
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says that there is suffering. Jesus actually guaranteed us
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that if we followed him, there would be a specific type of
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suffering that we would experience and it would go so
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far. He would go so far as to say we
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should not be surprised by it when it comes.
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When I was a sophomore in high school was 2 year, 2 weeks into
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the sophomore year, my family moved to Bakersfield and I
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joined the football team at East High and I found out there was
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an assistant coach on that team that hated Christians.
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How do I know? Because he told me I hate
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Christians. I was like and So what?
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What? What then happened is every
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single day that I went to practice, he made sure to find
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me and remind me, make fun of me, have me do extra drills and
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extra work, pulled me out of the lineup because he hated
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Christians. This was nothing at all like the
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type of suffering we're going to talk about in the Bible.
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However, it was the first time in my life that it became a
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reality to me that people might treat me differently for
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following Christ. See, up until then, everything
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about Christianity was easy or good or positive.
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It was all benefits. This was the first time there
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was a real cost that I'd ever really considered.
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And I will tell you, I was surprised by it, even though the
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Bible says don't be surprised by it.
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There's a guy named Peter. He was an apostle.
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He spent probably probably spent the most time with Jesus during
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the the three years that Jesus was doing ministry here on
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earth. And he's going to write a couple
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letters later in his life, and we're going to look at one of
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them today. And when he was younger and he
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was walking with Jesus, he was constantly challenging Jesus and
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saying like, hey, this, this idea that you have to go and
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suffer and die, like that doesn't make any sense.
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So he's challenging, he's pushing on him.
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He's questioning him all the time.
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And then the moment that things got really hot and really hard
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and persecution begin to happen, Peter ran away.
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But later in life, he's going to write a letter, and his
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perspective on suffering, his perspective on this has changed
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substantially. He actually becomes one of the
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central leaders of the first church, and he has endured
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beatings and ridicule and persecution for Christ.
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And so he's going to write a letter, and we're going to see
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how his perspective has changed about this.
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We're going to pick this up in First Peter chapter 4, verse 12.
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This is what it says, beloved, and do not be surprised at the
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fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you has though
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something strange were happening to you.
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But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you
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may also rejoice, and be glad when His glory is revealed.
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If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed
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because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
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Now, if that weren't clear enough, Jesus in John 15 and in
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Luke 6 is actually going to explain to us that if, if we
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give our lives to Christ, the world will hate us because we no
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longer belong to the world. We belong to Christ.
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In fact, He promises that in fact, Jesus will go so far as to
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tell us this. He says we should consider
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ourselves blessed when people hate us and treat us differently
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for following Christ. Do you we should consider
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ourselves blessed when people treat us terribly for the name
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of Christ? No, thank you.
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I do not like the sound of that. Unsubscribe.
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That does not sound like a good thing, but, but here's what I
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want to do. I want to peel this apart.
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OK, this is the last week we're looking at this, this idea of
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suffering. The third reason.
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And and I think that that for you and I say me, I think for
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you and I, we have a very distorted view of suffering.
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And so like particularly this kind of suffering.
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And so I, I want to peel it up. I want to really look at this
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today. And if you get nothing else, if
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you take one thing away from today, it's this idea.
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We should pray to be persecuted, not passive or political.
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We should pray to be persecuted, not passive or political.
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We're going to look at that real quick in three ways.
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First, we're going to define it. So we're going to define
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persecution biblically. Secondly, we're going to explain
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why it is mostly absent from our lives.
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And 3rd, we're going to talk about why we should pray for its
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presence. Why we should pray for its
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presence. OK, so here's the first thing.
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What is persecution? It is a very specific type of
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suffering according to the Bible.
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Peter in his letter will say fiery trial.
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That's the word he'll use. And he's talking about this type
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of suffering that comes from following Jesus.
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It's not a random bad luck. It's not general life problems.
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It's not even the consequences of my own actions.
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It's something more specific than that.
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It's opposition, targeted opposition because of our faith.
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And, and the Bible would tell us to think of it like gold being
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refined, that it's going to get really hot, but it's not to
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destroy the gold, it's to refine it and to purify it.
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And so we're going to see a little bit of that in here as
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well. Look at this verse we just read.
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Let's let's break it down just a little bit more detailed and
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you're going to see a couple things about persecution and and
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how we should have a change maybe our perspective of it.
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Here's what verse 12 says is beloved, do not be surprised.
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Meaning, meaning we should expect suffering and difficulty
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and not be let's be real, it's the opposite, right?
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We actually expect comfort and luxury and then we're shocked
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when it's not. The Bible says you should be
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shocked when you're not being persecuted.
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You should be surprised when you when you don't have difficulty
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at the fiery trial. We'll talk about it in a minute
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when it comes upon you to what's that word test you so, so fiery
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trial. And in just a moment, we'll read
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a couple other verses from some other people because James,
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another apostle will call this trials of various kinds.
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He'll say it a little differently.
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And Paul, yet another he'll just call this suffering in general.
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But but the goal for all three of them is the same as this
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right here. Test you.
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It's the test you as though something strange were happening
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to you. But Oh no, what's that word?
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Rejoice. Rejoice about suffering.
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Show of hands any anybody suffered recently.
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Go ahead. Come on.
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How many people in the midst of that were like, thank you, Lord,
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nobody. Come on.
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We're not that kind of people. We hate.
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We hate suffering. We hate it.
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The Bible says, no, no, no, rejoice in this.
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And and here's the thing. Peter's writing this, OK, And
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you might say easy for you to say, no, no, he lived this in in
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Acts. We get a story right after the
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church is forming and this guy Peter is preaching.
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He's saying like, man, we saw Jesus, he resurrected, he's the
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king, he's the savior. And man, there's some people
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that do not like that and they pull him into like this council
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and they tell him not to do it and he doesn't listen.
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And they severely beat him. And this is what happens right
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after they beat him. Acts 541 Then they this is
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Peter. And another apostle left the
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presence of the council. Oh no, that word again,
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rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for
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the name of Christ. And it's not just Peter that's
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saying this because maybe we could write this off as like,
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well, there's always one weird guy, right?
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I mean, so Peter, No, no, no, James, who's the half brother of
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Jesus and and doubted that Jesus was even the Messiah until he
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saw him resurrected, becomes an elder of the first church and he
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writes a letter and in James one like right out of the gate, the
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start of the letter says this. Count it all joy, my brothers,
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when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the
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testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let
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steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect
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and complete, lacking in nothing.
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And then a little bit after these guys, a guy named Paul is
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going to become an apostle, and he's going to write this in
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Romans 5. Three.
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Not only that, but we owe not that word again.
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Rejoice in our sufferings, knowing the suffering produces
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endurance. So Jesus and Peter and James and
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Paul, they actually, they, they all not only wrote this, they
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all lived this out. In the 1st century, your
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community was pretty much determined by who you
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worshipped. And that meant that if you were
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going to worship Christ, you would have to abandon
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everything. Your family, your friends, your
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culture, your security, your politics.
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For Jewish Christians, it meant even more.
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To be a Jewish Christian in the 1st century meant beatings and
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imprisonment. You'd be ostracized.
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You might be killed. And so and so Peter says don't,
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don't be surprised by persecution.
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It was promised. Let me tell you why that's so
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hard for you and I to even get our minds around is we live in
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2025 in America. This is a pseudo Christian
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nation that's quickly becoming postmodern.
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And what does that mean pseudo Christian?
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It means we have all of the tradition and trappings of
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Christianity without Christ. And so you could eat.
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Here's here's what I mean by that.
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It's so easy to hide as a Christian here, isn't it?
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Imagine you were a Muslim in a closed country where Christian
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Christianity meant death. And in the moment, you're not
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showing up to the mosque at the right time on the prayer mat,
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bowing down, saying the right prayers, You're getting found
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out. But here he ain't got to do
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nothing to hide. A few years before I became a
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pastor, this is a little while back, I was at another church.
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I was teaching a, a adult Bible study on Sunday mornings.
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And so in my car had my Bible and like my materials for the,
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the Bible study in the passenger seat.
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And I was going to take a client of mine.
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I had a tech business and we were going to go to lunch.
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And so he gets in the car and I was like, oh, sorry.
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He's like, what is this? And I was like, what's my Bible?
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That's my Sunday school material because I teach this class and
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he looks at me and goes, You're a Christian.
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And I've known you for four years.
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How is it that you don't know I'm a Christian?
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After four years, that's probably the most one of the
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most shameful moments of my entire life.
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How can I interact with this guy for four years and he had no
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idea that I serve Christ as king like I call Jesus my savior and
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the ruler of my life and I and I claim God with my lips.
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I, I would tell people that God took me from death to life and
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that that he said reset every priority in my life.
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And yet he's so insubstantial in the way that I live that someone
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that I've known for four years is shocked that I'm a Christian.
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What are we even doing? Like, can there be a greater
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failure for someone who claims Christ than to live a life
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without any sign of Christ? And he was like, oh, I don't
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mean that as an insult. And I was like, you have no
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idea. So of course I can't tell you
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about persecution. How can I be persecuted for a
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faith that I have no evidence that I live by?
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And so for most of us, there's an extreme absence of actual
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persecution. One of the reasons that you and
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I can't relate to real genuine biblical persecution like we we
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read in the Bible that we see in closed countries like China is
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that people would have to know we're a Christian before they
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could persecute us for it. I mean, OK, maybe we share some
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faith-based posts on TikTok and I got a cute like Christian van
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T-shirt or something. But no one that lives around us
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that interacts with us has seen anything substantial enough that
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it would even be of note that it would be worth mentioning.
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And so so it could be for you the same as it was for me.
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For many years, my life was so similar to an unbeliever that no
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one could tell the difference. My attitude, my judge,
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mentalism, my lack of patience, my lack of joy, my budget, my
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time, my goals. Not that different from someone
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who's spiritually dead. The greatest threat to American
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Christianity is passive pursuit. People would have to know I'm a
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Christian before I could be persecuted for it.
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And when my life looks roughly similar to someone who's
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spiritually dead and on the way to hell, no one needs to
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persecute me. I'm doing a great job of hiding
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the gospel of Christ all on my own.
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Now maybe, maybe some of you are watching online or you're here.
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You're thinking to yourself like, well, that's not me.
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I'm super vocal. OK, OK, a gentle warning.
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The world may only know how you vote, not who you follow.
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They see your political tribe, but they've never glimpsed your
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Saviour. And I can speak from experience
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from spending way too many hours arguing the Second Amendment on
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Facebook. That's not persecution for
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Christ's name. For many of us, people can't see
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Jesus because we've covered him with an American flag or a
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political sticker. And if you're thinking of the
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other political party than yours, I'm not talking about
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them. I'm talking about you.
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And when you begin to realize that the gospel you've been
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preaching is more cultural or political than biblical, the
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only appropriate response is humble repentance.
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By and large. And there's always exceptions,
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But by and large for me to spend time lecturing a non Christian
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about cultural things is insanity.
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They don't know Jesus, they're spiritually dead.
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Why would I try to teach morality to a corpse?
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I'm supposed to be introducing them to the author of Life.
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Can you imagine going into a cemetery and screaming at the
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gravesite about how they're behaving senseless?
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Facebook arguments aren't persecution and politics might
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be important, but they will not save anyone's soul.
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So we know what persecution is, and if we're being honest, we
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can admit that there's not a lot of it for us.
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But the third thing is why would we pray for its presence?
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That seems counter intuitive. Why would we want this kind of
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suffering? Because Peter says to rejoice.
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Now, he doesn't actually say to pray for it.
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He does say to rejoice, and he doesn't exactly tell us why we
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would we would rejoice, but his life shows us why we would
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rejoice. If we go back to his story in
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Acts 5, it says this rejoicing that they were counted worthy to
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suffer dishonor for the name of Christ.
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What does that mean? In that moment?
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He's saying me, who was once an enemy of God in rebellion to
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God, has now been counted worthy to represent him in suffering.
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Man, that is 1 Intense dude. But but James and Paul, whom we
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read earlier that they tell us much the same thing and they
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give us a little bit more explanation because what James
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will say is that the suffering will actually test our faith and
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it will produce in us a steadfastness.
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What is that? Think, think, rootedness.
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The refining that is coming will root us in our identity in
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Christ so well that the the the circumstances of life, the good
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and the bad, will not topple us over.
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Paul will say something very similar in that text in Romans
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5. He will call it endurance.
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But both of them are essentially saying this, listen, there is a
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a refining of our faith in our character.
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You ever wondered like man, how, how do I get character like
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Jesus? Like what would it look to even
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even think like that, to love like that, to walk like that?
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And the Bible's answer is by suffering for Jesus.
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Now that seems like a strange formula.
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But James says this, Paul says this all.
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In fact, all the authors of these texts that we just read
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will essentially say the same two things about suffering #1
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what persecution will reveal about our faith.
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So kind of like a litmus test, and what persecution will
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produce in our faith, what it will reveal about our faith, and
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what it produces in our faith. Now I want to show you both from
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their lives and even from my own life some some evidence of what
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this looks like. But but before I show you that,
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I'll just say before we ever had to get to this, it was already
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modelled for us by Jesus. Jesus himself endured the cross,
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despising the shame for the joy that was set before him.
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That's Hebrews 12/2. He didn't just so Jesus didn't
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just teach us to expect persecution, He actually showed
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us how to endure it with joy because he knew what was coming
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was greater. That's our model.
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Do you know? Listen, if you call yourself
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Christian, our entire faith is based upon suffering.
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Well, welcome to Race Church. It's not the prosperity gospel.
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It's not a genie in a lamp that we're going to rub when we have
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wishes. It's actually learning how to
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look at something that's greater and walk through potentially
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suffering in this life because the next one is greater.
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That's the Christian faith. And in suffering, we figure out
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really fast if our faith is real or if it was just lip service.
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There's a famous story that was has been told so many times that
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I don't know if it's real, but but there's a church in a closed
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country where Christianity is punishable by death.
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And they meet in a secret church that happens all over the world,
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even in 2025, by the way. And in on one particular Sunday
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when these believers are meeting, soldiers burst through
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the door, armed, round up everybody and, and, and put them
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in the center of the room. And an officer steps forward.
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Everyone's being held at gunpoint and says, you know that
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this offense is punishable by death.
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I'm going to give you one chance.
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If you will leave now and never come back, I will forget you're
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here. And most of them leave, but some
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of them stay. And he just shakes his head.
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And he looks at these people who have stayed to die.
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And he's like, you would die for this.
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Now they just stand there. They don't say anything.
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And everyone lowers their guns. And he says, we're Christians,
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too. We just wanted to know who the
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real Christians were. Now, look, I don't even know if
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that story is true. It's been told so many times.
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But that's not actually what bothers me about it.
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What bothers me about that story is thinking about whether or not
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I would have been one of the people that stayed, because
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that's a real cost. It's quite one thing for you and
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I to make bold claims about loving Jesus above all else.
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As we sit here in our freedom and our religious liberties.
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It's a whole nother thing to live that out when the bullets
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are flying. And it makes me wonder, y'all?
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Many of us cannot suffer to have our feelings hurt without being
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mortally offended, let alone suffer for the case of Christ.
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You're going to take a bullet for Jesus.
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You can't even take criticism, Am I right?
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And that's me so often. And listen to me if, if that's
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you, if our lives and our faith have been more about how do we
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stay comfortable? What what are we supposed to do
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with a text like this? Like, like, here's my question
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for you. It's been my question for myself
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since I began to read this years ago.
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How do I grow to have a pursuit of Christ that looks like this?
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And how do I do that here in America where things are
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relatively good like it? It is my great desire to see
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revival breakout in Bakersfield. So, so how do I pursue Christ in
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such a way? How do I get vocal about the
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right things? How do I do those things?
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And if I do, what will that look like here in America, in
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Bakersfield in 2025? Because if, because if
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persecution will reveal faith that is genuine like you, you
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realize everyone can follow God and claim to be a Christian when
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there are no downsides, right? But if we truly love him more
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than life, the Bible says, listen, persecution is going to
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come. Jesus guaranteed us persecution.
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And if we're not seeing that, like that's a that's, that's a
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problem because not only will it say something about our faith,
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but it, but the Bible says it will change us for the better.
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It will refine our character. It will grow our faith.
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It will give us stark clarity about the priorities in our
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life. And I want to give you a little
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bit of evidence just from the lives of these authors that it
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will and from my own life. 1st, every single person that I read
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to you from, they were not only persecuted.
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So they were not only writing this from personal experience,
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every single one of them was martyred for the Christian
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faith. They were killed for following
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Christ and they willingly walked to their execution with joy in
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their heart to their death. And so so for just a moment,
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like as we I want you to just think about in your own life,
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say me, OK, in your own life, you're reading about someone
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going to their execution claiming Christ.
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And then I want to think about you and me who like we get cut
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off in traffic and I'm almost non Christian for a minute.
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You know, persecution. Starbucks is out of pumpkin
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spice lattes. What like like you have a, you
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have a mild conflict with a friend and you're in it is
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you're spiraling and anxiety and depression.
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Like what would our lives look like though?
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OK, I don't want you to be ashamed of that.
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I want you to think of how much better it could be.
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What would our lives look like if we were pursuing God with a
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passion that was so incredible that you could walk to your
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execution in joy because what was coming was greater than what
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was happening now. Do you realize how easy conflict
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would suddenly seem here with that kind of faith, with that
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kind of joy? Like, can we even comprehend how
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good God is to experience suffering and have that kind of
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perspective? I want that.
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I want that if you're, if you're here today and, and you, you
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would not call yourself a Christian, maybe maybe you're a
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little sceptical about Christianity, maybe you had a
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bad Christian experience. Maybe you just, you label
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yourself a doubter or something. I just want you to, to, to, to
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think about this for a moment as we read all these texts.
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And I think it should cause you to pause and just consider, you
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know, every every major world religion has martyrs, but
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Christianity is unique. The guys here that that died for
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the faith, they weren't desperate revolutionaries.
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They weren't suicide bombers seeking paradise.
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These were ordinary dudes, fishermen, tax collectors.
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They're housewives. I mean, just normal people who
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claim to see Jesus alive after his crucifixion.
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And when they were threatened with death, they did not recant.
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You know, it's one thing to say, OK, maybe someone will die for a
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lie that they don't. They don't know it's a lie.
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But all these people died with this claim and would not recant.
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So they were either telling the truth about the resurrection or
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they were the most successful liars in history and they died
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rather than admit it. And if you doubt that Christ is
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king, I would just pause and wonder why so many people were
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willing to walk to their grave for that.
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And secondly, let me say this about the effectiveness of
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suffering. Maybe not persecution, but at
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least suffering. I, I have never experienced
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persecution anything like this, anything like they, they, they
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experienced in China or in Iran or in any of these places.
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But I have experienced the goodness of God in the midst of
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death and loss and pain and suffering, and it grew my faith
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like nothing in this world. I have stood in the hospital
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room holding the body of the child I lost.
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I have sat in in the living room to cry through the loss of close
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loved ones in tragic ways. I've suffered the emotional
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distress of significant pain in the ER room as I as everything
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was going wrong medically. And in each of these moments, it
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has led me closer to God, to a more dependent life on God, to a
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vibrant experience and stark clarity in my life and faith.
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And so in those, in those moments of suffering, when we're
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screaming out to the Lord, he is growing us.
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He is rooting our faith. It is being made deeper.
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Here's what I'm trying to tell you.
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You, you may be going through some crazy circumstances,
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probably not persecution, but maybe some suffering in the
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moment. And I want you to know this.
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Jesus is worth it. Oh, he is worth it.
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He is so wonderful. He is so good.
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You and I willingly partake in all the beautiful things of this
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world, right? Who likes food?
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Let's go. Who likes Taco?
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Everybody better like tacos. We, we partake in, in, in food
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and in comfort, in beauty, in relationships, like all these
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wonderful things. And what I'm telling you is the
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Bible says that is just a glimpse that is just a, a
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distorted reflection of, of, of the creator who created those
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things. It's meant for you to go, Oh
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wow, if, if the distorted version is this good, how much
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better is the author? So, so when you are are
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experiencing something that is just phenomenal here on earth,
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you need to realize that's just a cheap knock off from my Timu.
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The real version isn't even here yet.
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This life is supposed to be the worst life we'll ever live
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because the best 1 is coming. And we get caught up because
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everything is so comfortable here.
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We get caught up thinking like we're trying to make we have to
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make this life comfortable. We have to make this life
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amazing. That's not how this works.
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The best life is coming. The Bible says that this life is
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the worst life that I'll ever live because the next one is
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incomparable. Incomparable.
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Listen to this. This is second Corinthians 4.
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I just want you to hear this verse, OK?
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This verse is so good. It says this so we do not lose
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heart. Though our outer self is wasting
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away, our inner self is being renewed day by day for this
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light momentary affliction. They're being put to death.
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And he's like light momentary affliction.
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What's the movie where he gets his arms cut off?
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He's like tis but to scratch. They're being killed for the
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faith. And he says this light momentary
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affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory
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beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen,
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but the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are
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going to are transient. They're going away, but the
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things that are unseen are eternal.
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Amen. Come on.
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So we can have hope in what awaits.
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And while we're here, we can get on mission spreading that hope.
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Not politics, not opinions, not culture wars, the hope of
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Christ. And if we do, the Bible says
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we'll face persecution. Mark Clark recently said we
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can't change the world by minding our own business.
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Listen, y'all, I want to change the world.
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How about you? I wake up every day and they're
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like, what are we going to do today, brain?
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I'm like, what we're going to do every day, Pinky, take over the
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world with the gospel of Christ. Amen.
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So we can't mind our own business.
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We can't have a holy huddle where we pretend like we'll just
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wait here until Jesus comes back.
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There's a lost world out there. And I don't mean over the
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Atlantic like in Africa. I mean, most recent studies say
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that 90% of Kern County doesn't know Christ.
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We have work to do. So what do we do?
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We pray to be persecuted. We pray that we would be counted
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worthy of an honor to suffer for Christ.
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We pray to be persecuted not not passive and not political.
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We pray for it and like Peter says, don't be surprised by it.
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So how practically do we do this?
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Like what? What would that look like guys?
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If we want to reach our world with the gospel of Christ, we
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have to start with our neighbors, our Co workers, our
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relatives, our circles of influence.
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The Bible talks about going to the ends of the earth, but if
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your Co worker doesn't know you're Christian, you might not
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be ready for Africa. So let's start right here.
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When was the last time I served my neighbors sacrificially?
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Not the one I like, the one I don't like.
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When was the last time I stopped and prayed for someone when I
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realized they were hurting? When was the last time I just, I
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asked someone to come and join me to hear the gospel of Christ
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on a Sunday morning. Like you, you don't need a
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mission trip or an evangelism certificate to start being
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missional. It starts right here.
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I keep these little keep all these little note cards in my
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Bible and, and, and as as the Holy Spirit kind of brings
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someone to mind or I run into them and I realize, oh man, I
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write their names down and I start praying for them and I
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keep them on my Bible. So I'm constantly running into
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them. People from the gym, neighbors,
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family members, and then I try to reach out to them every once
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in a while, check in on them, find out there's a way to serve
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them. Listen, you can do that.
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Take your bullets and insert, write down three names of of the
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first people to come to mind that are far from Christ.
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And then for each person, simply do this.
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Pray for them every day and at least once a month try to find a
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way to serve them. And at least once a year, invite
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them to church to hear the gospel.
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Pray daily, serve monthly, invite annually.
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Simple system. It might change their life,
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might change your life. Now, if you've, you've been
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sitting through our sermon and you've been kind of listening to
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all of this, or maybe you're online listening to this and,
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and you're, you're hearing us as we talk about this joy and the
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satisfaction in Christ. And you wish you had that too,
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perhaps perhaps today is the day that you will put your faith in
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Christ. If you, if you, if you're here,
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if you look, look around the room real quick, just look
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around. Do do you know how much evidence
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there is of God's goodness in this room?
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Amen. Do you know how many people in
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here whose stories are nothing but by the grace and mercy and
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kindness of God? Amen.
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There's a lot of that. There's evidence after evidence
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after evidence after story after story, testimony after testimony
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of God taking spiritually dead people who are a mess and
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bringing them to life. And let me tell you, I am the
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worst of the worst because I was a rebel and enemy of God, not
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only by nature but by choice. But God, in his richness and
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kindness, pursued me relentlessly, and He saved me
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not because I wanted Him to, because He was good.
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And I am not who I want to be, but by the grace of God, I am
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not who I used to be. It is a work of God.
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God desires to save you. And if you're realizing this for
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the very first time today, then perhaps God has grabbed your
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attention for a reason. He is at this very moment
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awakening your soul to the things above.
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He is saving you. And so I want to give you an
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opportunity to respond to the work that He's doing inside of
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you right now. The Bible says in Romans 10/9
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and 10 Because if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is
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Lord, and we believe in our hearts that God raised him from
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the dead, we can be saved. For with the heart 1 believes
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and is justified, and with the mouth 1 declares and is saved.
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If you would like to surrender your life to God for the first
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time today, I want to give you that chance.
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Will you please all bow your heads and close your eyes as we
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wrap up our service? Just a brief moment, if you are
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willing to ask God for forgiveness, for salvation, for
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this everlasting joy that seems to surpass all circumstances,
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with every eye closed, with every head bowed.
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I just want you to quietly or or silently repeat this prayer
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after me. Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner and I
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can't save myself. I need satisfaction that I can't
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seem to find. I want you to save me, so I
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surrender my life to you and I receive your promise of
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forgiveness, of adoption into your family, and of eternal
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life. Be my Lord.
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Please Jesus, if you prayed that prayer to surrender your life to
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Jesus for the first time right now, would you be brave and
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raise your hand for me to see? Thank you, thank you.
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You can put your hands down Jesus name, Amen.
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Real quick eye contact. If you just surrendered your
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life to God for the very first time, welcome to the family.
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In just a moment, we're going to stand up and we're going to sing
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to close our service out. And as we do, our protein is
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going to be up here and there are going to be some tables in
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the back. They say I raised my hand.
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So when if you just said that prayer, whether you raised your
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hand or not, I want you to sneak back there.
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I want you to tell them, man, I just gave my life to Jesus.
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We want to celebrate with you. We have a gift for you.
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We want to talk about what does it look like to pursue Christ?
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What does it look like to go hard after God?
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We stand. We're going to sing a song.
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Our prayer team's going to be up here.
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We love to pray for you. It doesn't matter what it we
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would just love to pray for you. But particularly today, if if
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you have been lacking in joy, if you've allowed the circumstances
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and season of your life to capsize that boat of yours, man,
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we want to pray for that joy. We want to pray for that
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rootedness so you come up here so we can pray for you.
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You move as the Lord leads you. We love you, Church.