Latest / REZ CHURCH Podcast / You Look Like Your Choices - September 7, 2025

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You Look Like Your Choices - September 7, 2025 · REZ CHURCH Podcast

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Well, good morning, everyone. They, they left my cage unlocked
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and I got out. So that's why I'm here.
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For those of you who don't know me, my name is Vance Furtado and
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I'm a volunteer teaching pastor here at Resurrection Church.
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And I have the privilege of bringing the last message on our
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series, The Way of Wisdom. And we're going to be taking a
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look momentarily in Proverbs chapter 24, and we're going to
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be looking at verses 27 to 34. Now, I don't know about you, but
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I have gotten a lot out of this series, and I hope you have as
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well. Matter of fact, I was talking
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with a friend just a few days ago and he would like to study
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both of us doing it together, the book of Proverbs.
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And I was telling him, I said, you know one thing you have to
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remember when you read Proverbs, and that is you need to read it
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slowly because if you read it fast, you miss the gems that are
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in this book. All right, So we read it, we
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ponder it, we ask God to teach us through it.
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And that's especially going to be true in what we're looking at
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today. Our topic is hard work and
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savings. All right, now, before we get
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into that, I want to tell you first of all, a true story.
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It's about a woman. Her real name is Joanne, but her
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friends call her Joe and Joe. Seven years after she graduated
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from university, she really felt her life was a failure.
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Her mom died of multiple sclerosis.
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She had no relationship with her father.
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She was divorced, being in a marriage with a very abusive
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husband. She is now a single parent
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raising a young daughter. Joe is barely surviving on a
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part time job and public assistance.
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She wrote about that time Rock bottom became the foundation on
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which I rebuilt my life. For all her troubles, Joe did
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have two things going for her. First of all, she loved to write
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and she was very good at it. And secondly, a few years before
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all of this was going on, she began imagining and writing
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about a young orphan boy. A boy that was unloved, who had
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survived certain death. A boy that had a scar like a
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lightnings bolt right in the middle of his forehead.
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The boy's name that she created was Harry Potter, and Harry
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Potter made Joanne JK Rowling a very, very wealthy woman.
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She became one of the most successful writers in modern
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times, Rowling would later write.
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It is our choices that show what we truly are more than our
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abilities. OK, let me ask us throw a
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question out there for all of us, all right?
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What if Rowling had simply given up?
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What if she refused to keep working?
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She refused to keep trying at what she was really good at?
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She could have chosen that. She could have made that choice.
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You see, every one of us makes choices, choices that will
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either help us or hurt us. Which will we choose?
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Now? Again, this sermon is on hard
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work and career, How we approach choices, what we choose to do.
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That affects not just what we do for work.
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It affects our opportunities. It affects our time.
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It affects our resources. It affects our talents.
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In short, it affects every single thing that God has
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entrusted to all of us. Our main idea guys, is this.
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We look like our choices. Now, in this passage, Solomon is
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going to present three different choices that we all have to make
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all the time, and we're going to again, focus this specifically
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on the area of work and career. So the first choice that we're
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going to see, and that's in Proverbs 24, verse 27, is choose
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priorities wisely. Second choice is in verses 28
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and 29. Choose integrity.
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Third choice, that's the rest of the passage.
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Choose to learn. All right, let's go ahead and
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take a look now and read the passage starting at Proverbs 24,
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verse 27. Read with me.
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Please prepare your work outside.
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Get everything ready in the field.
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After that, build your own house.
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Be not a witness against your neighbor without cause, and do
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not deceive with your lips. Do not say I will give to him as
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he has done to me. I will pay him back for what he
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has done. I passed by the field of
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sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold,
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it was all overgrown with thorns.
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The ground was covered with nettles, and the Stonewall was
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broken down. Then I saw and considered it.
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I looked and received instruction.
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A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the
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hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like an armed
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robber and want like an armed man.
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OK, first choice, verse 27. Choose priorities wisely.
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This picture that he's giving us, Solomon is giving us what?
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They would have seen that all the time, because people live
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very close to the land in the ancient world.
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But the idea of seeing a field, a farmer's field with nothing
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growing, but then seeing a very nice house in the middle of that
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field, that made absolutely no sense.
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Because what happened then was a person.
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Whoever was the knucklehead who did this, they're putting their
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home before their work. They're putting their comfort
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before a way to earn a living. You know, Pastor Daniel was
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telling me about this TV show that he really, really likes.
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It's called Alone, and I've never seen it, but I understand
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it's something like they take a bunch of people and they give
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each of 1, I don't know, maybe a pocket knife and a paper clip, I
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don't know. And then they send them out, out
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into the the wilderness, the boonies somewhere, and they tell
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them, survive. You don't get any help, You're
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alone. They have to get their own food.
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They have to prepare their own shelter.
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The question is, who's going to make it?
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Who's going to quit 1st? And I understand that the people
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who make it, who survived the longest out there are the people
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who prioritize getting the food. They're not worried about having
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a shelter shoot. They can sleep underneath a tree
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if they need to, but they work at getting the food.
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The people who don't make it figure out, oh, I'm going to
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build myself a nice place. And by the time they're halfway
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through, they're starving. They quit.
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You know, work has gotten a bad Rep.
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And I can prove that to you. How many of us have been tempted
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recently to buy a lottery ticket?
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You know, by the way, it really is dumb, isn't it?
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One chance in 292 million? Come on, you know, when we do
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something like that, it's an attempt to avoid something that
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we actually were created to do. And let me show you, OK, two
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important facts about work. First fact about work is this.
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We were created to work by God himself and I could prove that
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in the book of Genesis, very first chapter of the Bible it
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says this. So God created man in his own
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image. He created them in the image of
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God. He created them male and female.
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God bless them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply.
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Now catch this, fill the earth and subdue it.
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Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and over
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every creature that crawls on the earth.
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Subdue, rule. Then the next chapter, God is
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now placed Adam and eventually Eve will be there too.
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They're in this beautiful garden.
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It says Genesis 215. The Lord God took the man Adam
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and placed him in the garden to work in it and watch over it.
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He's not in the garden laying around on the grass sticking
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daisies in his ears. He's working, He's caring for
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it. He's doing and enjoying what God
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created him to do now. Yeah, we know what happens in
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the next chapter, Genesis 3. That's when Eve and Adam both
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sinned. They both basically bring sin
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into the world. They disobey God.
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They experience God's judgment, which we still struggle with
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today. And one of those judgments was
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the fact that the ground became much, much harder to grow food
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in. But that does not change the
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original mandate, the original purpose.
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Work is good. Repeat that after me.
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Work is good. I don't think some of you all
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believe that, but it is. OK What's your attitude about
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work? Yeah.
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I'm retired now. OK.
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But for decades, you know, Sunday night rolls around.
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Am I looking forward to going back and teaching my students?
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AM I looking forward to returning back to interact with
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my kiddos for another school year?
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You know, some of you all know this story, but I'll, I'll go
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ahead and share it. I was originally trained to be a
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pastor. I wasn't trained to be a
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teacher, although that's what I spent over 30 years of my life
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doing. So I came back, along with my
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wife. We came back to Bakersfield and
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I began pastoring a small church over in the northwest part of
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town. I ended up having to resign.
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I felt like a failure. We also lost the house that we
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were staying at because the house that the church was
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renting was the Parsonage. No pastor, no Parsonage.
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We had to move in with my parents.
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Linda was seven months pregnant with our first child.
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I had to work. I had to work at whatever jobs
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God brought my way. I worked in a diesel shop on
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34th St. for a while, sweeping, cleaning, taking care of their
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tools. I've worked for a while at at
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office and classroom furniture place, fixing up stuff and
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delivering it and making contacts with customer.
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After that I went back to school.
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I had to get a teacher's credential and I started working
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as a sub. By the way, I hated being a sub,
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but let me tell you, family and friends helped, but ultimately
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God took care of us. About a year after that, the
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Lord gave me another job working in the previous church that used
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to be here. He gave us another place to
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live, an apartment that we were able to rent.
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He took care of us. And you know, I learned some
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valuable lessons in doing jobs I didn't really want to do, but
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nevertheless, those were the jobs that God provided for me,
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for my family. Are you honoring God by how you
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approach work? Are you honoring your family by
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how you do your work? You see, there's 2 problems we
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often have when it comes to work and career.
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First problem, we overdo it. We basically make the job, We
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make the career our idol. We sacrifice our home, we
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sacrifice our kids, we sacrifice our marriage to this job.
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Wrapping up all of our identity in that job, putting in 607080
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hours plus and then wondering why our life and our family
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falls apart because we created and made that job an idol and
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God hates idols. So we overdo work.
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The other mistake that we make is we underdo it.
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God brings an opportunity our way.
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We need the job, and for whatever excuse we don't take
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it. You see, to overwork is sin.
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It's selfishness. God expects us to take care of
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folks around us, and we're basically treating this job as
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an idol. Underwork is also selfishness.
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Our comfort is more important to us than doing the right thing.
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And you know what? Selfishness is sin, pure and
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simple. Something else we need to
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realize about work is this. Our ultimate boss is the Lord
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Himself. Before the 1st service, bunch of
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us were over in the side room and Justin was taking us through
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how the service was going to work and how things were going
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to flow. And a certain somebody in that
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room, Pastor Daniel at one point mentioned that well, maybe we
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could use this particular song and the song was take this job
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and shove it. Of course, somebody had
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mentioned that to him, but thankfully Justin said no.
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Justin has more sense than us. OK guys.
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But the idea is, is that our ultimate boss is the Lord
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Himself. We're told that in the Bible.
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So here's what it says in Colossians 3.
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Whatever you do, work heartily As for the Lord and not for men.
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Knowing that it's from the Lord Himself, you receive the
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inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
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See what we can sometimes do. And I, I made this mistake too.
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We all have. We have the job.
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We don't really like the job very much.
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And So what do we do? We slack off on the job.
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We piddle. We know what we're supposed to
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do, but we're not doing it with our whole heart.
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We're just going through the motions.
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Our ultimate boss is the Lord Himself.
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Not the boss. The human boss we may not like,
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not the manager we may not get along with.
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We're a Christian. We work for Jesus.
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Regardless of whether we get a paycheck from the church or some
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other place, we work for Jesus. You know what's kind of cool is
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that the Lord Jesus told this parable.
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It's called the parable of the talents.
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It's in Matthew chapter 25. I'll let you read it on your
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own, but the parable is about these three servants, each of
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which was given a task. They were given some money and
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the idea of the master told them was invest this, use it.
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So two of the servants did exactly what they were supposed
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to do. They doubled the masters money,
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they worked one, went away and hit it, did absolutely nothing
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and then tried to pass that off as basically the master was a
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hard man, why work hard for him. But the two who did exactly what
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they were supposed to do, when the master came back and found
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out what they did, he said to both of them, Well done.
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Good and faithful servant, you've been faithful in a
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little. I will entrust you with much.
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Enter into the joy of your master one day.
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Scripture is absolutely clear about this.
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We will give an account before Jesus for what we have done.
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Do we want to hear him say well done, good and faithful servant?
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He is our ultimate boss. He's the one who really signs
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the check. Who are you really working for?
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Who's your real boss? Again, first priority choose or
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excuse me, first choice, choose priorities wisely and that
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includes how we approach work. All right, let's move on to our
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second choice. That's in verses 28 and 29, it
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says choose integrity. That's I bring up the idea of
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integrity, even though it's not mentioned here in these two
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verses, but I think you'll see where I'm going on this.
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All right. So just kind of bear with me.
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Let me first of all give you a good definition of integrity.
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Here it is. It's what we do when we think no
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one is going to catch us. Run that past you one more time.
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Integrity is what we do when we think no one's going to catch
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us. Now I need to confess something
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to you all. I have an addiction.
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It's to peanut butter. I'm sure peanut butter is in
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heaven. It has to be ten, 11:00 at
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night. The peanut butter jar is
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calling. Nobody else is in the kitchen.
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I slip out, take a piece of bread, maybe 2 pieces of bread,
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put a bit on it, chew it up, eat it before anybody catches me,
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and then I go back to bed. The sad thing is I always get
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caught and what always catches me is the scale.
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You see, I really was not practicing integrity because
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integrity, it includes not doing a wrong choice.
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And what we have here in these two verses, verses 28 and 29,
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Solomon who wrote Proverbs, he's given us 2 examples of a wrong
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choice. So verse 28, that's the first
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one, and that is don't be a false witness.
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Be not a witness against your neighbor without cause.
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Do not deceive him with your lips.
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In other words, don't lie. Don't slander another person.
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You know, it's interesting in earlier in this book, Solomon
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writes first he says 6 things and then he says, no, wait a
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minute. It's seven things that God
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absolutely despises and one of them is a false witness, a liar.
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And then the next verse do not say I will do to him as he has
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done to me. I will pay back the man for what
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he has done. The second example of a wrong
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choice is a vengeful person, a person who refuses to leave
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justice with God, a person that wants to kind of forget that the
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Lord says justice is mine. I will repay, says the Lord.
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Solomon's point is if you want to practice integrity, don't do
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what it says in verse 28 and 29. Now let's flip this.
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Integrity begins with obedience. Obedience to what Jesus tells us
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to do. Of course, Jesus tells us a lot
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of things, but let me just focus on one passage in particular,
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OK? Choosing integrity means
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obedience, especially to those things that are extremely
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important. Let me show you.
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This is from Matthew 22, verses 34 and 40.
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The words are partly by Jesus. Hearing that Jesus had silenced
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the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.
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One of them, an expert in law, tested him with the question,
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Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?
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Jesus replied. Love the Lord your God with all
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your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
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This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is
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like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.
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All the law and prophets hang on these two commandments.
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So practicing integrity means obedience.
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It means trying to live out those two ideas, loving God with
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everything that's that's within us and loving people around us
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just like we love ourselves. Does it mean we're going to be
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perfect? No, certainly not.
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But it means that as we trust God for the strength and
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ability, we keep striving, we pick up, we keep moving, we keep
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working out, we keep practicing. You know my daughter Kathleen,
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we call her cat. Several years ago, she ran a
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marathon. And if that wasn't crazy enough,
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she went away and she ran another marathon.
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I don't understand my daughter, but that second marathon I
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distinctly remember. She did the same thing in the
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first, but also I remember better about the second because
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she knew what that first marathon was like.
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So when she decided to run a second, her and her husband
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Weston set up a schedule. She trained for months,
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practicing, practicing, practicing to run 26 miles in
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one day. That's what the Lord is calling
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us to do. It's not like, hey, somebody
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like me, I'm going to go run a marathon.
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I won't even make it out of the parking lot.
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But the Lord expects us, if we practice integrity, to keep
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pushing and obeying Jesus. By the way, something else 2nd
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choosing integrity means we love people just as Jesus loves us. 2
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quick facts about that kind of love that Jesus gives us.
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Here's the first one. His love drew people to him
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despite their sin, so we're told in Luke 15.
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Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to
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hear him, and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled.
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They did that a lot, saying this man receives sinners and eats
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with them. In other words, these people
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didn't avoid Jesus. They sought him out.
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They wanted to be with him. There was something about Jesus
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and it was at least his love that was drawing these people to
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him. So the question for us, are we
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drawing people to or are we repelling people away from
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Jesus? Let me put it to you this way.
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Are we a doughnut or are we a yam?
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OK, No, I haven't gone crazy. Just bear with me on this, OK?
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What's a yam? A yam is something about this
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big that's masquerading as a potato, and it's the grossest
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thing you could ever possibly eat.
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There's a lot of things I used to be able to eat in East Africa
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when I was teaching at the seminary there in Uganda.
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But I do the lot of two things. Number one, no flying termites
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and #2 no yams. They're repulsive.
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Now, if you like yams, I'll pray for you.
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OK? Contrast that with a doughnut.
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Somebody walks into the office, has a box of doughnuts.
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Woo. Everybody comes to the box.
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All right? And other than the weird people
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who just want yams, but everybody else comes to the
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doughnuts. Why?
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Because they're drawn to them. OK, then, 2 miles of this
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church, There must be at least half a dozen doughnut shops.
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Do you know a yam shop anywhere? The point is that I'm.
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I know I'm being silly, but the point is simply this.
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Are we demonstrating Jesus in such a way to the people around
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us that people want to know Jesus by what they hear from us
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and by what they see in us? That's what we're called to do.
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That's practicing integrity. Secondly, his love.
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He gave us an example to follow. OK, so Jesus says in John 15, he
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says to his disciples and to us, my command is this love others
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as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than
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this, that he laid down his life for his friends.
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And of course, less than a day after he said this, that's
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exactly what He did. He laid down his life.
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He died on that cross for his disciples, and he died on that
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cross for us. He gave them personally an
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example of his love that cost him everything.
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But by the way, before he did that, he gave them another
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example of his love. In that same room where Jesus
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said what we just read earlier, the disciples had all sat down
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for a meal together. It's called the Passover.
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It's really a big deal with the Jewish people, still is today.
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But the deal is you want to clean yourself up to celebrate
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the Passover. And part of that involved
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washing your feet because every place they walked in the ancient
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world, they wore sandals and their feet got super gross.
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Well, the deal is why having to wash other people's feet?
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It's like the lowest or the lowest kind of job.
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Nobody did that other than a slave who couldn't do anything
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else. So they're all around the
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Passover reclining in AU shaped table with dirty, stinking feet
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because nobody wants to do that. So Jesus got up, took off his
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robe, put on the garment of a slave, and lovingly went from
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disciple to disciple, washing their dirty, stinking feet.
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And by the way, he even washed the feet of Judas, the man who
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was going to betray him. When he was done, he said this.
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You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.
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If I then your teacher and Lord have washed your feet, you also
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ought to wash one another's feet, for I have given you an
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example that you should do as I have done for you.
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Now people get hung up on the idea of foot washing.
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Should we do it? Should we not do it?
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You know what? I've been in foot washing
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things, ceremonies and services. Here's the deal.
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Nobody ever goes to a foot washing service in dirty feet.
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They always wash them ahead of time.
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And then the debate back and forth.
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It's even split churches as to whether you should do this or
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whether you're not. You know what that's missing?
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The point. The point that Jesus was putting
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a cross and we need to get this is showing real love.
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Showing real integrity is focused on others.
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It's loving somebody and putting ourselves out to do something
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that may be dirty, it may be stinky, but you know what?
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It's what God wants us to do. That's integrity.
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That's the love Jesus shows. You know, several weeks ago,
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Linda and I went down to San Marcos to visit Beverly, our
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granddaughter. Yeah, we're visiting the
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parents, too. Yeah, whatever.
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And we went to the beach, all of us, to Carlsbad Beach.
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And this little toddler, I mean, she couldn't have got more dirty
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on that sand in that beach if you had taken her and just
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rolled her on the sand, OK, She was absolutely filthy with sand,
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but very happy. Well, eventually they had.
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Everybody had to go home. And so Kat and West and her
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parents took her out of her seat, and before they put her in
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her car seat, they lovingly, very carefully washed off as
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much as that sand as they could. All the time she's fussing and
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screaming. Not really, but she was some.
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Why? Because that was showing love to
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their child. None of us deserves the love
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that Jesus gives us, but he loves us and he gives it to us
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anyway. That's the same kind of love we
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need to extend to others. So the second choice is to
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choose integrity. Third choice, choose to learn.
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Let's take a quick look at verses, beginning at verse 30 to
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verse 34. I passed by the field of a
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sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold,
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it was all overgrown with with thorns.
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The ground was covered with nettles, and the Stonewall was
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broken down. Then I saw and considered it.
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I looked and received instruction.
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A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the
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hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like a robber and
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want like an armed man. Imagine you're coming down I5
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from the top of the Grapevine into our valley, and you have we
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have that long decline to the valley floor.
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Do you speed on that decline? Don't try to tell me you don't
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because you probably do, because I do.
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But speed limit says 65. But when we're going too fast
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and we see the CHP guy and he pulls someone over to give him a
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ticket. And those are expensive, by the
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way. Is it better for us or for the
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other guy to get caught? Yeah.
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OK. Yeah.
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See, we can always learn from our stupidity.
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Amen. But isn't it better to learn
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from another person's stupidity? So let's focus on what we see in
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this passage. OK, What's wrong with this guy?
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He's called the sluggard. I'll call them lazy bones.
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What? At least two things are wrong
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with him. OK, first of all, he has a case
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of the littles 3 times. Little Bit of folding his hands,
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little bit of putting his head down, little bit of a nap.
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Point is, is that the guy keeps choosing the soft choice the
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easy way, over and over and over again until finally his
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opportunities have gone and he's not even aware of it anymore.
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Second problem, He lacks sense. Literally what Solomon wrote.
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He lacks heart. Now remember Jesus said what we
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have to do, the first and greatest commandment is we love
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the Lord our God with all our will, with all our strength, and
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with all of our heart. Lazy guy is heartless.
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He sacrifices what he could have been because he chooses to take
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the easy way. Here's the deal.
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Physical laziness and spiritual laziness are both thieves.
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They rob us of what we can experience.
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Now guys, the key verse is actually verse 32 where it says
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then I saw it and I considered it.
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I looked and received instruction.
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In other words, Solomon saying I chose to learn.
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A fool never learns anything, partly because they're too
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interested in expressing their own opinions and making excuses.
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A fool never learns anything. A wise person learns from their
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mistakes. The wisest person learns from
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the mistakes of others. Is there something right now
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that God wants you to choose to learn, but you're not listening?
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Last week, this last week, Pastor Daniel came into my study
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and he did what we call on the staff, a hard conversation, and
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I needed it because I had screwed up big time.
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You see, we get feedback from other people on our teaching
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team on these messages and I got some really good feedback, but I
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was not in the right place to receive it.
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Why? Because I was being a jerk and I
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hurt some people. And so my pastor came in and
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talked to me and we had this hard conversation and it was a
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good thing, really good thing. When we are corrected, are we
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going to choose to learn or are we going to let our pride get in
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the way? That's the choice we always have
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to make. If we don't choose to learn, you
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know what happens? God brings things around and we
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have to learn that lesson again. And if we still won't learn, He
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brings things around and He challenges us again.
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Why? Because He loves us.
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So the third choice, choose to learn.
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So the main idea again, is we look like our choices.
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Now, maybe you've, this is perhaps your first time here at
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Resurrection Church. And if so, we're glad you're
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here. Maybe you've been here a number
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of times before, but you're thinking I'm not a believer, I'm
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not a Christian. What does this have to do with
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me? Yeah, I know choices are
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important, but what does it have to do with me?
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Well, let me explain something. All right.
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You see, Jesus chose to reach out to you.
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Yeah, you didn't know it, but He did.
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He chose to reach out to you to provide for you by His sacrifice
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on the cross. The only way you can get to know
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God and experience eternal life. The most important choice any of
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us will ever make is what will we decide about Jesus?
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Will you ask Him to be your Savior and Lord?
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In a way that is a very easy choice.
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You know why? Because He did all the work.
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We can't save ourselves, so He reached out to help us, to save
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us in another way. Choosing to accept Jesus can be
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a hard choice. Why?
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Because we have to admit we need Him, that we're a Sinner, that
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we're separated from God, and that we absolutely have to have
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what only Jesus offers. Will you choose now to follow
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Jesus? All right, I'm going to ask us
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all, please, to bow our heads, close our eyes, simply so that
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there's not any distractions. If you want to choose to accept
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Jesus, I'm going to ask you either out loud or in your heart
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to pray this prayer with me. Jesus, I ask you to enter my
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life, to enter my heart. I ask you, Lord, to save me,
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take over my life, heal my heart, let me have a
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relationship with you. If you prayed that prayer, would
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you just raise your hand so I can see it?
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Nobody else, but just me? Thank you.
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You may put your hands down. Listening to Pastor Venus's
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sermon today about good choices and I was just thinking about
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all of the bad choices I have made.
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Maybe you can relate to that. Maybe you, you listen to this
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sermon and your only thought was, man, I wish I could make
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good choices and I can, I can relate to that.
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The beauty of the gospel was that all of the Bible is about
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how many opportunities that humanity had to make good
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choices and our inability to consistently make them.
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To such an extent that God would send his only Son to die on a
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cross to rise again. So that you and I would be
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empowered with a spirit that would begin to change us from
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the inside out. So that when God says that He
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will give you the desires of your heart, it's not the desires
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you had yesterday because He's changing the very desires of our
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heart. The beauty of the gospel is that
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we are incapable of making good choices and we needed a Savior.
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And so maybe today, in the midst of just feeling some shame of
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where you're at, you have a realization you need to throw
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yourself desperately at the foot of the cross and remember that
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God loves you and that he is here to change the very desires
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that make you choose poor things so that you can choose well.
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I want to pray for you as we leave here today and go out into
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a dark and fallen world. And I want to remind you that if
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you're new or you haven't had a chance to connect with any of
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us, we're going to a group of us can be down here for meet the
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team. And also going to remind you
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that there are brownies. And should you not come and I
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have to eat all of them, that will be yet another poor choice
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I made in my life. Let me pray for you.
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Father God, thank you so much for this people, those that are
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here, those that are watching online and God just worshipping
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with us. So I thank you that you love us
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so much that you did not leave us where we were at, yet you
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came for us. You clothed us in your
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righteousness. You didn't die for us once.
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And tell us, I hope you do better next time.
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You didn't preach to us the gospel of self effort.
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No, you came and filled us with your Spirit.
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You gave us a calling to leave this place today to be on
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mission, to be ministers of your gospel, to be ambassadors of
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heaven. Like how would you fill us with
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encouragement as we go out into this Dark World to lean on you?
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It's all your Spirit to help us to choose well, to be learners,
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to accept correction and to love others in Jesus name, Amen.