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The Gospel of Gorgeous · Pastor John Piper's answers

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: So you are scrolling Instagram and you see a stream
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  Speaker 1: of perfect shots, perfectly edited, perfect music overlay, perfect lives,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: perfect relationships, perfect health, perfect backdrops. Everything's perfect, and you
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  Speaker 1: gradually begin to feel the weight of something built on you,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: a specific kind of pressure that comes from the internal
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  Speaker 1: voice that says, my life is a failure. I must
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  Speaker 1: be doing it all wrong. Today we look at how
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  Speaker 1: to resist this pressure you feel, and how to find
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  Speaker 1: meaning and purpose in life and embrace the shocking idea
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  Speaker 1: that God has an intentional, glorious design when he made you,
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  Speaker 1: and you probably won't find it comparing your life to
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  Speaker 1: the images of others you see online. We get there
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  Speaker 1: from this question from a young woman. Pastor John, what
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  Speaker 1: would you say to a young man or a young
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  Speaker 1: woman who feels embarrassed by Biblical roles like submission in
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  Speaker 1: marriage or male leadership in the church and home. I
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  Speaker 1: love Jesus, but I also feel a lot of pressure
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  Speaker 1: from other Christians in my life to outgrow these ideas
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  Speaker 1: about roles. But I see them in the Bible, and
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  Speaker 1: although I see them, I don't feel them as good things.
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  Speaker 1: Does that makes sense? So how can I learn to
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  Speaker 1: not only accept, but happily embrace the goodness of being
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  Speaker 1: made female.
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  Speaker 2: I see at least three different issues in the way
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  Speaker 2: she asked this question. First, I hear the power of
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  Speaker 2: peer pressure, she said, I feel a lot of pressure
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  Speaker 2: from other Christians in my life to outgrow these ideas. Second,
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  Speaker 2: I hear the issue of the distinct roles that men
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  Speaker 2: and women play according to the Bible. And third, I
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  Speaker 2: hear a personal, very individual, personal hesitancy to happily embrace
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  Speaker 2: her own individual female personhood. So let me just say
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  Speaker 2: a word about each of those issues that I hope
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  Speaker 2: might be helpful. The power of peer pressure is not new.
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  Speaker 2: Ever since sin entered the world, we have all, in
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  Speaker 2: our sinfulness, craved the approval from other people, and we
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  Speaker 2: have avoided saying things and doing things that we ought
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  Speaker 2: to have done and ought to have said. But we
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  Speaker 2: don't want to cause other people to think we're stupid
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  Speaker 2: or foolish, or weak or cowardly. We all know this temptation.
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  Speaker 2: It's not new. But there is something new in our time,
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  Speaker 2: namely the ubiquity of social media, in which young women,
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  Speaker 2: especially men too. But we're talking about young women here
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  Speaker 2: are daily put in a position of comparing themselves and
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  Speaker 2: their bodies with the bodies and the fashions and the
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  Speaker 2: attitudes and the popularity of other women or girls online,
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  Speaker 2: and that kind of comparison has caused anxiety and depression
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  Speaker 2: and suicide to skyrocket in the last decade. All you
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  Speaker 2: have to do is google it and find out what
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  Speaker 2: the statistics, what the tragic statistics are. So I think
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  Speaker 2: my first concern here would be to seek to help
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  Speaker 2: all young women and men, but young women in particular,
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  Speaker 2: to be so deeply confident and secure and peaceful in
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  Speaker 2: who you are by virtue of God's creation and Christ's
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  Speaker 2: new creation, that you are utterly pervious to what others think,
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  Speaker 2: utterly unshakable by the pressures of other people, and profoundly
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  Speaker 2: free from the power of other people's opinions. So consider
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  Speaker 2: the example of Jesus and Paul. This is always inspiring
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  Speaker 2: to me, anyway, I hope it is to you. The
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  Speaker 2: Pharisees came to Jesus and said, teacher, we know that
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  Speaker 2: you are true and do not care about anyone's opinion,
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  Speaker 2: for you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach
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  Speaker 2: the way of God Mark twelve fourteen. In other words,
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  Speaker 2: One of the marked features of our Lord Jesus was
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  Speaker 2: that he did not adjust his words or his actions
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  Speaker 2: in order to curry the favor of powerful people. It
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  Speaker 2: says he just didn't care. That's the kind of freedom
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  Speaker 2: I want for young women. Why should you care? Why
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  Speaker 2: should you care about the opinions of other people who
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  Speaker 2: are out of step with the word of the creator
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  Speaker 2: of the universe. God has spoken? What more needs to
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  Speaker 2: be said? Oh, my goodness, so important? Or consider the
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  Speaker 2: apostle Paul following in the train of Jesus. While Peter,
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  Speaker 2: in a terrible lapse of judgment, was abandoning his godly
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  Speaker 2: behavior to avoid the criticism of the Jerusalem Party at
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  Speaker 2: any arch. Paul, on the other hand, said this, am
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  Speaker 2: I now seeking the approval of Man or of God?
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  Speaker 2: Or am I trying to please Man? If I were
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  Speaker 2: still trying to please Man, I would not be a
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  Speaker 2: servant of Christ. Galatians one ten. So I would like
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  Speaker 2: to stir you up, as a young woman, to take
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  Speaker 2: your cues from Jesus and Paul and the Bible and
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  Speaker 2: simply not care about the criticism or the ostracism, or
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  Speaker 2: the rolling of the eyes or the tisk tisk behind
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  Speaker 2: your back. Just don't care, you don't need it. You
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  Speaker 2: have the approval of Almighty God in Jesus Christ. And
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  Speaker 2: then with regard to the second issue, namely that the
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  Speaker 2: Bible teaches what the Bible teaches about distinct roles for
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  Speaker 2: men and women, let it sink in that we're talking
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  Speaker 2: here about the very revelation of the creator of the universe.
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  Speaker 2: We're not talking here about the opinions of old versus young,
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  Speaker 2: or educated versus uneducated, or modern versus pre modern. We're
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  Speaker 2: talking about the difference between the infinite, eternal, all knowing,
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  Speaker 2: all wise, all good, all powerful God versus puny women
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  Speaker 2: and men. We have become so accustomed to hearing some
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  Speaker 2: things that we've lost our capacity to feel the cataclysmic
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  Speaker 2: force of the implications that they have. For example, Genesis
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  Speaker 2: one seven. God, we're talking about God created man in
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  Speaker 2: his own image, in the image of God. He created
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  Speaker 2: him male and female. He created them, the infinitely wise,
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  Speaker 2: all good creator of the universe, brought humanity into existence
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  Speaker 2: as male and female, and blessed them and told them
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  Speaker 2: to have lots of babies and fill the earth with
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  Speaker 2: His glory through their families. Male and female, each with
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  Speaker 2: its unique glory, not the same, not interchangeable, but with
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  Speaker 2: wonderful differences that are so complimentary of each other as
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  Speaker 2: to make a new thing when they are united. And
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  Speaker 2: so in the second chapter of the Bible he establishes
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  Speaker 2: that new thing. He calls it, or we call it marriage,
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  Speaker 2: so does the Bible.
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  Speaker 1: Later on.
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  Speaker 2: Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother
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  Speaker 2: hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become
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  Speaker 2: this new thing, one flesh Genesis two twenty four. And
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  Speaker 2: then he raises that distinction and that union of male
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  Speaker 2: and female to an incredible height when he reveals that
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  Speaker 2: this design from the beginning was that male and female
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  Speaker 2: represent Christ and the Church in an everlasting marriage of joy.
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  Speaker 2: So I pray that you will let it sink in
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  Speaker 2: that this whole dimension of maleness and femaleness is God's idea.
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  Speaker 2: It's God's idea. It's not man's idea. It's a beautiful thing.
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  Speaker 2: It is one of the most wonderful spillovers of God's
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  Speaker 2: kindness and wisdom. So when puny little human beings male
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  Speaker 2: or female, huff and puff contrary to the Bible, just
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  Speaker 2: settle it in your mind. It is smart to side
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  Speaker 2: with God and not man. And with regard to that
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  Speaker 2: third issue, namely that your own personal hesitancy to happily
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  Speaker 2: embrace your own individual female personhood, I would encourage you
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  Speaker 2: to make all of this that we've been talking about
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  Speaker 2: here very personal, not just abstract. Bring it right down
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  Speaker 2: to you and God, not just male and female in general,
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  Speaker 2: but you in particular, you and God. And then go
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  Speaker 2: to someone thirty nine, verse thirteen, and read this as
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  Speaker 2: your own personal, heartfelt, faithful testimony. You, oh God, say
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  Speaker 2: this to God. You, oh God, formed my inward parts.
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  Speaker 2: You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise
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  Speaker 2: you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are
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  Speaker 2: your works. My soul knows it very well. That is
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  Speaker 2: God's word about you, a female in particular, not just
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  Speaker 2: women in general. God knit you and your female body
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  Speaker 2: and your female soul. He knit you individually, personally together
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  Speaker 2: in your mother's womb. He did it with a smile
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  Speaker 2: on his face, with love in his heart. He loved you.
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  Speaker 2: He made you, and he did not make you badly.
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  Speaker 2: He made you gloriously. So be done with other people's opinions.
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  Speaker 2: Don't care about what other people think, embrace God's big
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  Speaker 2: picture of male and female biblically, and then say to
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  Speaker 2: him very personally, thank you, thank you for making me
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  Speaker 2: the way you did. You are a good God, and
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  Speaker 2: I embrace you and what you have made me.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. The thing about cultural pressure and peer pressure is
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  Speaker 1: that it redefines who you are based on what everyone
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  Speaker 1: else thinks you are supposed to be, and from that
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  Speaker 1: it is offered a massive freedom, a freedom that comes
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  Speaker 1: from deciding that you just don't care about popular fads,
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  Speaker 1: not caring about the perfect images you see in social media,
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  Speaker 1: not caring about the rolling eyes behind your back. We're
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  Speaker 1: talking about finding our entire identity in God's unchanging design
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  Speaker 1: for my life and embracing that God given maleness or
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  Speaker 1: femaleness with gratitude. That is a word in season. Thank
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  Speaker 1: you Bestor John, and thanks for joining us today. If
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  Speaker 1: you have a question to ask Pastor John, find a
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  Speaker 1: link to email us and find our complete episode archive
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: at the same place askompastor John dot com. Well, there's
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  Speaker 1: a feeling of being stuck in life, absolutely stuck, not
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  Speaker 1: just sad for a day, but trapped chest deep in
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  Speaker 1: a muddy pit like quicksand holding you down. And you
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  Speaker 1: wait and you wait, and you send up your cry
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  Speaker 1: to God for help, but no answer comes, not immediately,
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  Speaker 1: and you find yourself wondering if God has just forgotten me.
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  Speaker 1: Waiting is the hardest part of the Christian life, and
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  Speaker 1: to that we turn. Next. Antony Ranky will see you
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  Speaker 1: on Thursday.