Latest / Max Lucado Daily Sermons / What's Waiting for You- Minister Max Lucado

Transcript

What's Waiting for You- Minister Max Lucado · Max Lucado Daily Sermons

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  Speaker 1: Hi, friends. I'm Max Locato. Welcome to Fresh Hope. Today,
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  Speaker 1: we conclude our series based on my book, The Applause
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  Speaker 1: of Heaven. In these episodes, we focused on joy, how
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  Speaker 1: to find it, and where it comes from. Today, we're
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  Speaker 1: going to conclude with the place that brings me and
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  Speaker 1: probably many of you the most joy, home. There's no
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  Speaker 1: door like the one to your own house. There's no
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  Speaker 1: better place to put your feet than under your own table.
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  Speaker 1: There's no coffee like coffee out of your own mug.
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  Speaker 1: There's no meal like the one off your own plate.
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  Speaker 1: And there's no embrace like the one from your own family. Home.
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  Speaker 1: The longest part of going home is the last part.
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  Speaker 1: The planes taxiing to the terminal from the runway. When
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  Speaker 1: my daughters were young, I went through a season of
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  Speaker 1: Heavy travel, book releases before the world of social media
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  Speaker 1: required me to go to a lot of places. And
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  Speaker 1: I remember those final flights home after days on the road.
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  Speaker 1: I was the fellow the flight attendant always had to
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  Speaker 1: tell to sit down. I learned that there was a
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  Speaker 1: critical split second in which I could bolt down the
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  Speaker 1: aisle into the first class section before all the other
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  Speaker 1: passengers began emptying into the main aisle. I didn't do
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  Speaker 1: that on every flight, only when I was going home.
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  Speaker 1: My heart leapt as I exited the plane. These were
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  Speaker 1: the days when your family actually waited for you inside
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  Speaker 1: the airport, holding a sign to welcome you home. I
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  Speaker 1: descended the escalator to the baggage claim like an actor
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  Speaker 1: walking on the stage. The curtain was lifted and the
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  Speaker 1: audience stood in a half moon. Most of the people
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  Speaker 1: waiting at the bottom could see that I wasn't the
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  Speaker 1: one they wanted and looked right past me. But from
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  Speaker 1: the side, I could hear the familiar shriek of two
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  Speaker 1: little girls.
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  Speaker 2: Daddy!
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  Speaker 1: I'd turn and see them, faces scrubbed, standing on chairs,
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  Speaker 1: bouncing up and down in joy as the man in
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  Speaker 1: their life walked toward them. I remember Jenna once stopped
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  Speaker 1: bouncing just long enough to clap She applauded. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know who told her to do that, but you can
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  Speaker 1: bet I didn't tell her to stop. Behind them, I'd
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  Speaker 1: see a third face, little Sarah, only a few months old,
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  Speaker 1: deeply asleep. And then I'd see a fourth face, my wife's,
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  Speaker 1: weary from the week without me, grateful to have her
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  Speaker 1: husband and helping hand back. These were my faces of home.
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  Speaker 1: That is what makes the promise at the end of
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  Speaker 1: the Beatitudes so compelling. Jesus concludes his sermon with a
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  Speaker 1: statement of hope in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 12.
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  Speaker 1: Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.
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  Speaker 1: What is our reward? Home. The book of Revelation could
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  Speaker 1: be entitled the book of homecoming. for in it we
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  Speaker 1: are given a picture of our heavenly home. John's descriptions
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  Speaker 1: of the future could steal your breath away. His depiction
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  Speaker 1: of the final battle is graphic. Good clashes with evil.
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  Speaker 1: But in the midst of the battlefield, there is a rose,
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  Speaker 1: and John describes it in chapter 21, verses 1 through 5.
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  Speaker 1: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
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  Speaker 1: for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
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  Speaker 1: and there was no longer any sea. I saw the
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  Speaker 1: holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven
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  Speaker 1: from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.
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  Speaker 1: And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
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  Speaker 1: Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he
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  Speaker 1: will live with them, and they will be his people,
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  Speaker 1: and God himself will be with them and be their God.
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  Speaker 1: He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there
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  Speaker 1: will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain,
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  Speaker 1: for the old order of things has passed away. He
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  Speaker 1: who is seated on the throne said, I am making
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  Speaker 1: everything new. John is old when he writes these words.
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  Speaker 1: His body is weary. His friends are gone. Peter is dead.
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  Speaker 1: Paul has been martyred. Andrew, James, Nathaniel, they're fuzzy figures
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  Speaker 1: from an early era. As he hears the voice from
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  Speaker 1: the throne, I wonder, does he remember the day he
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  Speaker 1: heard it on the mountain? For it is the same
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  Speaker 1: John and the same Jesus. The same feet that followed
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  Speaker 1: Jesus up the mount so long ago now stand to
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  Speaker 1: follow him again. The same ears that heard Jesus first
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  Speaker 1: describe sacred delight listened to it revealed again. In this
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  Speaker 1: final mountaintop encounter, God pulls back the curtain and allows
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  Speaker 1: John to peek into the homeland. And when given the
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  Speaker 1: task of writing down what he sees, John chooses the
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  Speaker 1: most beautiful comparison earth has to offer. The holy city,
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  Speaker 1: John says, is like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
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  Speaker 1: One of the benefits of being a minister is that
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  Speaker 1: I get an early glimpse of the bride as she
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  Speaker 1: stands at the top of the aisle. And I have
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  Speaker 1: to say that I have never seen an ugly bride.
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  Speaker 1: I've seen some grooms that could use an alteration or two,
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  Speaker 1: but never a bride. The word is synonymous with beauty.
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  Speaker 1: But the world I woke up to this morning couldn't
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  Speaker 1: be described as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
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  Speaker 1: Could yours? I awoke to a grieving world. A teenager
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  Speaker 1: took his life in the pre-dawn darkness. No note, no explanation,
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  Speaker 1: just a mother and father who will forever be hounded
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  Speaker 1: by questions they cannot answer. I awoke to a disillusioned world.
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  Speaker 1: It seems half the world is at war, and no
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  Speaker 1: one can agree who started the fight. When you look
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  Speaker 1: at this world, doesn't it make you want to go home?
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  Speaker 1: Me too. John tells us in Revelation 21 and verse
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  Speaker 1: 4 that when we get home, God himself will wipe
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  Speaker 1: away our tears. When I was a boy, I had
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  Speaker 1: plenty of people to wipe away my tears. Two big sisters,
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  Speaker 1: a loving mother, aunts and uncles, and even an older
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  Speaker 1: brother who occasionally pitied me. But when I think about
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  Speaker 1: someone wiping away my tears, I think about my dad.
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  Speaker 1: His hands were calloused and tough, his fingers short and stubby.
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  Speaker 1: And when my father wiped away a tear, he seemed
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  Speaker 1: to wipe it away forever. there was something in his
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  Speaker 1: touch that took away more than the drop of hurt
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  Speaker 1: from my cheek. It also took away my fear. John
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  Speaker 1: says that someday God will wipe away your tears. And
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  Speaker 1: the same hands that stretched the heavens will touch your cheeks.
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  Speaker 1: And the same hands that formed the mountains will caress
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  Speaker 1: your face. And the same hands that that curled in
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  Speaker 1: agony on the cross will someday cup your face and
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  Speaker 1: brush away your tears forever. When you think of a
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  Speaker 1: world where there will be no reason to cry ever,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't it make you want to go home? There will
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  Speaker 1: be no more death, John declares in verse 4. Can
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  Speaker 1: you imagine it? A world with no hearses, morgues, cemeteries,
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  Speaker 1: or tombstones? It's never easy to say goodbye. It's never
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  Speaker 1: easy to walk away. The hardest task in this world
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  Speaker 1: is to place a final kiss on cold lips that
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  Speaker 1: cannot kiss in return. The hardest thing in the world
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  Speaker 1: is to say goodbye. In the next world, John says,
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  Speaker 1: goodbye will never be spoken. Doesn't that make you want
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  Speaker 1: to go home? The most hopeful words of that passage
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  Speaker 1: from Revelation are those of God's resolve in verse 5.
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  Speaker 1: I am making everything new. It's hard to see things
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  Speaker 1: grow old. It's been a while since I visited the
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  Speaker 1: town where I grew up, but last time I was there,
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  Speaker 1: it was growing old. Some of the buildings were boarded up.
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  Speaker 1: Some of the houses torn down. The old movie house
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  Speaker 1: we went to every Saturday night had for sale on
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  Speaker 1: the marquee. The only visitors to the drive-in theater were
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  Speaker 1: tumbleweeds and rodents. Memories of first dates and senior proms
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  Speaker 1: are weather-worn by the endless rain. of years. Our fastest
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  Speaker 1: halfback is buried only a few plots from my own father.
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  Speaker 1: I wish I could make it all new again. I
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  Speaker 1: wish I could blow the dust off the streets. I
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  Speaker 1: wish I could walk through the familiar neighborhood and wave
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  Speaker 1: at the familiar faces and pet the familiar dogs and
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  Speaker 1: hit one more home run in the Little League Park.
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  Speaker 1: I wish I could walk down Main Street and call
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  Speaker 1: out the merchants that have passed away and open the
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  Speaker 1: doors that have been boarded up. I wish I could
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  Speaker 1: make everything new, but I can't. I can't, but God can.
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  Speaker 1: He restores my soul, wrote the shepherd in Psalm 23.
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  Speaker 1: He doesn't reform, he restores. The master builder will pull
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  Speaker 1: out the original plan and restore it. He will restore
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  Speaker 1: the vigor. He will restore the hope. He will restore
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  Speaker 1: the soul. When you see how this world grows stooped
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  Speaker 1: and weary and then read of a home where everything
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  Speaker 1: is made new, tell me, Doesn't it make you want
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  Speaker 1: to go home? What would you give in exchange for
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  Speaker 1: a home like that? Would you really rather have a
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  Speaker 1: few possessions on earth than eternal possessions in heaven? Would
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  Speaker 1: you really choose a life of slavery to passion over
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  Speaker 1: a life of freedom? Great, Jesus said, is your reward
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  Speaker 1: in heaven. He must have smiled when he said that line.
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  Speaker 1: His eyes must have danced, and his hand must have
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  Speaker 1: pointed skyward, for he should know it was his idea,
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  Speaker 1: it was his home. You'll be home soon. You may
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  Speaker 1: not have noticed it, but you're closer to home than
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  Speaker 1: ever before. Each moment is a step taken. Each breath
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  Speaker 1: is a page turned. Each day is a mile marked,
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  Speaker 1: a mountain climbed. You are closer to home than you've
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  Speaker 1: ever been. And before you know it, your appointed arrival
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  Speaker 1: time will come, and you'll descend the ramp and enter
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  Speaker 1: the city. And you'll see faces that are waiting for you.
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  Speaker 1: You'll hear your name spoken by those who love you.
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  Speaker 1: And maybe, just maybe, in the back, behind the crowds,
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  Speaker 1: the one who would rather die than live without you,
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  Speaker 1: will remove his pierced hands from his heavenly robe and applaud.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me in this series based on my book,
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  Speaker 1: The Applause of Heaven. I hope you're one step closer
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  Speaker 1: to joy and one step closer to contentment, because I
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  Speaker 1: know you're one step closer to home. Until we meet again, friends, remember,
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  Speaker 1: true joy is within reach because the applause of heaven
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  Speaker 1: is ringing out just for you.
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  Speaker 2: I'll be all right. You don't have to stay. If
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  Speaker 2: you've already chosen, I won't stand in your way. I
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  Speaker 2: can feel it in your distance In the way you
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  Speaker 2: barely speak Like your heart is somewhere else now Somewhere
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  Speaker 2: I can't reach I was trying.
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  Speaker 3: Just to hold us While you slowly slipped away.
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  Speaker 2: Now I'm left with all the silence You didn't want
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  Speaker 2: to say.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe I just held on To something already gone I'll
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  Speaker 3: be fine, you can leave You.
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  Speaker 4: Don't owe me anything If your heart is found away
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  Speaker 4: Out of what we used to be.
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  Speaker 5: I'll be fine, don't look back I'll survive this empty
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  Speaker 5: space Not tonight, maybe not soon But I'll learn to
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  Speaker 5: be okay.
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  Speaker 2: We don't need to fake the feeling. I can see
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  Speaker 2: it in your eyes. There's no reason left for staying when.
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  Speaker 4: The love already.
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  Speaker 2: Died through the quiet in your.
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  Speaker 4: I can hear your choice. I'll be fine. You can leave.
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  Speaker 4: You don't owe me anything. If your heart has found
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  Speaker 4: a way. Out of what we used to be.
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  Speaker 5: I'll be fine. Don't look back.
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  Speaker 4: I'll survive this empty space.
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  Speaker 5: Not tonight.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe not soon.
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  Speaker 4: But I'll learn to be okay. I don't need a
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  Speaker 4: reason why.
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  Speaker 3: I can see it in goodbye. And it breaks me,
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  Speaker 3: it does.
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  Speaker 5: But I won't ask you to stay.
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  Speaker 4: I'll be fine.
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  Speaker 3: You can't leave.
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  Speaker 4: You don't owe me anything. If your heart is found away.
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  Speaker 4: I'll be all right.