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Love Your Enemies | Angel Maldonado · Real Life Theology Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back everyone to the Real Life Theology Podcast.
• 0:05
  We've got another great session for you guys
• 0:07
  from the 2020 National Gathering
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  focused all on loving like Jesus.
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  I hope you guys enjoy this episode.
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  Good afternoon.
• 0:19
  How was lunch?
• 0:22
  Good, good.
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  The title of my session is Loving Like Jesus.
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  Simple enough, right?
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  And then you realize that the first time
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  that we're commanded to love is five books into,
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  I'm sorry, five chapters into the Gospel of Matthew.
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  And Jesus is not calling us to love our neighbor.
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  No, he's commanding us to love our enemies.
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  You have heard that it was said,
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  love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
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  But I tell you, love your enemies
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  and pray for those who persecute you,
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  that you may be children of your father in heaven.
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  He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good
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  and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
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  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
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  Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
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  And if you greet only your own people,
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  what are you doing more than others?
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  Do not even pagans do that?
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  Be perfect therefore as your heavenly father is perfect.
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  Matthew 5, 43 through 48.
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  You know, I think it's clear that Jesus is calling us
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  to love here, right?
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  And if we're gonna love like Jesus,
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  that means we have to love our enemies.
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  But if we're gonna love our enemies,
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  I think it's important that we identify our enemies.
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  So I ask you, who is your enemy?
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  Now I know us Christian folks,
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  ooh, down here in the South, we nice folks.
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  We are nice people.
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  We don't have any enemies.
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  Or I know who our enemy is, Satan.
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  That's our enemy.
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  Other than that, but yet we realize that Jesus had enemies.
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  And so let's talk about who is our enemy.
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  Well, an enemy is someone who hates you,
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  who is hostile towards you,
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  who is actively opposing you, your decisions,
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  your ideology, your worldview.
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  We feel threatened by our enemies,
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  like they're gonna harm us or hurt us,
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  or our family, even our church.
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  We tend to fear that their actions
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  will negatively affect our lives,
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  our lifestyle, our goals,
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  the environment that we've created, right?
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  No, we worry that our enemies will take something from us
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  that is not theirs to take,
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  or that they will create something
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  that they have no right to create.
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  So who is your enemy?
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  Now, I don't know about you,
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  but I think that usually we are influenced by our leaders
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  and by the media as to who should be our enemy.
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  And for me growing up, it was pretty simple.
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  This was my enemy.
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  That was our enemy, Osama Bin Laden,
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  and every other Middle Eastern Muslim, right?
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  And we know why, we had 9-11, we were in war, right?
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  And so we understand why that was our enemy.
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  And yet now it feels like the enemy is much closer to home.
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  It's actually within our own country.
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  And it seems to start with political figures
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  and the people that support them.
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  That's our enemies or their ideology,
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  whether they are on the conservative right
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  or the liberal left,
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  whether they support pro-life or pro-choice,
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  that's our enemy.
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  Nah, I know who our enemy is, police officers.
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  That's our enemy.
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  They're out here killing black people.
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  We need to defund the police.
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  Who is our enemy?
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  It's really Black Lives Matter.
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  Now I'm gonna say that, I believe Black,
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  all lives matter, of course Black Lives Matter,
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  but that organization, you heard about them?
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  I can't even say that
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  because I don't want anybody to think
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  I'm behind that organization.
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  No, sir, no, I'm not doing that.
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  It's white supremacists, that's our enemies.
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  Antifa, don't get me started.
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  No, I know, you know, if we talk about violence,
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  I know who our enemy is, it's the NRA.
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  Why?
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  Guns are the problem.
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  People are killing people with guns.
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  So take the guns away and we'll be fine.
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  Have you seen all these mass shootings?
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  Just take the guns away.
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  Might as well take them away from the cops too.
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  That's our enemy.
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  No, let's talk a little bit about culture.
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  If we're in a cultural war,
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  it's against the LGBTQ community.
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  Have you seen how they have infiltrated our media,
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  how they're trying to brainwash our children?
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  Did you see what was on TV the other day?
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  Two guys kissing on a major network, have you?
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  Oh my goodness.
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  That's our enemy.
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  No, it's straight white men.
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  That's our enemy.
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  They've had all the power and the privilege
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  for hundreds of years and look where our country is.
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  Have they not figured it out by now?
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  That's our enemy.
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  It's those Mexican immigrants.
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  Not all immigrants,
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  just the Mexican ones that come from Mexico
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  because they're the rapists and the drug dealers
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  and the killers and those are the bad.
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  No, it's ICE.
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  Do you see how the border patrol,
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  how inhumanely they treat people
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  that are just trying to come
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  and get an opportunity at a better life?
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  That's our enemy.
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  I don't know about you.
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  I think maybe our enemies are the people
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  who don't wear masks.
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  Can you believe, I mean, how they are threatening my life,
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  the life of my children?
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  Selfishness.
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  You know, I can't, the real enemy is the people
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  who try to make us wear masks.
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  You are, uh-uh, this is my right.
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  If I want to get sick and die, I should be able to do that.
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  No, it's the people who want to open up the economy
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  or the people that think that our kids
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  should be back in school, brick and mortar.
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  It's people of a certain religion.
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  It's people from that church down the street.
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  What we have engaged in is something
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  that's called ideological warfare.
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  But we're not just battling against ideas.
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  It's much more dangerous now.
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  You see, we personify ideologies,
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  and so we give ideas a face and a race.
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  We give them a marital status and a socioeconomic class.
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  We give them a voting preference,
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  but we don't give them a soul.
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  Then we group these people together
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  and that's who we wage war against.
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  And if not outwardly, we do so in our hearts.
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  I recently shared this list when I was speaking
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  to a group of high school students
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  at a private, predominantly white Christian school
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  in the suburbs of South Atlanta.
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  Actually, it wasn't even the suburbs,
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  it's more even the country.
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  So I got a friend of mine that I helped become a Christian.
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  I've been discipling him for about 15 years.
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  He's one of the leaders in the church.
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  I've been disciplining him for about 15 years.
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  He's one of the leaders of the school.
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  He said, come on in, Angel.
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  Can you preach to our people?
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  After all, it's Hispanic Heritage Month.
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  And so I shared this list, it was about 300 kids,
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  and I went through it.
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  And do you know what happened
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  when I said straight white men?
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  The teenage white girls started clapping.
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  Yeah, it was a little awkward.
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  I laughed it off a little bit, said something smart,
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  looked around and kept it rolling.
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  But you know what was obvious to me at that moment?
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  It was that to them,
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  straight white men resonated as their enemy.
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  Now, who is your enemy?
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  Who do you feel most threatened by?
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  Who did you clap about in your heart?
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  That's who God is calling you to love.
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  And it's that love that fuels disciple-making.
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  You know, I have an opportunity, a dream of mine really,
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  to serve as a character coach.
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  It used to be called a chaplain
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  for Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
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  And I work with a high school in the inner city of Atlanta.
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  And I remember when I first walked in
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  to the football locker room, it was like five years ago,
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  and I go in there and I'm ready to give my devotional
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  to the football players.
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  And I looked to my left and I see a young lady
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  dressed to play football, leaning on her pads,
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  her football pads.
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  And I'm like, what is she doing here?
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  Is she trying to play football?
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  I mean, she wasn't very strong or athletic.
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  I mean, I was kind of upset by it.
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  I love sports.
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  I majored in sports management at Florida State University.
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  It's always been a dream of mine to do sports ministry.
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  And here I am about to embark on my dream
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  and there's this girl threatening the sanctity
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  of high school football.
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  My flesh questions, why is she even out here?
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  What is she trying to prove?
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  Is she gay?
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  But thank God for the Holy Spirit that in that moment,
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  challenged me to love the person in that room
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  that I felt most threatened by.
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  And no, I didn't feel any, like I was in physical danger,
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  but my ideology was, my convictions were.
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  And so I went up to her and I asked her her name
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  and I started building a friendship with her.
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  And I decided I was gonna love like Jesus.
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  And I found out about how she also wrestled
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  and I come from a family of wrestlers.
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  And so we connected on that.
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  And then we started talking about her family life.
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  And I learned about how she lives with her single mom
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  who's being abused by her boyfriend
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  and how they'd been in and out of homeless shelters.
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  I said, okay.
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  I decided I was gonna do everything I could
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  to show her love because she obviously
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  wasn't experiencing that when she wasn't at school.
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  And so I looked for ways to encourage her
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  and we celebrated her birthday before practice one day.
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  And I asked the guys if they would share
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  some encouraging words about her and I was blown away
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  because they shared about how smart she was
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  and how great of an attitude she had
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  and how great of a teammate she was.
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  And she came to church and she brought her friends
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  and sometimes they would fall asleep
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  in the back during my sermon.
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  They had been at the club the night before
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  but they were there and we started talking
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  and we started talking about who she was
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  and about her identity and whether or not
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  she wanted to be married to a man one day
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  and whether or not she wanted to have kids.
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  And I introduced her to sisters that would love her
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  and teach her about Jesus.
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  And last year, Melina became a disciple
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  and was baptized into Christ.
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  Those are the sisters that helped her
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  and that's her family, that's her mom.
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  And there's actually more
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  because you may have seen her brother.
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  She just didn't bring her friends.
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  She brought her mom and her brother, Gerald,
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  who was 16 years old at the time
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  but a self-proclaimed atheist since the age of 12.
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  He didn't really wanna have anything to do with God
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  but he liked basketball and we played basketball
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  every Sunday in the gym after church.
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  And so he brought his basketball and we started hooping.
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  Now we weren't trying to have doctrinal disputes
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  or ideological battles with him, no.
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  I mean, we challenged him on his thinking some
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  but we got to know why he was so turned off
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  by the God of Christianity.
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  And it turned out that it was the love of Christ
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  that he experienced through us
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  that opened his heart to the word of God.
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  And soon after, Melina was able to baptize
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  her brother, Gerald.
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  So my question to us is this, what's our goal?
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  Is our goal to win doctrinal disputes,
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  win ideological battles, win elections
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  or is our goal to win souls for Jesus?
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  Now, if we're gonna love like Jesus,
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  we gotta be willing to lose like Jesus.
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  And by the way, why are we always trying to win?
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  As Christians, don't we already have the victory?
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  In order to win people,
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  I believe we must lead with compassion.
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  And I have to be honest as a person of color,
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  I'm Puerto Rican, grew up Stateside in Florida.
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  Sometimes it feels like the world is doing a better job
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  when it comes to showing compassion than Christians.
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  And that's why I'm grateful for Renew.
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  I'm grateful to be part of this group
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  and I've experienced humility and compassion here.
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  But I wanna show you what it looks like
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  when we stop trying to win
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  and start leading with compassion.
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  Now, if you're a college football fan,
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  you may know who the person in this video is.
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  David Shaw, the head coach at Stanford,
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  who really, he and I had a great talk.
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  I love listening to his wisdom and his thoughts.
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  And he shared a quote to me
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  and reminded me from Benjamin Franklin.
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  He said, justice will be served, justice will not be served
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  until those who are unaffected
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  are as outraged as those who are.
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  And I think that that's what I mean
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  when I think the black community is hurting.
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  If you've listened and the word empathy and compassion
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  over these last four months,
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  how do you listen to these stories and not feel pain
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  and not wanna help?
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  You know what I mean?
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  It's like wearing a hoodie
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  and putting your hands at 10 and two.
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  Oh God, I better look out because I'm wearing Nike gear.
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  Like what?
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  What are we talking about?
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  And so you can't relate to that if you're white,
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  but you can listen and you can try to help
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  because this is not okay.
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  It's just not.
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  It's not.
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  And we just have, we gotta do better, man.
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  We gotta like lock arm and arm and be together
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  in a football locker room.
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  That stuff is gone.
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  Those barriers are gone.
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  It just, we gotta do better.
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  It's one of the things and why sports can be
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  such a leader in this area.
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  It's happened throughout history,
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  dating back to Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson
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  and Muhammad Ali and the number of changes
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  that have been instituted and awareness brought to
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  because of sport.
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  Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected
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  are as outraged as those who are.
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  I saw a lot of people in the audience
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  and I saw a lot of black men crying
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  after George Floyd was killed on TV.
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  This is the only white man I've seen crying on TV.
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  Only one I've seen shed a tear.
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  And this was a college football pregame show
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  and Kirk Herfstreet, as far as I know,
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  doesn't even claim to be a Christian,
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  but that's compassion.
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  His heart is broken by the pain others are feeling.
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  He doesn't feel threatened.
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  He just wants things to be better.
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  What if we made a decision today to love our enemies
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  by leading with compassion?
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  How many more Malina and Gerald stories would there be?
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  And let me just say this,
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  leading with compassion doesn't mean
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  we have to sacrifice our conviction.
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  As disciples, it's not one or the other.
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  Stop buying into that lie from Satan.
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  You don't have to sacrifice one for the other.
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  It's both.
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  It's compassion and conviction.
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  It's love and truth.
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  It's social justice and moral order.
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  You know, as I close,
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  I want to challenge us with a very practical way
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  to love our enemy this week.
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  If your enemy is hungry, feed him.
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  If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
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  In doing this, you will heat burning coals on his head.
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  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
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  Romans 12, 20, and 21.
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  Maybe that's why it's been said
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  that the closest way to a person's stomach
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  through the closest way to a person's heart
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  is through their stomach.
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  Jesus fed his enemies.
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  Now you feed them.
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  You give them something to eat
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  and along the way, get to know them.
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  Seek understanding more than you.
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  Seek to air your own opinions.
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  There's enough opinions out there.
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  Then, and maybe then,
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  will we have a chance to not be overcome
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  by all the evil around us,
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  but instead to overcome evil with good.
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  Let's pray.
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  Father, we humble ourselves before you.
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  We fall short of your love.
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  It is such a high calling, God.
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  Thank you for allowing us to see it in Jesus
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  and getting a chance to imitate,
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  but we fall short, Father.
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  All of us do.
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  God, and I ask for your forgiveness.
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  God, I ask for your forgiveness
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  because of that carnal nature
• 19:10
  that wants to be right all the time,
• 19:12
  that wants to win all the time.
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  Father, help us to lose like Jesus
• 19:16
  and win souls along the way, God.
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  Help us to be a light.
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  Help us to give hope.
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  Help us, God, to lead with compassion.
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  And I feel like if we do that,
• 19:32
  that we're gonna give up our position of power
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  or that we're gonna compromise our convictions.
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  God, help us just to meet people where they are.
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  Help us to trust in you
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  and to just do it the way Jesus did it.
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  Father, renew our hearts.
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  Father, we're inundated with evil.
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  The world is constantly discipling us into its own mold.
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  Father, help us to put the armor on.
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  Your armor, Father.
• 20:05
  We know that ultimately our battle
• 20:08
  is not against flesh and blood.
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  It is against the demonic forces of the spiritual realm,
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  but we know that those demonic forces
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  are lived out in people.
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  And Father, help us to really dig into our hearts
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  as to who we feel threatened by,
• 20:27
  who we feel is our enemy,
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  and help us to take a step out in faith
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  to love that person,
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  to love that people group
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  so you can be glorified
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  so that we can make disciples.
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  In Jesus' name we pray.
• 20:46
  ♪ Hey, hey ♪
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  ♪ Hey, hey, hey hey hey hey ♪
• 20:52
  ♪ Hey, hey, hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey ♪
• 20:58
  ♪ Hey, hey ♪
• 20:59
  Thank you guys for listening to this episode
• 21:01
  on the Real Life Theology Podcast.
• 21:03
  Stay tuned for more great content
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  on disciple making and theology.
• 21:08
  Coming up next, we've got another great conversation
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  from the 2020 National Gathering
• 21:14
  focusing on surrendering to Jesus as our Lord and King.