Latest / Real Life Theology Podcast / Lost Without Jesus: The Urgent Call to Seek the Perishing | Nate Ross

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Lost Without Jesus: The Urgent Call to Seek the Perishing | Nate Ross · Real Life Theology Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the Real Life Theology Podcast.
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  Today's episode is going to feature Nate Ross,
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  who's going to share with us
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  why we would be lost without Jesus.
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  He calls listeners to seek the lost
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  like the one who sought and saved them.
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  Hope you guys enjoy this episode.
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  I don't even know how you follow that.
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  IT, you are the man,
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  and this is the gift of the renewed community, amen?
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  That we have gifts and creativity
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  and voices from Tampa and all across the world,
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  and this is the kingdom of God.
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  My name's Nate, glad that you get to be here.
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  This is my second Renew Conference,
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  and Bobby asked me to come and talk about
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  the whole concept of lost without Jesus.
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  And I've got a buddy in my life group,
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  he's a childhood friend.
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  He's actually a state senator in Indiana,
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  and he asked me to come pray at the beginning of session
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  in the courthouse, or in the Senate House there
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  in Indiana, Indianapolis.
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  And right before I got up to pray over the session,
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  I was real nervous, and the chaplain came up to me,
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  and he said, whatever you do, don't forget the five Bs.
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  Baptism, born again, Beelzebub.
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  I felt that in my mind, I'm trying to,
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  he could tell I didn't know what he was saying,
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  and he said, be brief, brother, be brief.
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  And I promise you today, I remember the five Bs,
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  and we're gonna get on with it,
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  and we're gonna get to great breakouts,
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  but I wanna talk just about this idea
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  of being lost without Jesus.
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  And when Bobby said that,
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  I immediately went to Luke chapter 19,
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  when Jesus says this with the story of Zacchaeus,
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  and I love the story of Zacchaeus.
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  I love the compassion of Jesus.
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  The more I study scripture,
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  this is what is dumbfounding to me,
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  20%, over 20% of the New Testament
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  is written to one person, Theophilus,
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  a doubter and a skeptic,
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  who God sought to seek out and to pour into.
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  And today, our scripture,
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  over 20% of the New Testament is to one man,
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  and we don't even get the conversion story at the end,
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  and we don't even get to hear
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  if Theophilus planned the churches or did this or that.
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  All we know is this, Theophilus was worth the pursuit.
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  Theophilus was worth going after.
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  Lost without Jesus.
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  And Jesus in Luke chapter 19, verse 10, ends with this,
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  for the Son of Man came to seek and save that what was what?
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  Lost.
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  A problem of lost was this.
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  I've grown up thinking lost.
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  I grew up in Las Vegas.
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  My dad was a pastor out there.
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  I know lost, I know lost.
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  I know my story of being lost.
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  Here's my problem with lost though.
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  I thought lost meant this.
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  We're just trying to find our way.
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  Jesus, when he says the Son of Man has come to seek
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  and save that what was lost,
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  the word lost is the same Greek word
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  that he says in John chapter 3, 16,
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  when he says the word perish.
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  To be lost means that you and I are perishing.
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  Think about the story of Zacchaeus for a moment.
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  What was he doing before he turned his life over to Jesus?
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  He was killing people with taxes.
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  He was breaking families down with oppression.
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  He was tearing communities apart.
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  And what we see about Zacchaeus was this.
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  He had everything, and yet he had nothing.
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  His own soul, he knew, was perishing.
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  This is why the story of Jesus is so fascinating
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  because Jesus says stuff like this.
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  Immediately, I must come to your house today.
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  There's an immediacy, there's a hunger,
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  there's a drive for that which is lost,
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  that which is perishing, that which is dying,
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  that which is falling apart, lost without Jesus.
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  And Jesus doesn't just say that.
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  I love what the text says.
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  In verse seven, it says this, in Luke chapter 19,
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  it says, and when all the people saw this,
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  they began to mutter, he has gone
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  to be the guest of a sinner.
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  This is what I love about Jesus.
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  He has compassion for Zacchaeus,
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  and he has courage to have all the people talk about him.
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  At lunch, one of the senior pastors just opened,
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  openly said this, it seems like that whole fog analogy
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  that Orpheus shared is true of every pastor
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  and leader in this room.
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  We're trying to navigate our way forward,
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  and man, it seems like a rollercoaster.
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  And we're trying to be courageous,
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  and every time you and I do a courageous thing,
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  we get blown up, don't we?
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  I remember trying to do, I've started a diversity team
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  just to help me understand what I don't understand
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  about diversity, and after George Floyd,
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  I interviewed one of the guys from our diversity team
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  who loves the Lord, who's committed to racial reconciliation,
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  and we had people leave the church in droves
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  after talking about what was lost.
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  And Jesus, in this passage, doesn't just have time
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  for a meal for Zacchaeus, he has time
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  for all the crowd to reject him.
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  Here's what I'm learning more and more is this,
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  I wanna have the compassion of Jesus,
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  I wanna have the courage of Jesus,
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  but here's what I'm learning, to be compassionate
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  like Jesus and to be courageous like Jesus means this,
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  I have to embrace the conviction of Jesus,
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  that I will not have compassion for this world,
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  and I will not be the courageous leader I need to be
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  as a pastor without the deep conviction
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  that we are lost without Jesus.
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  Boy, the Lord was teaching me this less than four years ago,
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  it was my wife and I's 10th anniversary,
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  we'd never gone to an all-inclusive before,
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  and I do what every good husband does, I got on Expedia.
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  And, you know what I mean?
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  Cause like, we're gonna go there,
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  but we're gonna go there cheap.
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  And I remember going there and we planned our first,
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  kind of all-inclusive 10-year anniversary,
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  and I got on there and we went into Cancun and it was great.
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  And then the first night I remember sitting down,
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  and they had this kind of little cafe area
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  for just the people in our section of the hotel.
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  And I'll never forget, Bill and his partner came up
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  and sat down right next to us.
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  Same sex couple out of Washington, DC.
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  And I went, oh man, I was here to relax,
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  I didn't think theological conversations
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  were gonna come up, cause the first question it is,
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  and you guys know this when you get on a plane,
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  what do you do?
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  Right, and it's like, right, the window just goes up,
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  right, everybody starts talking to you.
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  First thing they do, we're sitting down,
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  there's only four chairs and Ruthie and I
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  are just sitting there and they come sit down
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  right next to us, they go,
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  well, I think we'll just sit right here.
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  I'm like, here we go, all right, here we go.
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  And I had this bracelet on and it said, act.
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  We were doing an initiative in the church,
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  activating the campus, canceling our debt,
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  and taking the gospel to the world.
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  And the reason why we gave this to our church
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  is because we wanted conversations like this to come up.
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  You ever have a good idea as a pastor
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  for everybody else except yourself?
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  Yeah, y'all should do this, you know, go get them.
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  First question, what's your bracelet for?
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  Yeah, right.
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  Disaster.
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  My wife literally that night, she goes,
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  I've never seen you that like discombobulated.
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  She said, what's up?
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  I said, and I'm really trying to be faithful
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  to the scriptures and I really wanna be compassionate
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  to the same-sex community.
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  I wanna really hear every story
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  and I don't wanna put stereotypes on people
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  and assume every story is the same because it's not.
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  But in this moment, I was trying to have compassion
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  without a deep conviction.
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  And here's what's gonna happen.
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  When you and I try to have compassion and courage
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  that doesn't come from a place of conviction,
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  it will never be enough.
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  The whole week, Bill and his partner
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  would end up next to us on the beach at dinner.
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  And there began to be this burden in my heart.
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  The Lord was like, you need to share me with them.
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  You share me, God, I'm on vacation.
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  I thought you knew all things.
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  It's not what I need.
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  Here's what ends up happening.
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  Don't share Christ with them.
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  I'm like, man, I gotta get better at this.
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  I gotta get better at this.
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  Finally, say bye to them.
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  We go off to the airport.
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  They get in their van to go back to the Cancun airport.
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  I get in our van to go back and I'm like, man, blew it.
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  Get to the airport.
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  Same checkout line, come on, Lord.
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  Then I'm like, they're busy checking in.
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  That's it, see you guys, see you guys.
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  Same security line.
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  He won't let it go.
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  There was just this burden.
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  Come to seek and save the lost, man.
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  Come to seek and save the lost.
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  Ruthie and I, one of our traditions is
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  if we go to a church, we go to a church
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  that's a little bit different than ours.
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  Ruthie and I, one of our traditions is
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  if we go to a new city, what we try to do
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  is get a Starbucks mug from wherever we're at.
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  We go to sit down, just at our gate.
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  Ruthie disappears, my wife, for about 20 minutes.
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  She comes back with tears in her eyes.
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  And I'm like, are they out of Starbucks mugs?
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  I'm like, you know, we'll buy one on Amazon.
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  Like, we didn't have to be from Cancun, right?
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  She said,
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  she said,
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  I went and found Bill.
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  She said, I just need to let you know
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  that God loves you, and we love you.
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  And we just needed to let you know that.
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  She said, Bill was just kind of taken back.
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  He had seen me reading my theological books
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  out on the beach, you know, doing the pastor thing,
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  reading it, but never saying it.
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  And then he said this to her.
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  Nobody in my 40 years has told me that God loves me.
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  Just sat there and cried in the airport in Cancun.
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  And I'm like,
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  because oftentimes as a pastor,
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  I'm asking God for more compassion.
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  And I'm asking God to make me a more courageous leader.
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  And what he's telling me is this,
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  Nate, you don't need more compassion.
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  You need a deeper conviction.
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  And when you have a deeper conviction
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  that I've come to seek and save the loss,
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  that Nate, I've come to seek and save you.
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  I've come to seek and save Bill.
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  The compassion to sit and eat,
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  the courage to stand when all the people are muttering,
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  they've gone to eat with sinners.
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  What we'll find is this,
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  that the conviction of Jesus
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  will always lead to compassion for this world.
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  And the conviction of Jesus will always make you and I
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  into courageous men and women of Jesus.
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  Lost without Jesus.
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  Yes, we are, but how beautiful it is to be found.
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  Amen.
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  How beautiful it is to be found.
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  May we go and seek and save the lost.
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  The one who's come to seek and save us.
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  Thank you guys for listening to this episode
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  of the Real Life Theology Podcast.
• 13:04
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• 13:06
  please comment, like, subscribe, and share.
• 13:08
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• 13:11
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• 13:13
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