Latest / Calvary Church with Ed Taylor Podcast / #20250202 - This Is How I Fight My Battles - Matthew 4:1-11

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#20250202 - This Is How I Fight My Battles - Matthew 4:1-11 · Calvary Church with Ed Taylor Podcast

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Welcome to the study of God's Word recorded live at Calvary
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Church in Aurora, Co. To learn more about the many
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resources available through Abounding Grace Media or to tune
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into our live stream services, visit us online at Calvary Co
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dot Church or download our free Calvary Church app.
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Now let's open our Bibles and study God's Word.
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Good morning. Glad that you guys are here.
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Yeah. Lake of the Ozarks.
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There's a couple shows about my area, and none of them are good.
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All right. When I first took the role down
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there, even my own father-in-law was like, you know, there's like
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a show about smuggling contraband and Bibles on the
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lake. I said, yeah, that's my new
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church. No welcome.
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You should come. No.
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So it's a unique place to do ministry because in the
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offseason, in the winter months, you know, outside of summer it's
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normal, kind of small town. But in between the two big
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summer months, we have like 15 some million people that come to
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the lake and they're not coming for the right reasons.
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Let's just be honest, we are known as the party lake.
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There's a lot of depravity, of lot of drugs and sex
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trafficking, a lot of those things.
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And so it's like a three month mission trip that we get to as
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churches in the lake area to step in and try to reach people
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that are they're yearning for something.
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And we're just trying to show them that the thing that they
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need in their life is the Lord Jesus.
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So the ministry there has been greatly impacted by Calvary
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here, right? I've known Pastor Ed for quite a
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few years. I've met him when I was a
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student pastor and just really started pouring into me.
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I even kind of thought like, who, why are you pouring into
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me? I'm just like a student pastor
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in Missouri. And what he did and he always
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made himself available and he was very instrumental, just like
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pouring into me as I was stepping out of student ministry
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and into full time lead pastoring and just poured into
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me. The when I came to our Calvary
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at the Lake of the Ozarks, the first six months, Pastor Ed
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probably called me every week, every other week.
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How are you doing? What are you dealing with?
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What are the problems that you're having?
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How can I be praying for you? And that encouragement was
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amazing. So the impact that the Lord is
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making in the Lake of the Ozarks area in and through Calvary
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Chapel and the surrounding churches there is honestly in
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small part because of who you guys are as a church and Pastor
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Ed to pour into other churches in the next generation.
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So I just want to say thank you for that.
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And so a little bit about me, like I don't take myself very
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serious, but I take the Lord very serious.
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I take his word serious. I'm married.
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I we have 4 kids, my wife and all them are at home in Missouri
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and I understand where I'm at. I'm outside of Denver.
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I'm not going to say anything about football as the kid that
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grew up an hour north of Kansas City, right?
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The unity of the body matters. It's more important than a three
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peats, right? It's like easy, easy buddy
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Saturday service. They were ready to stone me.
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Let me tell you, it was awesome. So been married for almost 20
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years. We have 4 amazing kids.
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I have a 19 year old son and then three daughters, 17, one
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week away from turning 13 and then almost 10 year old little
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girl. And so my son who's 19, he moved
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out last month real recently into his own apartment.
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It was from a place of health. I didn't kick him out, but he
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had his own place. And so like, I am absolutely
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alone. Even the the dog is a girl like
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I am. I am greatly outnumbered as the
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man of the house. And so I'll appreciate all the
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prayers that you could give me. But a unique thing about my kids
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is they're my rocks of remembrance.
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You know, the old hymn says, here I raise my Ebenezer, and
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that word Ebenezer means rocks of remembrance.
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And so in the history of Israel, there would be times that the
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Lord would work and move in different seasons.
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And they never wanted to forget the faithfulness of the Lord.
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And so Israel would come together and they would stack
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stones, one from every tribe, to remember what the Lord had done
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in their life in that moment. And so for me, when I want to
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look back and see the faithfulness of God in my life,
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I just have to look at my four kids because the moments of
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their birth, that season that I was in, those are very
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influential and instrumental moments in my life.
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So with my son, you know, he's my rock of remembrance for
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salvation. I grew up going to church with
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some amazing grandparents that were trying to hand down to me a
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beautiful faith in Jesus. But I was kind of stubborn about
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it, right? Like any other teenager.
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And I had to become a father to understand the father's love.
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It's something I struggled with. But it wasn't until he came out
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and the nurses hand me this baby with his big head, big eyes, big
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belly. I thought, yeah, he looks like
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me. That's my kid, right?
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And it's the immense love that filled my heart and his
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thinking, like I would lay down my life for my son.
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And then it was the Lord that hit me and he said, I lay down
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my son for you. And so it was in that moment
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that I made that faith my own and I surrendered and gave my
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life to Christ. And so if I ever doubt my
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salvation, if I ever doubt that, you know the love that God has
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for me, I just look at my son and he's my rock of remembrance
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that I'm saved. And then my daughter, she is 17.
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When she was born, that's when we really saw the need for the
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church. The local body of Christ is such
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a beautiful thing of fellowship, Quinnia, that the discipleship
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and pouring into each other's lives the ironing iron,
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sharpening iron that is just so needed that our faith is not
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meant to be this like private, tucked away secret thing, but to
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be lived out publicly and together.
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And so we just saw the need for the church where we almost kind
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of found our community of faith was the closer family that we
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had that almost biologically there was just a beautiful thing
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to see. So if I ever feel alone, if I
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ever feel struggles in my life and my faith, I know that I have
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a rock of remembrance. I just look at my daughter and,
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and realize now I have a beautiful faith family to be
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together and walking in life together with.
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And then my almost 13 year old and she is super excited about
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turning 13. Like we got it planned to the T
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even down to the four layer chocolate ganache cake.
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So pray for me and that I don't get diabetes right.
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When she was born, that was my first year in Bible college when
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I answered the call to go into full time ministry.
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And that was a tough season because I thought some of my
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past sins disqualified me, that I was too far gone, broken for
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the Lord to use. And that was that first year of
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Bible college. She was born.
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I was working full time. I'm actually a second kind of
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vocation pastor. I was a pediatric nurse for six
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or seven years, so I was working full time.
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I was taking full time college credits and obviously married
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with two kids and one on the way.
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People ask me what was that season of life?
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Like I said, it's easy. Imagine you're drowning and
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somebody hands you a baby. And so there's times that even
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for me being in ministry for 12 vocational ministry for 12 years
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now, I could, I can doubt, is this really what the Lord has
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for me? Am I really leaning into the
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ministry and the calling and, and the enemy can sometimes want
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to do that. And all I have to do is look at
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my daughter and remember that rock of remembrance that no, the
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Lord is faithful and he has called me to preach and to teach
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and to shepherd and to love his church.
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And it was about a year later we stepped into our first
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vocational ministry job. We moved to Wisconsin.
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The three young kids, me and my wife had no idea.
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And there's a lot of snow in Wisconsin too.
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And I hate the snow. And it was three months into
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that vocation that I was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer.
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I thought, Lord, what? I said yes to you.
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I'm stepping out in faith and in ministry like, like this is
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absolutely not on the plan. And that was a struggle.
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And we entered into four months of intense chemotherapy.
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Like, the hairstyle is not optional right now, right?
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Nobody wakes up and thinks, yeah, bald, That's what I want
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to do, right? But bald is beautiful.
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I have to remind myself that. But for four months, intense
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chemo. And there's something that I
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miss about cancer. And it's crazy when I say things
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like this because I missed that moment by moment dependency that
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I had upon the Lord because there were so many times that as
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they're pouring this poison into my body to try to kill the
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cancer faster than it's going to kill me.
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Like, oh, that's a fun class project to be a part of.
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There'd be times when my body's just going crazy.
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And I thought, is this it? Am I going to leave my wife as a
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widow? And am I going to leave my kids
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without a father? And just just continuing, just
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trusting the Lord in that, like, I miss those moments.
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And it was through that, that because of the type of cancer
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that I had, the intensity of the chemo that I had to take.
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The doctors told us that you'll never have kids again.
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And that was a massive struggle for my wife, to which it was for
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me watching her walk through that pain and that grief that
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that decision was taken from us because we always wanted to have
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those four kids. And we about a year later, all
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of her friends start getting pregnant like at the same time.
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It's almost like they planned it super weird, right?
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And every week, like one of these new friends, like she
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would show me a positive pregnancy testing, like oh, so
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and so got pregnant. I'm like, this is weird.
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Like women do weird things. They pee on a stick, take a
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picture of it, send it to their friends.
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Like that's awkward. Like men are gross, but that's
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weird, you know, like we don't even do that.
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And the whole time I'm just like, who is it now?
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Like I didn't even know you had this many friends, like cut them
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out of your life. What is going on?
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And every time that she saw that, like there would be a joy
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for her friend, but there would be a deep grief because the pain
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of having that decision taken from us.
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And we just had to trust the Lord and say, all right, like
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this is going to be one of those things that we don't understand,
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but we're going to trust you anyway.
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And then one day we're sitting out on the front porch.
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She shows me another test. Like, who is it now?
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They need to get a hobby, go run, get that energy out another
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way. Like, what is going on?
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Don't they know how painful this is?
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And she starts crying and she says it's me.
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Absolutely. And it was in then with my
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fourth child, my third daughter, you know, she's my rock of
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remembrance, that no matter if the doctors of the world says,
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hey, this is impossible, there's nothing impossible with God and
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that my life is always in the Lord's hands.
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And my daughter, her name is Emerson.
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She's our little miracle baby. And she knows the story.
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And I try to tell her, don't let it go to your head.
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Now, girl, you still got to do dishes.
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Don't matter if you're, you know, miracle baby got to clean
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her room too. OK.
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When she was little, she knew the story.
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And she would say, the doctor said no, Emmy, but God said,
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here's Emmy. And I just love that.
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And so anytime that I'm in a situation and I'm in a struggle,
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I'm in a moment where I don't see the way out and I feel like
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this is an impossible situation that I'm in, I just hear the
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voice of my youngest reminding me that rock of remembrance,
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that nothing is impossible for God.
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And where we don't see a way, He will absolutely make a way.
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And just because I gave my life to the Lord and I serve him in
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ministry and, and I'm trying to lead my family into honouring
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Christ, doesn't mean that my life is without battles, without
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struggles, without pain, without suffering.
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Because sometimes that could be a false expectation that we put
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upon the Lord, that hey, I, I surrendered and gave my life to
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you. I'm putting my faith in you.
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Why is my life not looking any better?
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And we break our own hearts because we think God didn't keep
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promises, but that he never made them.
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And so that lie to think that our life is going to be
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perfectly smooth and great and this Unicorn and cupcakes and
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rainbows because I gave my life to the Lord.
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Like that's a false expectation. That's not biblical
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Christianity. That's not what it truly means
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to follow Jesus, that your life will absolutely have pain and
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grief and loss, struggles and turmoils.
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There will be battles in your life.
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The question before us is, how do we fight those battles?
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Because we can do that in a way that honors the Lord and brings
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glory to Him, that transforms and changes us.
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Or we know that those same struggles and trials can be
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things that the enemy just wins victory in and pulls us away
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from the Lord. And so if you have your Bible,
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open up to Matthew chapter 4 with a Bible study that I've
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titled This is how I Fight my battles.
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And that title is meaningful to me because in, in my Bible, I
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have written on the, the, the pages this side.
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This is how I fight my battles. So when I sit down to open up
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the word of God, it's not my own abilities.
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That's not how I fight. It's not my own resources.
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It's not my knowledge, my education, my experience in
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ministry. No, it is through the word of
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God. This is how I fight my battles
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and I need that reminder. Why?
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Because we're prone to wander from it.
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We're prone to become apathetic. We're prone to become
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distracted. We're prone to become conceited
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and full of our self and thinking I'm all that and a bag
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of chips. But this is how I fight my
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battles. So if you have your Bible,
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Matthew chapter 4, it's going to read the first 11 verses.
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Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be
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tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40
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nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to
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him, if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become
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loaves of bread. But he answered, it is written,
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man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that
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comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the
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holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, And he
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said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, For
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it is written, He will command his angels concerning you, and
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on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your
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foot against a stone. And Jesus said to him, Again, It
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is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to test.
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Again the devil took him to a very high mountain, showed him
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all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, And he said to
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him, All these I will give to you, if you will fall down and
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worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Be gone,
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Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God,
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in him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him, and
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behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
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See, one of my favorite things about this passage is actually
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what's written just a little bit before, but in our kind of
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modern American Western mindset of Christianity, we see the
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chapter and verse divisions. And sometimes we can think those
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are different thoughts and they're not connected.
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And we have to understand and know that the chapter and the
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verse divisions, they were added in the 1500s.
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That was added 1500 years later after the time of writing.
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It wasn't like the apostle John was sitting down as he wrote his
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gospel and thought 03/16, they're going to love this.
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That didn't really exist until again, 1500 years later.
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And there's, to be honest, there's times that we, we put
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those chapter divisions not in the greatest spots where it's
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not breaking thought. We're just trying to break up
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the, the, the text a little bit. But you're supposed to read it
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in context regardless if there's a chapter division or not.
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What are the verses after it? What are the verses before it?
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Because if you remember right before it, at the end of Matthew
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chapter 3, that's the baptism of Jesus where he rolls up to John
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the Baptist, his cousin, to be baptized by him.
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And as he came up out of the water, we read that the Spirit
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of God came down on him like a dove.
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And a voice from heaven said, this is my son, who I am well
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pleased. Is it any coincidence, And I
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don't believe that it is, that the very first thing that the
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enemy says to Jesus after 40 days of fasting to tempt him is
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denying what God affirmed because we hear God say this is
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my son. And then the enemy says if you
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are the Son of God, like you really think that's who you are.
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If so, prove it. Then I have AI have a couple
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tests for you to go through to prove that you're the Son of
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God. See, Satan will always attack
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what God has affirmed in US. And that's the importance of
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knowing that the battle that we're in is that we have a very
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real enemy that absolutely wants to still kill and destroy what
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God has affirmed in US. And so a part of how do we fight
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our battle is understanding and knowing the promises of God,
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understanding our identity in Christ, who we truly are.
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For those of us that are in Christ, that have surrendered
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and given our life to Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, we're
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loved, we're forgiven, we're chosen.
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But how many of us, just because of the struggles and the battles
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and the pains and the grief of life, sometimes even our own sin
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and the mistakes that we make, feel like we're unloved and we
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questioned, am I truly forgiven for that?
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And how many of us feel rejected?
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And this isn't those on the outside of the church, those
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that don't have a saving relationship with God.
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I'm speaking to those that do inside the family of God.
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How easy is it for us to hold to the lies of the enemy, but not
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the truth of God? And we allow, we need to allow
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Him to define us regardless of how we feel.
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The truth of His word is what we need to hold fast to, that if
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this is what He has said about me, because I am saved by grace
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through faith. This is far more important than
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anything that the enemy would ever throw at us.
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But we have to understand that. We have to know that we're in a
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very real battle. We can't just be walking along
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the front lines thinking that we're in Mr. Rogers
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neighborhood. We have a very real enemy that
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wants to bring destruction to your life.
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And the things that God has affirmed in us, He absolutely
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wants to destroy. And So what is greater?
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What God has affirmed in US or the lies that the enemy throws
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at us? That's where we need the sheer
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to shield of faith to hold up against those fiery darts of the
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enemy. But how many of us have dropped
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the shield and we just keep taking arrow to the chest every
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time? And to take it even further, we
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start believing those lies. So maybe God doesn't love me.
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Maybe I've sinned one too many times and he's, he's removed his
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grace from my life. I mean, it's heretical.
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You can't say that in church on a Sunday morning.
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But how many of us actually believe it though?
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So we need to allow the promises of God that we find in the Word
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of God to define our identity. Again, I don't find it another
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coincidence that after 40 days of fasting.
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Then the thing that the enemy uses to try to get Jesus to fall
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into temptation and sin is the very thing that he was fasting
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from food, the very place that he was empty in.
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Like he absolutely was hungry. Jesus was fully human and fully
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gone. He absolutely, His stomach was
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probably growling pretty good. And to have that temptation come
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across because we have to understand the enemy's not going
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to tempt us with things that we're, that we're not tempted at
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that we don't want, right? Like I've never been tempted
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just to cut my nose clear off, right.
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I've never been tempted to eat dog poop, right?
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I've never looked at that. And I thought, I wonder, no, And
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sometimes we think that that's what it is for Jesus that he was
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like, oh, this was easy. No, this was probably a very
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difficult moment fast for 40 days.
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And the first thing is the thought of just like warm baked
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bread, like I probably couldn't go 40 minutes to be honest,
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right? This isn't a beach body.
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This is a bread body. I love carbs.
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And it is any wonder that the very thing that Jesus was empty
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in, that's what the enemy was trying to use to tempt him with.
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So the question for you this morning is where are you empty?
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What are your weaknesses? I'm not talking about food.
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What are you hungry for? Attention.
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Success. Hungry for comfort in your life?
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Hungry for intimacy? Where's that?
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What's that void in your heart right now?
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And we all have it, even if I didn't name it.
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We all have that. And what we have to understand
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that all sin is an attempt to try to fill a void in our heart
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and it fails every time. So where are you hungry?
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We need to be aware of our weaknesses.
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Are you at work? And you're hungry for that
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attention and success? You're working overtime
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struggling with your boss and he doesn't recognize all that you
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do. Your Co workers are jerks and
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they never try to help. And you just want that
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promotion, just want that raise like.
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And that's where if I could just have that, then I would find
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that fulfilment. Is that what you're hungry for?
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Comfort do you find, are you hungry for comfort?
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Where you find more comfort in your, you know, the size of your
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401K, your bank account, the house you have, the car you
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drive? Because we always think that the
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the enemy's going to throw just like these massively grotesque
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sins to try to get us off of the path of following Jesus.
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And how easily our pride can just be like sewn in to pull us
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away from pursuing Christ, where it's more about we find our
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pride that we're overworked or the status that we have
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economically or even the status we have in ministry.
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So what are you hungry for? Intimacy, longing.
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You know, we, we probably started in a biblical worldview,
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like, no, there's a lot of young people that are starving to
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enter into a biblical marriage and to have that connection,
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intimacy, to have that, that help mate, that person to walk
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through life together. And we start to kind of wonder
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like, why hasn't it happened yet?
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Lord, like, and sometimes we'll even question and like, what is
23:46
wrong with me? And like, why doesn't anybody,
23:48
you know, don't even want to take me to tacos?
23:50
Like what is going on? And we can struggle with that.
23:53
Like there's young people in my church that they, it's a, it's a
23:56
massive struggle. And I tell them all the time,
23:59
like, if you want a date, we can get you a date tomorrow, right?
24:02
You just head down to the strip on the, at the Lake of the
24:05
Ozarks where all the bars are at, like, oh, it's easy.
24:07
I can get you a date tomorrow. But you're going to have to
24:09
compromise your values and your faith.
24:13
And that's the thing that the enemy knows that he's absolutely
24:19
going to have a counterfeit for us.
24:22
And so we need to be aware of these weaknesses.
24:25
We need to bring our weaknesses to Jesus.
24:27
We need to be aware of those. We need to understand about
24:30
that. We can't let pride say, no, I
24:31
don't have any struggles. I don't have any pain.
24:33
I don't have any weaknesses. You know, that's why we need to
24:36
be students of the Word, that we sit consistently diligently with
24:42
the Word and allowing it to be the mirror of our lives and our
24:46
heart to reflect and show and reveal to us where our
24:50
shortcomings are at. Reveal to us where we're tempted
24:53
to find fulfilment and purpose in something else that is not
24:57
Jesus. It needs to reveal these
24:59
weaknesses to us. But so many times we use the
25:02
Word of God as binoculars to look at the sin of other
25:05
people's lives like the Pharisees, and condemn them and
25:09
judge them, when the purpose of the Word was to reveal our
25:12
broken hearts and to drive us to the need that we have of a
25:17
Savior. Bring your weaknesses to Jesus
25:22
before Satan brings them to you. Oh, how?
25:27
How long have you been hungry for success?
25:30
How long have you been hungry for comfort?
25:33
How long have you been hungry for intimacy?
25:36
Why do you keep waiting upon the Lord?
25:39
We could fulfill that right now, but we have to remember 2nd
25:44
Corinthians 12, verse 9, it says Jesus tells us that my strength
25:49
is made perfect in weakness. So there's certain certain
25:54
moments in our lives, there's there's a certain area of just
25:58
honesty and transparency that we need to be about the struggles
26:01
that we have in our life and we need to lay them down before the
26:04
Lord. You know, the epistle of first
26:08
John says that he, whoever claims does not have sin, he's a
26:12
liar. So if you're like, I don't
26:14
struggle with any sin, well, you're a liar.
26:15
There's the sin that you're struggling with that you need to
26:17
lay down before the Lord. There's your weakness right
26:19
there. So we all have that pastor
26:21
included. And understanding my weaknesses
26:24
and putting it before the Lord. I struggle with insecurities,
26:28
but it's his strength that's made perfect in our weaknesses.
26:33
And with every temptation that we see here in Matthew 4, Satan
26:36
is trying to get Jesus to take a shortcut.
26:38
He's trying to get him to avoid the cross.
26:41
He's starting to do everything that he can.
26:43
And what's so unique about it is everything that Satan is
26:47
offering unto Jesus. We find fulfillment in the cross
26:52
and the resurrection, right? So the the 1st 2 temptations,
26:57
what Satan say, if you're the Son of God, if you're the Son of
27:00
God, you go to the end of the Gospel of John after Jesus has
27:04
died on the cross, what does the Roman centurion say?
27:08
Indeed, he was the Son of God. It doesn't need to be proven
27:13
because he can turn stones and some bread.
27:15
He proved it by being that unblemished, acceptable
27:18
sacrifice for the sin of the world upon the cross, that
27:22
surely that was the Son of God or even the enemy.
27:27
Taking him up on the high pinnacle of the temple to throw
27:30
himself down and to test the Lord and His heart to guard and
27:34
protect Him. We see a greater fulfilment than
27:38
trying to test the Lord by bungee jumping without the
27:41
bungee cord. We see the heart of the Father
27:44
raising Christ from the grave. So you want to truly understand
27:50
the heart of the Father. We see that in the resurrection
27:53
that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead and that
27:57
same Spirit lives in you and me, that same power that was at work
28:02
and the the pinnacle events of our faith across and the
28:06
resurrection now lives in US and the the audacity to think about
28:13
it that the enemy would take Jesus to a high mountain and
28:17
show him all of the world and say I will give this to you.
28:22
I almost kind of wished Jesus would have just turned to him
28:24
and said it's already mine. You're the squatter on my
28:32
territory. I created all this.
28:34
Who do you think you are to hand it to me?
28:38
But with every temptation, Satan is trying to get Jesus to take a
28:41
shortcut. And the same is for us.
28:45
And we have to remember, a shortcut never leads to the
28:47
destination, but it always leads to destruction.
28:51
There's nothing that the enemy wants to do other than to still
28:55
kill and to destroy your life. And not even just you.
28:59
He wants collateral damage. He doesn't want to just take you
29:02
out. He wants to take your loved
29:03
ones, your coworkers. He wants to cause as much damage
29:06
as possible. And we have to know that and we
29:11
also have to know that he's deceitful and he's deceptive
29:14
because he's not going to package it that way.
29:16
He's not just going to roll up into your life, knock on your
29:18
door and say, do you want me to destroy your life?
29:20
No, not at all. He's going to Trojan horse that
29:23
thing. Every time that that the desires
29:27
of our flesh and our lust, he's going to captivate those almost
29:33
like a fish, right? Lake of the Ozarks, There's a
29:35
lot of fishing there, right? There's going to be the lure.
29:38
James kind of talks about this, that the enemy's going to lure
29:41
us and there's certain lures and there's certain bait depending
29:44
on the type of fish that you want, right?
29:47
It's like you want to catch a catfish.
29:48
You just want to go buy something in the chicken aisle
29:51
that we're like innards, put them in a bag, let them rot for
29:54
like 3-4 days. You're going to catch a fish
29:56
every time. It's going to be a catfish or if
29:59
you want a bass, there's a different lure for that.
30:01
Or if you want the And that's the thing, even with us, it's
30:03
not even going to be the same temptation.
30:05
The things that are going to come after you, they're the
30:07
potential to bring you down are going to be different for you to
30:09
me, to the person next to you. And the enemy will just keep
30:13
switching out lures and trying to find that one thing.
30:15
Oh, that distracts you, that gets you to follow the bait
30:21
that's going to tempt you and pull you away until you get
30:24
hooked. And that's where James would
30:26
tell us that temptation leads to sin and sin leads to death.
30:29
If we always see the end goal, that sin is always going to lead
30:33
to death. That's the truth.
30:35
And understanding how to fight this battle, that whatever the
30:38
enemy brings before us in a temptation, he only wants to
30:42
bring death. We will never find fulfillment
30:45
and purpose in anything that the enemy has for us.
30:48
But that fulfillment, the purpose, the fullness of our
30:51
hearts will only be found in Christ and Christ alone.
30:57
So a shortcut never leads to the destination, but only to
31:01
destruction. And he always has a shortcut.
31:03
He always has a counterfeit. And when we hear counterfeit,
31:06
like we think we're smart enough to know like, oh, I would spot a
31:09
counterfeit, you know, across the room.
31:12
You think of like money, counterfeit dollar bills.
31:15
We when we think of that, our mind usually goes to the pink
31:18
50s and a monopoly sets, right? Like, oh, I would see that a
31:21
mile away. But that's not a true
31:23
counterfeit, is it? The counterfeit is so much like
31:27
the original, the real thing, but with no value whatsoever.
31:32
And think of how many counterfeits the enemy has in
31:34
our world today. Oh, you want a biblical
31:38
marriage? Here, let me The enemy has
31:40
something totally different, so close to the same, but lacking
31:44
the value of what a true biblical marriage is.
31:47
You're hungry for that intimacy here.
31:49
Cohabitate, shack up. Have that now.
31:52
Why wait? What's marriage, anyway?
31:54
It's just a piece of paper. And that's the lie that our
31:58
world is believing. See, the enemy always has a
32:02
counterfeit, and we have to be aware enough in the battle to
32:05
know that he's going to try to bring some of those counterfeits
32:08
across our life. My wife, when she was in high
32:12
school, she worked at Burger King, and she was in the drive
32:15
through working the register, and somebody came through and
32:17
they were trying to buy food and they handed a counterfeit dollar
32:20
bill. It was a $20 bill, and before my
32:23
wife even looked at it and she was just grabbing it through the
32:26
window, the moment she like, could just feel the paper of
32:29
that dollar bill, she knew it instantly.
32:31
Something's not right. Now, did my wife take a
32:35
counterfeit money course in her high school?
32:37
Nope, not at all. That would be weird.
32:39
That would give me red flags. Like, why did you take that
32:42
class, you psycho? No, like, what am I getting into
32:45
here? So how did she know that that
32:48
was a counterfeit even before laying eyes on it?
32:51
She handled the real thing so much that the moment that there
32:55
was a counterfeit coming across, she knew instantly.
32:58
And the same as the is true for us with the Word, we need to
33:02
remain consistent and diligent to handle the Word of God
33:06
accordingly and appropriately. Paul would say, cut it straight.
33:11
We need to be handling the truth so much that the moment that the
33:13
enemy is trying to sew in a counterfeit into our lives,
33:16
it'll stand out. It'll be an alarm in the in our
33:20
senses and within our soul. But that only comes from
33:24
handling the truth. We don't need to study
33:27
counterfeits and the lives of the enemies.
33:29
We just need to understand the truth of who God is and what
33:32
he's done for us and the truth of his word.
33:35
And it's hard because battles, they're difficult.
33:39
I've never heard any veteran that's been in a battle say, Oh
33:41
yeah, that was fun, that was easy.
33:44
They're gruelling, they're painful, they're hard, they're
33:48
difficult. And there's times that we think
33:52
that, oh, because I'm going through this difficult
33:54
situation, that the Lord would be OK with the bad behaviour.
33:58
You know that, oh, he knows what I'm going through.
34:00
And we use that bad trial, that bad battle, that struggle that
34:04
we have is a justification of our bad behaviour.
34:07
And we have to know that a difficult environment never
34:10
justifies compromise. Like even the Snickers candy
34:14
bars making great money on this idea.
34:17
Oh, you're just not yourself when you're hungry.
34:19
Here, have a Snickers. I mean, how many times do we
34:22
come home from work and we're exhausted and we're tired and
34:25
we're hungry, hungry, hungry. Yeah, it sounds like I'm talking
34:28
to my kids and we're hungry and we end up snapping at our
34:33
spouses and we're short tempered with our kids and there's a lack
34:37
of patience and what do we say? Oh, it was just a bad day at
34:42
work and oh, I'm just hungry. No, we're just undisciplined.
34:46
That's what it really is. Because again, a difficult
34:50
environment never justifies that.
34:52
The Lord doesn't look at us and be like, oh, I know you've had a
34:55
tough, you know, couple weeks or it's been a bad weekend.
34:57
Yeah, go ahead and just act like a fool.
34:59
You can throw that temper tantrum and it's understandable
35:02
because of what you're going through.
35:03
No, the fruit of the spirit grows in every season.
35:07
It doesn't matter the season that you're in.
35:09
It could be a high mountain top, it could be a low dark valley,
35:13
but the fruit of the Spirit grows in all of those seasons.
35:16
So regardless of what you're going through, the battle, the
35:19
struggle, the pain, the hurt, the grief, the loss, whatever it
35:22
is for you, it never justifies compromise.
35:27
It is never an opportunity to be unbecoming of the call of Christ
35:31
upon our lives. That's how we walk through the
35:36
valley of the shadow of death. And a lot of times we think,
35:39
well, how long is this going to go on for?
35:42
And I believe every one of us, either we're getting ready to
35:44
walk into a battle, into a storm, we're in the middle of
35:47
one right now, or we're getting ready to walk out of one.
35:51
And there's a lot of times for those of us that are in it.
35:53
And it's just like, how long is this going to go on for?
35:55
I mean, even David wrote that so many times in the Psalms.
35:58
How long, O Lord? How long, O Lord?
36:01
And why didn't the Lord ever answer him?
36:03
Oh, it's two weeks. Just hang in there, buddy,
36:05
you'll be all right. The Lord never gave him that.
36:07
Why? Because his faith would be in
36:09
the expiration date, but not in the Lord.
36:12
And the same is true for us, that if we knew how long the
36:15
battle was going to be, we would take our eyes off of Jesus and
36:19
we'd be walking by confirmation and the expiration date of the
36:22
end of that. We wouldn't be walking in that
36:24
day-to-day, moment by moment, dependency upon Jesus.
36:29
And that's the thing I miss about cancer, Lord, I don't know
36:33
what tomorrow brings, but my only responsibility today is to
36:39
follow you. And if I wake up and I'm in the
36:42
same battle, the call upon my life never changes.
36:47
Continue to follow Jesus. And we see that he fasted for 40
36:52
days. I mean, that's a that's a
36:53
stretch of time. And we actually see that number
36:56
used frequently in Scripture, 40 days and 40 nights.
36:59
Think of Noah and the flood. It rained for 40 days, 40
37:02
nights. Moses going up on Mount Sinai to
37:05
meet with the Lord to receive the law.
37:06
He actually does it twice. He has two moments of 40 days
37:09
and 40 nights. The prophet Elijah, he fasted 40
37:13
days, 40 nights. Goliath taunting Israel before
37:16
David took him out, 40 days, 40 nights.
37:20
Jonah preaching through Nineveh to the Assyrians, he preached
37:24
for 40 days, 40 nights. It's actually the worst sermon
37:27
ever recorded in scripture. In the original language it was
37:30
only 5 words and it doesn't even mention the name of God.
37:33
It just said, hey, after 40 days, destruction's coming.
37:37
My church asks all the time, when do we get that five word
37:39
sermon right? We'd beat all the other churches
37:43
to lunch. Let's go Jesus fast here for 40
37:47
days, 40 nights, even after the resurrection.
37:49
What was the period of time that Jesus was appearing to his
37:52
disciples? And as First Corinthians 15
37:54
tells us, appearing to 500 at one time, it was a period of 40
37:58
days. And so that that number 40,
38:02
there's a significance to it and it designates a period of time
38:05
of a spiritual challenge leading to spiritual growth.
38:11
Because if you ask anybody at any given time, like people have
38:14
been asking me like, hey, how's the lake?
38:16
How's everything going? It's like, it's kind of been a
38:18
rough couple weeks. I mean, who's not having just a
38:21
rough couple weeks or it's been a just a busy couple weeks.
38:24
It's been a frustrating like that's only 14 days.
38:27
Now, I'm not saying take it super literal.
38:29
So if you get to 40 days, you think it's going to end and you
38:31
hit day 41. You call the pastor a liar.
38:35
But sometimes these seasons are going to last.
38:37
It's going to be more than just a bad day or a bad weekend that
38:40
it might be a season of hurt, a season of struggle, a season of
38:46
pain that you're going to walk through.
38:50
And, and there's going to be times that you're going to feel
38:53
like, I just want to give up that whatever's happened, I just
38:55
want to walk away from it. And we have to keep putting
38:59
ourself under the, the leadership and the guidance and
39:04
the direction of the Lord. I mean, that's the call of
39:08
worship for us because thank what happened after the 40 days
39:13
and the temptation, what do we see that happens pretty much
39:15
next in Jesus life? He starts his ministry.
39:19
Verse 23 says that he goes throughout all Galilee teaching
39:22
in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom,
39:25
healing every disease, every affliction among the people.
39:28
Like we see this amazing, powerful, beautiful ministry and
39:32
we love that. We want to be a part of that,
39:34
but we don't want to be a part of the 40 days.
39:40
And that's, and that's the struggle is because the the the
39:44
battle that you're in is to bring about a maturity in us
39:48
because everybody wants the platform, they want the
39:50
ministry, but few will walk through the process, the journey
39:55
or since we're in Colorado and there's mountains, let's use the
39:57
analogy. So many people want the view,
40:00
but very few want the climb. We want to shortcut it.
40:04
We want to Amazon Prime this right.
40:07
We want next day delivery. The idea that we would wait six
40:11
weeks for a company to ship us something.
40:13
Yeah, right. We want to binge watch it.
40:16
We have to wait a whole week until the next episode comes
40:18
out. That's foreign.
40:21
And the idea of that, like waiting, is a struggle.
40:27
But strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord.
40:32
And there can be so many times that we want this season to end,
40:36
but it's challenging that our faith would be more in the end,
40:40
the expiration date than it would be in the Lord.
40:44
So that spiritual maturity, that endurance, it comes from staying
40:47
with the Master, apprenticing Jesus, just continually putting
40:51
yourself under his leadership. That's why like Paul would kind
40:55
of describe it in Romans 12, saying that, you know, we're a
40:59
living sacrifice. And the problem with the living
41:03
sacrifice is it climbs off of the altar and how many times
41:07
it's like, I don't want to deny myself.
41:09
I don't want to crucify myself. I don't want to die to myself.
41:13
That's that does not sound fun. It is so much easier just to
41:17
play into the lust of my flesh and the desires of my wicked
41:20
heart. That's so much easier.
41:22
But to say no to myself, right? Like even from birth, I was a
41:26
selfish baby. I didn't care who was around.
41:29
If I was hungry, everybody was going to find that out.
41:31
And if I had to go to the bathroom, I didn't care if you
41:33
were around, I was going to go. It was all about me.
41:38
And the goal is, you know, as we mature, we would lose that
41:40
selfishness. But how many of us adults still
41:46
live selfish lives that we believe that the world is about
41:49
us? And then we're conflicted
41:51
massively with the Gospel that says, no, you need to die to
41:54
yourself daily. You need to keep climbing back
41:57
on that altar of sacrifice and say, it's not my life that I
42:01
live. I've been crucified with Christ.
42:03
The life I now live is by faith in the Son of God who loved me
42:07
and gave himself up for me. It's not about me anymore.
42:12
And that's where our endurance and our maturity will come from
42:15
is staying with Jesus. And you look at this and you
42:20
think, like, how did Jesus defend against the temptation?
42:24
You know, what was kind of his weapon of choice with every one
42:27
of these? He always responded in quoting
42:29
Scripture, holding fast that there is power in the Word of
42:33
God against the very real lies and attacks and the schemes of
42:38
the devil. And so, however, you need to get
42:41
the word of God in your life. Why aren't you?
42:47
Calvary Church here has so many great resources for you to get
42:51
the word of God in your life. But are you still a baby that
42:55
Pastor Ed and the team needs to like spoon feed you?
42:59
Are you growing enough to, you know, all right, I can start
43:02
feeding myself. Even Paul would say that he's
43:06
like, man, I wanted to lay some like nice steak before you, but
43:12
I couldn't. I have to bottle feed you and it
43:15
sucks because that's all you do is just suck, suck, suck.
43:19
You just consume. You're not taking over.
43:22
You need to step into the your own spiritual journey like you
43:27
being full of the spirit, having the word of God, like that's the
43:30
meat and potatoes of your faith. This what we do on a Sunday.
43:34
This is encouragement. This is where this is the, this
43:37
is the Army base where we come in and we get wounds healed up,
43:41
we get equipped, we get armored up to go back out into the
43:45
battle that if our spiritual life, if this is the only time
43:48
we engage our faith is when we're in these walls.
43:51
I question the health of your faith.
43:57
Get in the word of God. It's the very thing that Jesus
44:04
used to fight against the temptations and the schemes of
44:07
the devil and not only just the word.
44:09
There was only one book that he quoted from.
44:11
And all three of these instances, what book would the
44:17
book of Deuteronomy. It's kind of a shocker.
44:20
It's not usually the book that I would have gone to when I'm
44:22
feeling the pressure and the weight of the world.
44:25
If I feel the temptations of the enemy coming after me, if I'm
44:28
struggling with my own insecurities, like it usually
44:30
doesn't hit me to like, oh, book of Deuteronomy, there we go.
44:33
The second giving of the law. OK, Like, that's not the book.
44:36
I wake up in the morning thinking that's what I need to
44:38
read. It's the one I read at night
44:40
when I can't sleep, and it puts me right to sleep every time.
44:44
No, it's a good because it's the second giving of the Law where
44:50
Moses was giving that to the younger generation because the
44:53
older generation didn't hand it off.
44:55
The older generation didn't teach the younger generation the
44:57
law. And so Moses, before he died,
44:59
had to give that again. There's a whole nother sermon
45:01
there to the older generation to make sure you're handing the
45:05
gospel to the next generation. The gospel was never meant to
45:09
stop at you, but to move through you.
45:14
And so Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy showing that there's
45:17
power in the Word because the law is perfect and there's power
45:20
in it. And the same thing for us as the
45:22
church. Hebrews 412 for the word of God.
45:25
It's living and it's powerful. It's sharper than any 2 edged
45:28
sword. Learn how to hold it, learn how
45:31
to yield it, let it cut. The problem is, as we see that
45:34
and we think we're going to be like some knight in shining
45:36
armor, just like slaying people with it, that sharp double edged
45:41
sword is meant to open up us and cut away the dead sin of our
45:44
hearts. Again, the word is not meant to
45:48
be a binoculars to look at others, but a mere to look at
45:51
our own life and it'll Pierce even to the division of soul and
45:54
of spirit, of joints and of marrow.
45:56
It is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the
46:00
heart. Again, you know, you think of
46:03
David that the world was looking at the outside of a man, but the
46:09
Lord looks at the heart. And it's a beautiful thing when
46:13
somebody will humble themselves, put them before the Lord and
46:17
say, what do you see in my heart?
46:19
Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, as David would pray in
46:23
Psalm 51, if there's anything that doesn't need to be there,
46:28
like a surgeon, cut it away and surgery is going to be painful.
46:33
I had emergency surgery when I got diagnosed.
46:36
That's pretty painful. But the same surgeon that cuts
46:40
away the sin in our life is the same physician that brings
46:46
healing to our hearts to allow him to do some surgical work in
46:52
your heart. Romans 116 says, for I'm not
46:55
ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Don't be ashamed of this be it's
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amazing. For it's the power of God for
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salvation to everyone who believes that there's nobody too
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far gone past grace to be saved. There's nobody too deep in their
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brokenness. And as a pastor, how many times
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I've heard people say like, I struggle with this and there's
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just so much I've done, like you don't even understand pastor,
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like there's no way God could ever forgive me.
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And my very biblical response is, try it.
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Why are you making up the Lord's mind for him?
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It's because you don't think you deserve forgiveness, but praise
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the Lord that your thoughts are not His thoughts and your ways
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are not His ways because forgiveness is available to you.
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His grace is available to you, and you might not feel it.
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And that's the problem with emotions.
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We need to allow the truth of who God is, the truth of His
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Word, to lead and guide our life, not our emotions.
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So if you're here this morning, you're wondering, would God
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forgive me? Is the forgiveness available for
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even someone like me? Yes, 1st Corinthians 118 for the
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message of the cross. It's going to be foolishness to
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those who are perishing. We're absolutely going to get
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ridiculed, made fun of, but to us who are being saved, it's the
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power of God. That is why Jesus said man shall
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not live by bread alone, but by on every word that comes from
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the mouth of God. So I encourage you Calvary, be
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faithful to God's word. Understand the promises of God
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that flow from the Word of God, that flow from the character of
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God and the character of God. He is unchanging.
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God is love, He is truth, He is light.
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You're never going to wake up and just wonder like, does the
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Lord not love me anymore? Has He removed His grace from my
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life? No, He is unchanging and His
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promises are yes and Amen. They are true.
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And then we could absolutely put the foundation of our life upon
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them. Be faithful to God's word.
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Why? Because He is faithful to it.
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If he has said it, we can hold fast to it.
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And so as the worship team is going to be coming up, if
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you're, if you're in a season right now and you're in a
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battle, it could be tempting to pray it away and just ask the
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Lord, Lord, take, take this season, end this season of my
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life. I can't take it anymore.
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Another day of this pain and this hurts and the and the
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problem with that, we could possibly trying to be praying
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away the thing that the very thing that God wants to use to
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bring you and draw you to himself because again, he is far
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more concerned about your character than your comfort.
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He's far more concerned about your holiness than your
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happiness. And if we do not look at our
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lives through a biblical worldview, through the lens of
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the gospel, we could miss the very thing that God is doing in
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us to draw us closer to him. That we would grow and develop
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the maturity and the endurance and the perseverance for the
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ministry that he has for us and every one of us that have
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surrendered and given our life to Jesus.
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We're all in ministry in these walls, outside of these walls on
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staff, not on staff that if we are called by the Lord, there's
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a ministry for us. And He might be wanting to
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transform you and create in you that maturity, that endurance
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that is going to be needed for that ministry before you.
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Or the battle that you're in right now is because there's a
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sin issue in your life that's very real.
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And there's a lot of times that we're prone to be very secretive
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and isolate ourselves away because of a sin issue and we
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try to walk in too blessed to be depressed, but we don't want
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anybody to see our brokenness. We try to put on the mask that
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everything is fine, but underneath and the depths of our
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heart, we know it's not. And we just pray like, Lord,
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just just take these desires away, the lust of the eyes, the
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lust of the flesh, the pride of life, what it like?
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And we just pray and we pray and we pray, Lord, just take this
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from me. And we wake up every day and,
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and there's still that desire that is unbecoming of the call
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of a follower of a Jesus upon us.
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And we get, we get frustrated with it.
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And it's like, why won't the Lord take this from me?
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Could it possibly be that this sin issue that you, you just
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keep indulging? It's not for the Lord to take
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away, but it's for you to surrender unto him that you come
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with an honesty, understanding your weakness, your brokenness
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and saying I desire this and it's a struggle and it's killing
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my life knowing that sin leads to death and it's absolutely
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destroying me. But I need that healing work of
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your grace and my life. See, that's, that's the
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openness, that's the transparency, that's the
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realness that I think the Lord wants to see in our lives.
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And so if that's you this morning, I just encourage you as
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we're going to enter back into a time of worship.
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It might be a stand and sing with Pastor Ian and Pastor Sean,
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or for you, it might be a time to sit and do business with the
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Lord because there might be some of you here that you're going
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through the motions. You're here because going to
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church on Sunday's the good thing, but you do not have a
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saving relationship with Jesus. Today is a beautiful morning to
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give your life to Christ, to understand the grace and the
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love and the mercy that he has to understand.
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That is the blood of Jesus that washes away our sin and we are
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given the righteousness of Christ.
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And so here in a bit, there's going to be some pastors and
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leaders up here that would love to pray with you and for you.
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And I just encourage you say yes to Jesus.
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And some of you, you've done that.
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And it's, it was a beautiful moment.
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But if you really looked at your life right now, you would say,
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you know, I, I see very little fruit of that because I've been
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so distracted and pulled away. Just the apathy and
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complacentness of life has brought me out from under the
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Lord and I need to realign my life to him.
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What we we, we call that a rededication.
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And this is a a beautiful time, a beautiful day to say yes to
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Jesus and and to realign your life to the heart of Jesus.
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And some of you are in a battle right now near just faithfully
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following the Lord. And my encouragement to you is
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just keep walking because what you're walking through is a
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testimony unto the body. And there's going to be times
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that you feel like a lack of endurance and perseverance and
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you just want to get up. But every day you climb back on
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that altar and every day you just keep hitting your knees in
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prayer to seeking the Lord and that work.
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And you wait. And it is beautiful.
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It is in those moments where what we want, what we desire,
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that we surrender that and we just trust the Lord and what he
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is doing. Those are just beautiful moments
54:28
of worship and it is an encouragement to the body to
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see, don't give up. That very faith is an
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encouragement to those around you.
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Let's pray. Father, we love you, we trust
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you, and we just thank you, Lord, that we are not left to
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our own devices, we're not left to our own abilities and
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resources, but that you are with us, that you are Emmanuel.
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And I pray that whatever season, whatever battle, whatever
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struggle that we're in, we would see the work that you want to do
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in and through us. And I pray that again,
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regardless of those battles and struggles, that it'd be a
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testimony to the to the dark, broken world around us.
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Have your faithfulness to us, Lord, Your grace and your love,
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that even the battles that we fight in would be the very thing
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that would bring people into a saving relationship with you,
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Lord. So use us to be your hands and
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your feet and your heart, Jesus, to this broken world around us
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that Calvary here would continue to be the light of Christ, not
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just in Aurora, not just in Colorado, but as it just
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continues to pour in to other local fellowships.
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Lord, I praise you and I thank you for the work that you are
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doing here. And I ask that you just continue
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to use this team here. I lift up, Pastor Ed, put your
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hand upon them. Pray for safe travels back home.
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I just pray for just a renewed passion for you Jesus and for
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your church. And we pray this in the name of
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Jesus and everybody said. We pray that you've been
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encouraged by this Bible study, delivered live from the
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sanctuary of Calvary Church. For prayer, call us at 87730
56:30
Grace that's 877-304-7223. To listen to this message in its
56:37
integrity or to join us for our live stream services, visit us
56:41
online at Calvary Co dot Church or download our free Calvary
56:46
Church app. Be blessed as you worship Jesus
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this week.