Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #232 Making Our Hearts Ready: Mary, Joseph, and the Simple Path to Revival

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#232 Making Our Hearts Ready: Mary, Joseph, and the Simple Path to Revival · The OneCry Podcast

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  Speaker0: Hearing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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  Speaker1: Well, hey, welcome to the One Cry podcast. I'm Kyle Reno with my partner in
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  Speaker1: crime, Bill Eliff over here. How you doing, buddy?
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  Speaker0: I'm doing good, my friend. And, you know, this is airing on Christmas week, I believe.
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  Speaker0: So Merry Christmas to you and all of your humongous herd of Reno children.
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  Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're one to talk now. You probably got like 97 Ellis spread out everywhere.
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  Speaker0: Only 44 coming in.
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  Speaker1: Hallelujah. That's awesome. Well, we say to our listeners the same,
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  Speaker1: man, hope that you are preparing for a great Christmas time.
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  Speaker1: And, Bill, I know, man, it's so easy to be distracted in this season and let
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  Speaker1: the schedule and the gathering moments and even good things move our mind's
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  Speaker1: attention in our heart's affections from what really matters most this season.
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  Speaker1: So I know coming into today, you really want to help us position through God's
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  Speaker1: word for his presence. So, man, tell us some truth.
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  Speaker0: Well, you know, I'll tell you a little Elif tradition about Christmas is we have a,
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  Speaker0: Second story where we, for years, put all our boys because they could just destroy
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  Speaker0: and we don't ever really go up there.
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  Speaker0: But what that gives us is a set of stairs and we've always had a set of stairs
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  Speaker0: in every house we've ever been in.
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  Speaker0: So our tradition on Christmas morning is the kids all gather upstairs and then
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  Speaker0: they line up on that stairwell.
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  Speaker0: And we now have 27 grandkids.
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  Speaker0: And so they're sitting there. And, you know, we're never ready to let them come
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  Speaker0: in at first. And my wife is always kind of the last one. She's doing stuff, getting stuff.
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  Speaker0: And so they're sitting on that stairwell for 30, 40 minutes.
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  Speaker0: And they're yelling and screaming and, you know, let us come down. Let us come down.
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  Speaker0: And they just have to wait. They just have to wait.
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  Speaker0: But, man, they are waiting on their tiptoes.
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  Speaker0: They are, you talk about ready. They're sitting on ready.
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  Speaker0: And we have a little church that I got, really my parents got,
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  Speaker0: and we used all during my childhood,
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  Speaker0: that you wind it up on the back and it plays Silent Night.
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  Speaker0: And so when they hear those church bells, then they can come.
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  Speaker0: And they come in like somebody, I videoed it last year. and somebody on Facebook
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  Speaker0: said, they just kept coming and coming and coming and coming.
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  Speaker0: It's this stream of this great moving herd. But the reason was,
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  Speaker0: Kyle, they were ready. They were expected.
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  Speaker0: And it doesn't take long for them to get down to receive what they are going
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  Speaker0: to get on Christmas, but also some of the parents and things coming in to give something.
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  Speaker0: So in the same way, you know, the One Cry podcast is devoted to really equipping
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  Speaker0: our listeners to be ready for the activity of God,
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  Speaker0: for the movement of God, to live in expectation of more of the reviving of God's
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  Speaker0: people and the spiritual awakening.
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  Speaker0: And we're seeing now all around us the evidence of God's activity.
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  Speaker0: But as we come into this new year, we're going to take the next two weeks,
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  Speaker0: really about the next six weeks.
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  Speaker0: The first series in January will be really posturing you to be ready for the
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  Speaker0: movement of God, for revival, for spiritual awakening.
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  Speaker0: Now, I want to do something unusual a little bit, but since it's Christmas week,
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  Speaker0: I want to take two people who really postured themselves rightly for God's activity,
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  Speaker0: and that's Mary and Joseph.
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  Speaker0: And just show what they did to be so beautifully a part of God's movement and
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  Speaker0: to be used in God's movement.
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  Speaker0: So let me just mention two or three things.
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  Speaker0: First of all, Mary, how she postured herself is when God spoke,
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  Speaker0: she believed and surrendered, right?
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  Speaker0: And we know this story. I don't need to read all the scripture there in Luke 2, but it's amazing.
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  Speaker0: I mean, you know, we just get so familiar with it. But when you stop and think of the details of this,
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  Speaker0: But here's this young, history tells us she was probably a very young virgin who was engaged.
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  Speaker0: And suddenly the angel, and not just any angel, but one of the premier leaders
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  Speaker0: in God's kingdom, Gabriel, comes to her and announces to her,
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  Speaker0: you're going to have a child.
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  Speaker0: And she was perplexed at this statement, of course, when he came in.
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  Speaker0: And she was afraid. We know she was afraid because Gabriel said,
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  Speaker0: don't be afraid, Mary, and you've found favor with God.
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  Speaker0: And she couldn't imagine how this would be.
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  Speaker0: And then Gabriel said, well, I'll tell you how this is going to happen.
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  Speaker0: That you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
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  Speaker0: and you shall name him Jesus, and he will be great, the Son of the Most High,
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  Speaker0: and the Lord will give him the throne of his father,
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  Speaker0: his ancestor David, and he'll reign and his kingdom will have no end.
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  Speaker0: And so she was really afraid.
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  Speaker0: I mean, it was hard to believe this. Can you imagine God just suddenly one afternoon
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  Speaker0: just speaking to you and saying,
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  Speaker0: the Messiah that you've been waiting for has been prophesied for thousands of years is coming,
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  Speaker0: and it's coming in you.
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  Speaker0: And she said, how could this possibly be?
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  Speaker0: And Gabriel said, well, nothing's impossible with God. There's nothing that's impossible.
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  Speaker0: And you're going to have this divine conception. And this child is going to be placed in you.
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  Speaker0: And you're going to bear this son.
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  Speaker0: Now, this brought a lot of fear. Just think about this. Number one,
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  Speaker0: she thought, I'm about to be an unwed mother.
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  Speaker0: And in her day, that was punishable by the law.
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  Speaker0: Even there was a Jewish law that a woman could be stoned and executed for being an unwed mother.
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  Speaker0: It didn't happen as much in her day, but it was possible.
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  Speaker0: Also, she had no idea how her fiance would respond. Joseph, what's he going to think?
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  Speaker0: Is she going to believe her that an angel has come and this divine conception has happened?
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  Speaker0: And the timing seemed off and odd before their marriage.
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  Speaker0: I doubt Mary was ready to get pregnant, was thinking about getting pregnant.
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  Speaker0: But God had come, and so Mary was faced with, how am I going to respond to this?
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  Speaker0: But listen to her response.
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  Speaker0: She said in verse 38 of Luke 1, Behold, the bond slave of the Lord,
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  Speaker0: may it be done to me according to your word.
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  Speaker0: Now, number one, this means she believed what God was saying to her,
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  Speaker0: to the messengers, through the angel Gabriel.
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  Speaker0: She believed God. A lot of people wouldn't have believed.
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  Speaker0: So this is ridiculous. I'm having a hallucination or this is crazy.
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  Speaker0: But Mary just chose to believe what God was saying and all the parts of that.
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  Speaker0: But not only did she believe, she surrendered herself, even her own physical body, to the will of God.
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  Speaker0: Be it done to me according to your will.
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  Speaker0: And a lot of people wouldn't have done that. A lot of people,
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  Speaker0: when they hear God telling them to do something, they say, I'm not going to do that.
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  Speaker0: There's no way I'm going to give myself to that agenda.
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  Speaker0: There's no way I'm going to submit myself to God's will.
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  Speaker0: But she did. And because of that, she became a part of this greatest moment in human history.
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  Speaker0: I just want to say to you that God has something to say to you about that and to me about that.
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  Speaker0: And that is as we look forward to what God is doing and what he wants to do
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  Speaker0: in your life, in your family,
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  Speaker0: in your church, in your neighborhood, in your city,
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  Speaker0: across our nation, He's looking for
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  Speaker0: people like my kids on that stairwell who are expectantly waiting and listening
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  Speaker0: and then are willing to believe and respond with just a full surrender and just like Mary did.
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  Speaker0: So Mary believed and surrendered.
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  Speaker0: And then there was this other party in this equation, and that was Joseph.
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  Speaker0: We don't know a lot about Joseph. We know that he came through the line of the
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  Speaker0: family of David, and he's listed there in the genealogy as God had prepared it to happen that way.
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  Speaker0: But at the same time that the angel came to Mary, an angel was coming to Joseph.
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  Speaker0: And listen what he said. He said, Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid.
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  Speaker0: He was also afraid. Don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife.
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  Speaker0: The child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
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  Speaker0: In other words, God has done this. God has divinely done this.
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  Speaker0: You can trust what I'm saying here.
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  Speaker0: And she will bear a son. And then look at this.
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  Speaker0: You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save the people from their sins,
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  Speaker0: and this will fulfill all of the prophecies of the Old Testament.
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  Speaker0: So the Bible says that Joseph awoke from his sleep, and he did exactly as the
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  Speaker0: angel of the Lord commanded him,
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  Speaker0: and he took Mary as his wife.
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  Speaker0: Now, again, this was a scandalous thing for a woman to come pregnant.
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  Speaker0: I mean, who would believe this?
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  Speaker0: Who's going to believe Mary and Joseph when they say, well, she's pregnant.
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  Speaker0: Well, she got pregnant before you got married.
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  Speaker0: Yeah, but the baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Oh, yeah, right.
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  Speaker0: But you see, they didn't care what people thought. Joseph was willing to stand
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  Speaker0: against ridicule and against public opinion and just do what God told him to
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  Speaker0: do. And he did it instantly.
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  Speaker0: I love this whole chapter in Luke chapter 2, because three times Joseph hears
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  Speaker0: from God and instantly obeys.
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  Speaker0: Here's the first time where God said, this is of God, get up and take her as
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  Speaker0: your wife, and he instantly did it.
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  Speaker0: And then later we read the story of the wise men coming, and Herod is about
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  Speaker0: to come and try to find the baby.
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  Speaker0: And in verse 13 of Luke 2,
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  Speaker0: when the wise men left, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, get up,
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  Speaker0: take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell
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  Speaker0: you, for Herod is going to try to search for the child and destroy him.
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  Speaker0: The next verse says, so Joseph got up and he took the child and his mother and went to Egypt.
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  Speaker0: And then later in verse 19, when Herod had died, an angel of the Lord appears
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  Speaker0: in a dream again to Joseph.
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  Speaker0: This is now the third time and said, get up and take the child and his mother
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  Speaker0: and go back into the land of Israel for those who saw the child's life are dead.
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  Speaker0: And the next verse said, so Joseph got up and he took the child and his mother
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  Speaker0: and came back in the land of Israel and ultimately to the city of Nazareth,
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  Speaker0: which had been prophesied. Now look at this.
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  Speaker0: What did Joseph's obedience, his belief and his obedience do.
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  Speaker0: Number one, it honored his wife.
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  Speaker0: What he did was honorable towards his wife, and she was honored by him simply
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  Speaker0: listening and obeying the command of the Lord.
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  Speaker0: It protected his family as they went into Egypt.
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  Speaker0: How did that protection take place? Did Joseph get a new security system?
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  Speaker0: Did he go get some special training? No, he listened to the Lord and obeyed
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  Speaker0: the Lord, and it protected his family.
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  Speaker0: And then thirdly, God spoke to him and brought him back to Nazareth.
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  Speaker0: It provided the perfect environment for growth.
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  Speaker0: And the Bible says Jesus, right after that, Jesus grew up in wisdom and stature
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  Speaker0: and favor with God and man.
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  Speaker0: You know, I tell men this all the time.
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  Speaker0: I said, you don't have to be this spectacular tactician or strategist or unbelievable
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  Speaker0: ability as a leader. You know what you have to do?
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  Speaker0: Listen to God and obey.
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  Speaker0: If God says, get up in the morning and read your Bible, get up and read your Bible.
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  Speaker0: If God says, take your money and give, take your money and give.
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  Speaker0: If God says, take your children to church, get up and take your children to church.
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  Speaker0: I mean, whatever God says through his word and his spirit, if you will simply
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  Speaker0: listen to the Lord and instantly obey him with no hesitation, here's what happens.
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  Speaker0: God becomes the leader of your home. And there's no better leader than your heavenly father.
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  Speaker0: Now, there's one more thing that I want to point out, Kyle,
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  Speaker0: before we see the end of this, and one more place where Joseph obeyed,
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  Speaker0: and that is in the naming of the son.
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  Speaker0: So, the father in the family in Jesus' day was responsible for the naming of the child.
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  Speaker0: We see that with John the Baptist's father, and we see it now here with Joseph. That was the custom.
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  Speaker0: And so the angel said, I have a name for him.
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  Speaker0: You're not going to name him. I've already named him because I know what he's going to do.
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  Speaker0: And I know who he is. The father had known him since eternity.
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  Speaker0: And he says, you will call him Jesus.
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  Speaker0: Now the word Jesus or Joshua in the Hebrew language literally means salvation from the Lord.
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  Speaker0: And so it means a Savior, Jesus, a Savior.
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  Speaker0: And he says this, he will save his people from their sins.
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  Speaker0: And that's exactly what Jesus was coming to do.
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  Speaker0: And you just think, Kyle, of how many ways God has saved us from our sin.
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  Speaker0: He saves us daily from our sin, doesn't he? He saves us from the curse of our
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  Speaker0: sin. so we can go to heaven.
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  Speaker0: He saves us from the stain of sin and the condemnation of sin.
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  Speaker0: Nobody could take care of our sin problem except Jesus.
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  Speaker0: And I love how Spurgeon says this about that title.
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  Speaker0: Listen to this. Spurgeon said, the title, this name, is given to our Lord above
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  Speaker0: all others because he's a savior in a sense in which no one else is or can be.
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  Speaker0: He saves his people from their sins. The first link between my soul and Christ
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  Speaker0: is not my goodness, but my badness, not my merit, but my misery,
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  Speaker0: not my standing, but my falling,
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  Speaker0: not my riches, but my need.
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  Speaker0: Jesus comes to visit his people, not to admire their beauties,
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  Speaker0: but to remove their deformities, not to reward their virtues,
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  Speaker0: but to forgive their sins.
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  Speaker0: And Joseph, you know, this whole story, we don't know a lot about him.
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  Speaker0: We certainly don't know anything about him after this part of the story.
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  Speaker0: But he got to be a part of naming Jesus.
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  Speaker0: Why is that so? Because he just listened to the Lord and just instantly obeyed.
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  Speaker0: And that's for us in this coming year.
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  Speaker1: Man, it makes me think, Bill, if you could really grasp the simplicity of believe
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  Speaker1: and obey, to believe what God has said, do what God is saying in this moment,
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  Speaker1: that there's a beautiful simplicity to it.
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  Speaker1: And you see these moments for men and women throughout the Scripture that had
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  Speaker1: just enough faith to believe what they sensed God was saying and doing and took
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  Speaker1: just enough risk to step out there to be a part of a story that will never end.
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  Speaker1: And I think it's a perfect reminder in this Christmas season that the Lord is
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  Speaker1: a talker and he's still speaking and moving through his word by his spirit in
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  Speaker1: the community of the faith and calling us to cooperate with him in his work.
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  Speaker1: That positions us for him to do exceedingly abundantly more than we ask or imagine.
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  Speaker1: I mean, Joseph knew about this much, but it was just enough to get his name
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  Speaker1: written into the greatest story ever.
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  Speaker0: Yeah, and here's Mary who knows about that much. Right. And it's her whole life.
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  Speaker0: I mean, this is not just, okay, this is going to happen one day.
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  Speaker0: You're going to have this divine conception, but this is the rest of your life.
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  Speaker1: Yeah.
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  Speaker0: You're going to mother and take care of this child.
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  Speaker1: Right.
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  Speaker0: And but she surrenders to the will of God and Joseph believes and just obeys man.
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  Speaker0: And so this is for right now.
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  Speaker0: I mean, we could really ask our listeners as they're coming into this week,
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  Speaker0: where do you need to surrender?
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  Speaker0: And God's going to call you to surrender this week. Where do you need to obey?
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  Speaker0: What's God going to say to you this week? Are you going to trust and obey?
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  Speaker0: And there's no other way to be happy in Jesus. best for us to play.
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  Speaker0: So we want to pray this in, Kyle, and could you do that for us?
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  Speaker0: Could you just lead us in a time of praying for surrender and obedience,
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  Speaker0: all based upon a willingness to believe God and what he's saying to you? Yep, absolutely.
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  Speaker1: Well, let's do that. As we always do, let's enter into the presence of the Lord.
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  Speaker1: Let's just remember that Jesus paid the price to split that veil so that we
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  Speaker1: can come through His blood into the throne room of grace and mercy and to be with our God.
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  Speaker1: And while we're there, why don't we just freshly come and say, Lord, here's my life.
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  Speaker1: Maybe be bold enough to say, Lord, whatever you're saying, we want to hear.
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  Speaker1: Maybe say, Lord, whatever direction you're wanting to give, we're willing to go.
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  Speaker1: And maybe you, like me, you already know what some of those things are.
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  Speaker1: Why don't you just say to the Lord, Lord, I put my yes on the table.
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  Speaker1: Now my feet are going to match it.
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  Speaker1: So, Father, I do ask for our listeners, for all that will listen,
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  Speaker1: for Bill and I, that you'd give us the clarity of the kingdom.
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  Speaker1: Or do you allow give us ears to hear what
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  Speaker1: your spirit is saying to us today what you would want us
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  Speaker1: to fully believe and then lord
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  Speaker1: to live by the power of your spirit god and i pray lord those steps of obedience
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  Speaker1: would play into your greater plan in ways that helps a lot of people come to
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  Speaker1: know you jesus christ it helps a lot of people experience the kingdom of god
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  Speaker1: so lord Would you bless this Christmas season,
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  Speaker1: even for our listeners, God, with ears to hear,
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  Speaker1: faith to believe, and courage to take steps.
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  Speaker1: We pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.
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  Speaker0: Amen. Amen.
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  Speaker1: Well, hey, listen, as always, to our listeners, we're humbled that you'd give
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  Speaker1: us a few minutes each week to talk to you about things that God is showing us
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  Speaker1: in the Word and believe in that
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  Speaker1: this is playing into the real move of God that is happening in our day.
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  Speaker1: So if this was an encouragement to you, one of the best ways that you could
• 23:52
  Speaker1: help in spreading the fame of revival is share it with somebody.
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  Speaker1: Just take a second right now and say, hey, man, I just listened to this.
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  Speaker1: Love to talk to you about that.
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  Speaker1: If you're a pastor, maybe sit down with your staff and dissect some of these
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  Speaker1: things together. And we're always here to help.
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  Speaker1: And on the website, man, the One Cry website, there's all kinds of additional resources.
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  Speaker1: That are there to bless you and your journey and our belief toward revival and spiritual awakening.
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  Speaker1: So we look forward to being with you again next.