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Keeping Sovereign Grace in Gospel Partnerships · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the s Pastor John Podcast that John Piper.
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  Speaker 1: Our goal is to point you to the all satisfying
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  Speaker 1: joy that can be found nowhere else but in Jesus
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  Speaker 1: Christ alone. That's our mission every single day, and as
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  Speaker 1: we enter this final month of the year, if we
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  Speaker 1: do that for you, we point you to Jesus your
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  Speaker 1: joy in Jesus we feed that. Consider partnering with us
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  Speaker 1: dot desiring good dot org. Let's give dot desiring good
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  Speaker 1: dot org. Friends are good, like minded teams that are
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  Speaker 1: united by the Gospel are absolutely precious and we can't
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  Speaker 1: do this podcast without your help, so thank you. But
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  Speaker 1: what doctrines preserve our gospel unity? Best? John is with
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  Speaker 1: us and you are a longtime member of the Gospel
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  Speaker 1: Coalition Council from its founding and a contributor to its
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  Speaker 1: founding documents twenty years ago. Those were written and published.
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  Speaker 1: One question that comes up over the years is this one, best, John,
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  Speaker 1: If this is a Gospel coalition, why does it define
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  Speaker 1: itself confessionally in those documents as reformed or calvinistic? Just
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  Speaker 1: what we read in the preamble to the Foundation documents,
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  Speaker 1: which says, quote, we are a fellowship of evangelical churches
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  Speaker 1: in the Reformed tradition end quote. Now, obviously you don't
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  Speaker 1: speak for everyone in the Council or in any official capacity,
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  Speaker 1: but what would be your personal answer to that question?
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  Speaker 1: Or maybe more safely, why would any church or school
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  Speaker 1: or ministry de to being gospel centered in Gospel advancing
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  Speaker 1: define its identity is reformed or calvinistic rather than something broader.
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  Speaker 2: You're right, maybe it would be safer for me to speak,
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  Speaker 2: say for Desiring God or for Bethlem College and Seminary,
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  Speaker 2: rather than directly for the Gospel Coalition, And then people
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  Speaker 2: can decide whether what I'm saying applies to that ministry
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  Speaker 2: or their own. So let me give my answer in
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  Speaker 2: one sentence and then unpack it for just a few minutes.
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  Speaker 2: I think it is wise and strategic, but not the
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  Speaker 2: only legitimate way to define the parameters of a ministry.
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  Speaker 2: Wise and strategic for a gospel driven ministry to define
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  Speaker 2: itself with a reformed Calvinistic vision of salvation. Because here's
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  Speaker 2: the key. This vision expresses, guards and glorifies the grace
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  Speaker 2: of God at the center of the Gospel. That's my
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  Speaker 2: answer in a sentence, Paul says in Acts twenty twenty four,
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  Speaker 2: I do not account my life of any value or
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  Speaker 2: as precious to myself, if only I may finish my
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  Speaker 2: course and the ministry I receive from the Lord Jesus
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  Speaker 2: to testify to the Gospel of the grace of God.
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  Speaker 2: That's a crucial phrase, The Gospel of the grace of God,
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  Speaker 2: so essential to the good news. At the heart of
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  Speaker 2: the gospel is the grace of God, and that gospel
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  Speaker 2: of grace stands in the service of the ultimate purpose
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  Speaker 2: of God in creation and redemption described in Ephesians one six,
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  Speaker 2: to the praise of the glory of His grace. It's
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  Speaker 2: hard to elevate the greatness and and value of the
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  Speaker 2: grace of God more highly than to say the Gospel
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  Speaker 2: is a gospel of grace, and to say the universe exists,
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  Speaker 2: everything exists for the praise of the glory of the grace.
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  Speaker 2: Of God. That's my starting point. The praise of the
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  Speaker 2: glory of God's grace is the ultimate purpose of all
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  Speaker 2: things and is at the center of the Gospel. So
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  Speaker 2: reform theology I argue calvinistic doctrine of salvation exists to
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  Speaker 2: express and guard and glorify the grace of God at
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  Speaker 2: the heart of the Gospel. One expression of this theology
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  Speaker 2: is the Five sou Laws or the five Alans of
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  Speaker 2: justification goes like this, justification is by g grace alone,
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  Speaker 2: through faith alone, on the basis of Christ alone, for
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  Speaker 2: the glory of God alone, based on one infallible source
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  Speaker 2: of revelation, Scripture alone. Now that first phrase grace alone
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  Speaker 2: is absolutely crucial because it is intended to express the
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  Speaker 2: glory of God's grace and to guard the glory of
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  Speaker 2: that grace from the grace diminishing claim that fallen man
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  Speaker 2: has ultimate self determination and that such self determination, not
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  Speaker 2: God's grace, is decisive in man's conversion and preservation. I
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  Speaker 2: regard that position as grace diminishing. Grace alone implies no,
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  Speaker 2: there is no such thing in this fallen world, as
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  Speaker 2: ultimate human self determination doesn't exist. All are slaves of sin.
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  Speaker 2: Romans six seventeen twenty. Rather, grace alone, not human self determination,
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  Speaker 2: is decisive in man's conversion and preservation. When Wesleyans and Armenians,
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  Speaker 2: that would be over against reform theology, over against Calvinism.
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  Speaker 2: When Wesleyans and Armenians introduce the idea of prevenient grace,
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  Speaker 2: which they say brings all people in some measure out
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  Speaker 2: of the bondage of original sin, they still teach that
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  Speaker 2: at the moment of conversion, the decisive influence that brings
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  Speaker 2: about saving faith is men's self determining will, not the
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  Speaker 2: grace of God. That's the problem, that's the watershed issue.
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  Speaker 2: Wesleyans that I have interacted with don't like it when
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  Speaker 2: I make this point, because they want to emphasize how
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  Speaker 2: gloriously full and beautiful and rich is the grace of
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  Speaker 2: God that has been poured out in Christ and in
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  Speaker 2: so many ways to bring fallen man to the point
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  Speaker 2: where he can believe. But that's simply not the point.
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  Speaker 2: The point is that at the all important moment of conversion,
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  Speaker 2: when a person passes from death to life, Wesleyans and
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  Speaker 2: Armenians believe that the decisive influence at that point is
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  Speaker 2: the will of man, not the grace of God. This
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  Speaker 2: is why Reformed Christians love to speak of sovereign grace.
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  Speaker 2: God's grace triumphs over all demonic and human obstacles, including
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  Speaker 2: that final resistance of my human will, and brings me
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  Speaker 2: all the way into life and faith. It doesn't just
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  Speaker 2: bring me to the point where I can produce my
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  Speaker 2: own faith. It raises me from the dead. It gives
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  Speaker 2: me life and faith. Reformed Christians believe that the Bible
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  Speaker 2: teaches that the glory of God's grace includes the sovereignty
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  Speaker 2: of God's grace. We love reform theology because we love
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  Speaker 2: the sovereign grace of God, because we know from the
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  Speaker 2: Bible and from experience we would not be saved without it.
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  Speaker 2: It is a very personal existential matter with us. My
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  Speaker 2: life hangs on the triumph of God over my resistance.
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  Speaker 2: All the way home. We would have walked away, all
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  Speaker 2: of us. We would have walked away like the rich
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  Speaker 2: young man, except that Jesus said, what is impossible with
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  Speaker 2: man is possible with God. Amen. Thank you Jesus. That's
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  Speaker 2: our only hope. This is why we pray, this is
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  Speaker 2: why we evangelize, this is why we do missions. God
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  Speaker 2: does the impossible through the Gospel. Sometimes the Reformed vision
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  Speaker 2: of salvation is summed up in the so called five Points,
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  Speaker 2: which are different from the five Solas. The five Points.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes these are called the doctrines of grace. You can
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  Speaker 2: see why, because grace is so utterly essential to the issue.
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  Speaker 2: They are a biblical expression. These five points are a
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  Speaker 2: biblical expression and p detection and glorification of God's sovereign grace.
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  Speaker 2: That's why they are stressed. They protect, they express, they
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  Speaker 2: glorify sovereign grace. For example, total depravity. The tea in
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  Speaker 2: Tulip guards the glory of grace by teaching from Romans
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  Speaker 2: eight seven that man is totally unable to submit to
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  Speaker 2: God and his word apart from sovereign grace you. Unconditional
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  Speaker 2: election guards the glory of God's grace by showing that
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  Speaker 2: before the foundation of the world, the elect were chosen
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  Speaker 2: by grace, before any human influence existed. The l limited
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  Speaker 2: or definite atonement guards the glory of God's grace by
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  Speaker 2: showing that when Christ shed the blood of the New Covenant,
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  Speaker 2: the new heart of faith and obedience was effectively sovereignly
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  Speaker 2: secured for all God's people. Irresistible grace guards the glory
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  Speaker 2: of God's grace by showing that the last stand of
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  Speaker 2: human resistance against God will always give way to sovereign
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  Speaker 2: grace alone for those whom God saves. And finally, perseverance
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  Speaker 2: of the saints shows that whatever conditions of final salvation
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  Speaker 2: we meet, it is as Paul says in verse is
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  Speaker 2: fifteen ten, not we but the grace of God that
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  Speaker 2: is with us. Sovereign grace brings us all the way home. So,
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  Speaker 2: in summary, I think it is wise and strategic for
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  Speaker 2: a gospel driven ministry, say the Gospel Coalition desiring God
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  Speaker 2: be Gods and seminary, hundreds of ministries, hundreds of churches,
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  Speaker 2: I think it is wise and strategic to define them
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  Speaker 2: to find itself that ministry with reformed the Reformed vision
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  Speaker 2: of salvation. Because this vision expresses, guards and glorifies the
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  Speaker 2: grace of God at the center of the Gospel. The
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  Speaker 2: Reform vision is a faithful expression of biblical truth about
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  Speaker 2: God's grace. It safeguards the sovereignty of grace in conversion,
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  Speaker 2: and it joyfully joins God in his ultimate purpose, which
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  Speaker 2: is the praise of the glory of his grace.
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  Speaker 1: If he's in one to six men. Yeah, it really
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  Speaker 1: sets the stage for understanding joy in the plan of God.
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  Speaker 1: Man that Augustine message you did years ago with that
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  Speaker 1: one paragraph where you go through tulip than what it
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  Speaker 1: says about joy so stunning, so helpful a paragraph I
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  Speaker 1: extracted and wrote a whole book about the Joy Project.
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  Speaker 1: In case you're interested, you can download it free of
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  Speaker 1: charge at Desiring Good at dot org. The Joy Project.
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  Speaker 1: That's fun to right. Next time we talk to kids
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  Speaker 1: of aging parents, what do you do when the task
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  Speaker 1: of honoring aging parents feels overwhelming and thankless? Pastor John
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  Speaker 1: will take this up and share what he has learned
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  Speaker 1: from the Bible and from several of his own experiences
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  Speaker 1: from over the decades about how to balance personal responsibility
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  Speaker 1: and family and love and trying help from your family
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  Speaker 1: and your church family as you care for parents who
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  Speaker 1: are growing old and growing old maybe not gracefully either.
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  Speaker 1: That's next time. Ten dollars a month. It's all it
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  Speaker 1: takes to support us. Give dot Desiring good dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for considering it. I'm Tony Renk. You see Thursday