Discovering How God Sees You-DO NOT USE

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- Well, hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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If you're new here we are a church

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and a community of people meeting all over the globe.

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Some meet in church buildings like this one,

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but others meet online or actually in homes,

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coffee shops, or even bars.

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My name is Andy and I lead

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our Crossroads Anywhere community

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of people meeting all over the globe.

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Now we're about to start our time together

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with some worship, which is just using music

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to remind ourselves what's true about God

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and what God says is true about us.

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Then we're going to hear some teaching

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from our lead pastor Kyle Ranson.

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And no matter who you are,

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what you believe about God or the church

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or religion, or no matter how your year is going so far,

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whether you're full of excitement and energy

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or whether it's been really, really rough since New Years,

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we're glad that you're here

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and hope that you can hear how God

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has fresh vision and encouragement for you

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as you head into 2025 and beyond.

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So sing with us, join in.

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We're so glad you're here with us today.

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- What's up, everyone? Welcome to Crossroads.

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So glad that you're here.

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My name is Eric if we haven't met.

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Won't you stand to your feet?

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I just want you to know,

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no matter what you believe about God,

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you're in the right place and you're welcome here.

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We're going to start by singing some songs to Jesus.

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Let's do it.

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- Yeah, that's. That's it.

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By the way, my name is Kyle.

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Welcome to everybody. Welcome here.

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Welcome online, at our sites.

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Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend.

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Glad that you are with us.

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When you walked in, if you're at a site,

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you got a little packet of clay.

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You can go ahead and get that out.

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If you're watching online

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and you want to want to follow along,

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make the service more tactile,

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grab something around your house or apartment

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or coffee shop or wherever that you can squish.

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It can be your kid's Play-Doh.

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You can go ahead and steal that from them. That's fine.

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Some Silly Putty, whatever it takes.

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If you don't have anything like that,

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grab a pen, something to draw with

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and follow along with us.

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Now, if you're in a room, we gave you this clay

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for a very, very important reason.

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We wanted to see who has ADHD,

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and the answer would be those of us

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who've already been playing with it

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and messing with it, and are now

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just pretending to pull it out of the bag.

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If that's you. Welcome. That's me too.

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Glad you're with us. That's awesome.

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Everybody take it out

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and just start squishing it around in your hands.

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See that clay in your hands has to do

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with what we're talking about today.

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We're examining this piece of the gospel

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and hoping to make it more personal and tactile,

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that we can feel it, that we can walk out of here

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changed and reshaped, just like

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you're reshaping that clay right now.

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And then that piece of the gospel

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that we're going to look at is the claim

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that you and I are not accidents,

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that we are made by a God who loves us

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and intended us and purposed our life.

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I think there's no more appropriate topic

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that we could be covering this weekend

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that honors a man who gave his life

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to literally share that message

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that all life has value,

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regardless of the color of your skin,

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or whether you're a man or a woman

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or anything else, that you have infinite worth

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and value because you've been made

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by the creator of the universe.

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We're going to sing a song right now together

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that talks about that.

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It says that God is the one thing

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who can tell us what we're made for.

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Why? Because He's the one who made us.

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- Come on, sing it again. You are the one.

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- Lord, we stand before You in silence right now,

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and all of Your beauty

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maybe wondering if we could actually

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believe those words to be true,

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that You made us

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and you're the one thing I was made for.

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I want to believe it, Lord.

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I want to walk with You and give my heart to You.

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I pray all this because of you, Jesus. Amen. Amen.

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It's great to be together.

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You might have wondered what was in that white bag

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when somebody handed it to you.

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I don't know. I don't know.

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Maybe you were confused a bit, but now you know,

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now you know it's a piece of clay.

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Hey, why don't you turn to somebody next to you

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and say, "Hey, I'm glad to be here with you."

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If you're joining us online,

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glad you're here with us, too.

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Then you can have a seat.

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- Crossroads is a movement of

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regular, normal, everyday people

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growing closer to God and changing the world.

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Now, I know firsthand that I grow

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and get to a new place with God and in my life

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when I'm surrounded by a community of people

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who are both going to challenge me when I need it

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and give me a shoulder when I need it.

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Now, this is a really big church,

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but that also means there's

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a really great opportunity for you to find

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a group of people that work for you,

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and I'm positive that there's one for you here.

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You can actually head to Crossroads.net/groups.

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There's actually even a groups quiz tool

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to help you find your best fit

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for your current stage of life.

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And I get it, if that's overwhelming for you,

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we can do some personalized help for you.

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We'd love to do this for you.

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It's actually why my whole team exists.

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You can just text Anywhere to 301301.

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We'd love to help you get connected.

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Now a reminder Crossroads is made up of normal people,

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and these same normal people are the ones

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who give money and actually fund all of

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the great stuff that happens around Crossroads

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all year long, including the service

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that you're watching right now and so much more.

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If you'd like to join the team of faithful people,

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or just learn more about what Crossroads believes

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and how we spend money,

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you can just head to Crossroads.net/give.

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I'll stop talking now and get out of the way.

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Let's hear from our Lead Pastor Kyle Ranson

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as we continue in our series Leave Lies Behind.

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- Well, hey. Welcome again.

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You are joining us for the second week

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of a series that we started last week

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about the fake gospels versus the real gospel.

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Last week was amazing, by the way,

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if you missed it, I highly encourage you

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to catch up on it.

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Best way to do that is in the Crossroads app.

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Don't have it? Download it.

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I really honestly believe if you do that

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you will learn something that will bless your life.

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Speaking of learning something, I was way too old

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when I learned how babies are made.

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Okay, it wasn't my fault.

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I mean, and by that I mean it was.

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The problem was, I thought I knew how it all worked,

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and so I didn't go looking for the truth.

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I thought I had the truth.

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And then one Saturday morning, late morning,

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my dad found me and he said, "Hey, Kyle,

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do you know how babies are made?"

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I thought that was a bit odd that he was asking me.

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Said, "Yes, I do." He said, "Okay. How?"

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"Well, I'll explain it to you, dad.

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See, what happens is, um, well, you know,

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uh, well, here's what I think.

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I think when a mom and dad want to have a baby,

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they go to the doctor. Probably.

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And the doctor gives them, like, a baby pill

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that the mom takes and then the baby grows

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inside of her stomach where it eats leftover pizza

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and Diet Coke, probably, and it grows.

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You know what, dad? It turns out I'm not real sure."

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Which, by the way, if you're in this room

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and you don't know how babies are made,

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I'm not going to explain it to you right now at all.

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I'm not going to do that, but you can email

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Brian.Tome@crossroads.net

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and he will give you all the facts.

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He really will. It'll be great.

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See, the thing was, I didn't.

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I didn't know because I thought I had the truth.

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And the best way to keep someone

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from finding the real truth is to convince them

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that they already have it.

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And this is what's gone on in our world

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when it comes to the gospel.

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It's this word that we hear all the time.

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And the reality of our world is

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there are so many gospels shouting at us.

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Gospel doesn't mean anything particularly religious.

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It just means good news.

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It's any claim that anyone has

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about the best way to live your life,

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to have a good life.

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Some of them involve God,

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some of them don't involve God.

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There's all of these gospels out there

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and we have to decide which one is real.

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The Bible talks about this,

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actually warns us a lot against fake gospels.

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One place is Galatians 1:6. Paul writes:

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Paul says, "I'm just blown away

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that you're leaving the gospel,

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the grace of Christ, that's the real gospel,

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the gospel of grace, for another one."

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Which he says isn't another one.

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In other words, it's a fake. It's an impostor.

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There's actually only one gospel.

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Today we're going to dive into that gospel of grace.

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And as I mentioned earlier,

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unless you hit the jump to message button,

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which if you're watching online,

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grab something to sculpt with,

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jump right back here. Keep going. Okay, cool.

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At the beginning I mentioned this claim

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that God actually made us.

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That's all throughout the Bible,

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but most clearly it's in these words from Psalm.

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Psalm 139:14. It's ten words that form this one claim.

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And the rest of our time is going to be spent

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in this one claim, digging into it

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and deciding for each of us in a very personal way

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do we believe these words and can we say them?

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The words are these. It says:

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I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

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See, the foundation of the real gospel of grace

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is that you are fearfully and wonderfully made,

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and therefore you need to praise God because of it.

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I'm telling you, in your life,

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nothing will change your life more than believing that.

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Nothing will give you more peace.

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Nothing will give you more joy.

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Nothing will give you more confidence.

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What I find is that even people who believe in God

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sometimes miss believing that.

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Let's pray that right now that happens

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for all of us, that today we take a step forward.

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Let's pray together before we go any further.

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God, thank You for being here with us.

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I believe You are.

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I believe You're present right now

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and that You want to form each and every one of us.

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I ask that every single person in this room,

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every single person watching online,

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every single person listening to this as a podcast,

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all of us, God, would take a step closer

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to believing this and embracing it fully,

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that we are fearfully and wonderfully made

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and we would praise You because of it. Amen.

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Now, throughout the Bible,

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the most common picture for God

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making us fearfully and wonderfully

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is actually God as a potter and we are clay.

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One place this shows up very, very clearly,

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Isaiah 64:8 says: But now, O Lord,

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You are our Father.

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We are the clay, and You are our potter.

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We are all the work of Your hand.

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That's why J.W. is up here.

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Can we just say thank you to J.W.

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making beautiful pottery this entire time?

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It's very -- I'm just going to give you the,

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you know, sometimes we're subtle

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at Crossroads, subtle metaphors.

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I don't want to be subtle this weekend.

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This is what the Bible says,

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that God is a master sculptor

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and that He has scooped you out of the earth

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and that He's carefully, intentionally forming you,

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uniquely, He has a design for you.

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That is the claim.

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That's the real gospel of grace,

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you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

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But there are other gospels, and primarily

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I want to look at two fake gospels

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that try to impinge on this belief,

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that specifically, go after this one area

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about being made.

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There's a secular gospel.

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It says that you're not made,

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instead you're random and you need to be proud of it.

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That's the secular gospel.

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You're random and need to be proud of it.

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And then there's also the religious gospel

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that says, yes, you're made,

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but not fearfully and wonderfully.

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You are common and you need to accept it.

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At best you're average.

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You're probably a disappointment.

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The best thing you can do is just accept that,

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believe that, live that.

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That's the religious gospel.

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Both of those I believe are false,

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and both of them, I believe, are prevalent.

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Why? Because of how this message started for me.

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This started as a burn at work one day.

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And I know I work at a church and a lot of people

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you don't understand what we do, not on Sundays.

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You know what I mean?

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Like on Sundays, everyone's like, I get it, you know?

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Or the Thursday night service at Oakley,

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you're like, "I get it what you do, but like,

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what do you do the rest of the week?

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You know, like, you guys practice baptizing people?

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You know?" Yeah we do, we have lawnmowers

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and we just -- we just do that.

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It's like a really turns out same muscles

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really works it out.

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You got an important part is

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raising the back up out of the water.

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So we -- No, of course -- our job is a lot

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like what your job is probably like.

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We have meetings and we have schedules

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and we do planning and we meet with people

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and stuff like that.

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But there is one thing we do that's probably unique

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from wherever you work is that we pray together

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every morning as a staff in different teams

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and different groups.

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And the reason we do that is because

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we're going for stuff here at Crossroads

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that's beyond our capacity.

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And so we invite God into it and we say,

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"God, said, God, we can't do this without You."

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One morning, back in probably late November

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or early December, I was at one of these

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staff prayer meetings and the guy leading it,

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Josh Surkamp. He's an amazing guy,

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amazing leader here at Crossroads.

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And he was leading us in a gratitude exercise.

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And he said, "Today we're going to do something

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that might be uncomfortable for you."

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He said, "Today we're going to praise God

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for how He's made us."

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He's like, "I want you to think of something

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very specific about how God has made you,

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and just pray gratitude to Him.

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And by the way, we do this out loud

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in front of each other.

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This is not silent in your seats,

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you know, just kind of --

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Out loud, say something you like about yourself

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and then thank God for it."

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And I watch, and by the way, he tied it to this verse.

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Psalm 139:14, it says: I will praise You

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because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.

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And I watched for the next 30 minutes

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and listened for the next 30 minutes

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as my teammates who deeply believe in the gospel

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all struggled to say thanks.

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Person after person who is brave enough

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to say anything at all gave the same sort of preamble.

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They said, "You know, this is actually really hard

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for me because most of the time

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when I think about myself, the things I think

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aren't that great at all, it's difficult.

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It's difficult to say it out loud in front of people.

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It's very hard."

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And I'm telling you, it was heartbreaking.

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And I left that experience and I thought,

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if this is so hard for us who work on a church staff

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who are surrounded by the gospel day after day,

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how much harder is it for everybody else?

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That was the birth of this message.

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That's where the burn for it started.

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Now, as we examine this, I want to start

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at the end of the verse.

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Let me just say too, if that's you,

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incredible empathy.

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I have been in that spot in my life

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where it's very difficult to think about

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anything that I like about myself.

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I'll talk about that more later. I've been there.

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And if that's where you are now,

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if that hit you just then, let me just say

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you are in the right spot.

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It doesn't matter if you believe in Jesus.

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It doesn't matter if you like church.

00:32:28

If you're here and you're listening,

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you are in the right spot and you're welcome.

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I'm honored that you're with us.

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I hope that this helps you and pushes you forward.

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Now we're going to start at the end of the verse

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is this word "made."

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I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

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See the foundational thought and the whole thing

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is that word: Are you made or are you not?

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This is the word where the secular gospel

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and the real gospel diverge sharply,

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because the secular gospel says that you're random

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and you need to be proud of it.

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In other word for random is accident.

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This is kind of the basic idea

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of how did you start? You weren't made.

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Instead you were a random accident

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that the universe just sort of randomly,

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spontaneously, with no intent,

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no intelligence behind it, no design, no purpose.

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It wasn't, and then it was.

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That is the origin story in the secular gospel.

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The other day, my son looked at my daughter Gracie,

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and he said, "Gracie, no offense, but your feet stink."

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And then she was offended and he was like,

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"I said, 'No offense.'"

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And I had to kind of explain to him,

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unfortunately, that's not how that phrase works, actually.

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And so at risk of doing the same thing,

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let me just say to those of us

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who currently believe in this secular gospel

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that the origins of you are that you're not made,

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but you're just random and an accident.

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No offense, but I find it strange that

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the very same people who would look at me

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and say, "I can't believe an intelligent person

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would ever believe in the virgin birth of Jesus

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themselves believe in the virgin birth of the universe.

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That there's no mother, there's no father,

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there's no creator, there's no originator,

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just, poof, kind of happened.

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That defies logic to me.

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I mean, if you walked in this room

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and you saw a pot being made,

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would you assume that that was just random?

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No. You might be like, "Well, yeah.

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I mean, because, you know, J.W. is there

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and he's making it right now. Cool. Awesome."

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Imagine he wasn't here.

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Imagine you walked in and you saw this shelf.

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Would any of you walk up and go, "You know what?

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I put 50 bucks on that probably just, like,

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popped out of nothing"? No, of course not.

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And yet, this is the belief that forms

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the foundation of the entire secular gospel.

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That's a massive problem,

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but it's actually not the biggest one.

00:35:03

The logical gap is not the biggest one.

00:35:05

The biggest problem is the emotional gap.

00:35:08

Because, see, when you're an accident,

00:35:10

when you have no intent, when you have no design,

00:35:13

when everything is truly just random,

00:35:16

you don't have any value

00:35:19

and it's really, really hard to get around that fact.

00:35:24

Really hard.

00:35:25

And I know some of us, again, we feel this way right now.

00:35:28

I know some of us we feel just kind of random.

00:35:30

You know? We don't know that we have any purpose.

00:35:32

We don't feel any sense of design.

00:35:34

There's no rhyme or logic.

00:35:36

Life feels random. Life feels chaotic.

00:35:40

And because of that, we feel

00:35:41

deeply, deeply unwanted, deeply unloved,

00:35:45

deeply unvalued.

00:35:48

I'll just say, if that's you, if you're in here

00:35:50

and you believe the secular gospel, again,

00:35:52

so honored you're here.

00:35:53

So glad that you're with us. It's amazing.

00:35:55

Can I just gently ask you a question?

00:35:58

Is it working for you?

00:36:00

Is it making you happy?

00:36:02

Is it the good news that's leading you to a good life?

00:36:06

Because if it's not, doesn't that mean it's fake?

00:36:10

If it's not delivering on the promise,

00:36:12

doesn't that mean it's fake?

00:36:14

And I'd love to offer you good news that

00:36:16

the Bible says you're not a mistake.

00:36:18

No one in this room is, no one watching is,

00:36:20

no one's a mistake. Everyone has been made.

00:36:25

And because of that, you have value.

00:36:28

See, the gospel says that all life has value,

00:36:30

a foundational part of the entire gospel,

00:36:32

all life has value.

00:36:36

We believe that here at Crossroads

00:36:37

and we live it out.

00:36:38

In fact, a quick aside, just in case

00:36:41

you're curious, there have been

00:36:43

all over the news headlines,

00:36:45

stories about the California wildfires

00:36:46

and people losing houses and being displaced

00:36:49

and all sorts of things.

00:36:50

We honestly believe that all life has value.

00:36:52

And so pleased to tell you, if you're a giver

00:36:54

here at Crossroads, you've helped make this happen.

00:36:56

Just yesterday, we were able to release $50,000

00:37:00

to go to Convoy of Hope to help with

00:37:02

the disaster relief in California.

00:37:05

I want you to know you're a part of that.

00:37:07

You're an absolute part of that. So that's going to go,

00:37:09

that's going to help 1250 families for two weeks

00:37:13

have food and water and air purification,

00:37:15

and hopefully make it through

00:37:16

to the other side of this tragedy.

00:37:19

Why would we do that?

00:37:21

Because we believe that every life has value,

00:37:23

every single one of them.

00:37:26

The Bible says that we have been made,

00:37:30

but not just made.

00:37:31

Do you notice in that verse it says

00:37:33

really specifically, there's two adverbs

00:37:35

attached to how we've been made.

00:37:37

Not carelessly. Not accidentally.

00:37:41

It says fearfully and wonderfully.

00:37:46

Now, that word fearfully is a little bit odd,

00:37:48

right? We tend to use the word fear

00:37:50

it has to do with being scary.

00:37:51

And that's not the context for this word.

00:37:53

This word fearfully does not mean scarily.

00:37:56

Instead, what it means is awesomely,

00:38:00

with reverence.

00:38:01

And the word wonderfully actually means

00:38:04

distinctly, uniquely created.

00:38:06

It's distinguished from one another.

00:38:10

And so the claim of the gospel is not just that

00:38:12

you were made like in a big batch. You know?

00:38:15

God doesn't really make things that sell at Costco.

00:38:18

I'm going to make a 12 pack of Kim's

00:38:21

and they're all going to be the same.

00:38:23

That's not God.

00:38:24

God says, I'm going to go to each person

00:38:26

individually and uniquely make them.

00:38:30

That is the claim of the gospel.

00:38:33

Those things together form this idea

00:38:34

that the Bible says that

00:38:36

you and I are not just made, we are a masterpiece.

00:38:41

But here's where I find that many believers,

00:38:44

they veer off the path of believing the real gospel

00:38:47

and instead start to fall into the trap of,

00:38:49

I believe, what I would call the religious gospel,

00:38:52

believing the religious gospel.

00:38:54

That you are actually just common,

00:38:56

and that what God wants for you is

00:38:57

to accept how common and plain and undeserving

00:39:01

and bad and disappointing you are.

00:39:04

That God really just wants us to feel

00:39:06

not like a pot, but just kind of like that.

00:39:09

That's me. You're a lump. You don't deserve it.

00:39:13

I rescued you when you were bad. You're still bad.

00:39:16

And I kind of regret it. So we think.

00:39:21

That's the religious lie. That's not the gospel.

00:39:25

It's also not how you and I started.

00:39:27

I've yet to meet a 5 year old who believes they're average.

00:39:32

Haven't met that yet.

00:39:34

I haven't met a kid who's 6 who walks up

00:39:36

and is like, "Hi, you know my name?

00:39:38

My name is Tanner, and I'm pretty common."

00:39:41

Never happened.

00:39:42

Kids are always excited to tell you

00:39:43

about how great they are and show you their work

00:39:46

and talk to you and just all the stuff, right?

00:39:49

I mean, parents in here, have you ever had a kid,

00:39:53

5 year old, 6 year old, ever say to you,

00:39:55

"You know what I want to be for Halloween?

00:39:58

45 year old cog in the wheel.

00:40:02

That's what I want to be. That's what aiming.

00:40:04

That's what I really feel inside that I really am."

00:40:08

No, no.

00:40:11

You got that clay in your hand.

00:40:12

I want you to get it out, if it's not out already.

00:40:15

Again, those of us with ADHD,

00:40:16

we've been playing with it the entire time

00:40:18

because we can't stop. Totally understand.

00:40:19

That is 100% me. Get it out.

00:40:23

I want you to think back to when you were 5,

00:40:26

when you were 6, before this idea that

00:40:30

you were just common and average and normal set out.

00:40:32

By the way, if you're having trouble

00:40:34

getting it out, toothpaste it.

00:40:35

That's the best way. Just kind of squish it out.

00:40:37

There you go.

00:40:40

Think back when you were 5 or 6 years old.

00:40:43

What was it you dressed up for as Halloween?

00:40:47

What was it you dreamed of being?

00:40:51

Maybe it was a football player.

00:40:53

If it was, make a football.

00:40:54

Whatever it is, make a thing that represents it

00:40:56

in your hands. Here's a football, right?

00:40:59

Just kind of a football player.

00:41:01

Football players are powerful. They're strong.

00:41:06

They have this this air of heroism.

00:41:09

Maybe for you, it was being a ballerina.

00:41:11

Make a little ballerina shoe.

00:41:14

Ballerinas are beautiful, powerful,

00:41:17

sophisticated, graceful. That's what it was.

00:41:19

Maybe it was being a firefighter.

00:41:22

Again, this idea of saving and being a rescuer

00:41:25

and a hero to people, whatever it was,

00:41:27

I want you to just make the thing that represents

00:41:29

what you wanted to be or what you believed

00:41:32

about yourself when you were 5 or 6 years old.

00:41:34

Make that thing.

00:41:35

Now the problem is for every single person

00:41:40

I've ever met, we don't hold on to that dream

00:41:43

because see life comes our way

00:41:45

and it just starts to squish it, just crush it

00:41:49

and just make it into something not great.

00:41:52

And the life that comes our way

00:41:53

are all the situations that show us

00:41:55

that we actually have problems,

00:41:57

that we're not the best at everything,

00:41:59

that in fact, that some things were average

00:42:01

and some things were even below average.

00:42:03

And so we start to believe this about ourselves,

00:42:06

that there's things that were just not good at

00:42:08

and so maybe were not good.

00:42:10

I'll just admit, there's things I'm not good at,

00:42:12

particularly as a dad.

00:42:14

And I don't know that any dads

00:42:15

are actually good at these things:

00:42:17

buying the right size shoes for my kids.

00:42:18

Very bad at that.

00:42:20

I've spent an hour in Dick's Sporting Goods, like,

00:42:23

doing the thumb trick. You know?

00:42:25

"I think that's the right, I feel your toe.

00:42:26

I'm not really sure." Get it home.

00:42:28

And every time Sarah's like, "You were so close,

00:42:30

you bought a three and she's actually size eight,

00:42:32

so that's pretty good." Not good at that.

00:42:36

Dads aren't good at that.

00:42:37

Dads, we also aren't good at

00:42:39

picking up prescriptions for our kids.

00:42:40

I actually think this is something

00:42:42

we should take off the table for all dads,

00:42:44

because it doesn't go the same way for us

00:42:46

as it does for moms.

00:42:47

When moms roll up, they just roll up

00:42:48

and they're like, "I'd like the medicine for my child,"

00:42:51

and they just hand it to them.

00:42:52

When us dads roll up, they give us a test.

00:42:56

They say, "What is the patient's date of birth?"

00:43:01

And we're like, "You know, I love my family,

00:43:02

but, uh, you want the numbers or you want like a general.

00:43:06

I mean, I was there.

00:43:08

I can show you a picture if you want, of being there."

00:43:10

You know, that doesn't work, I tried that.

00:43:13

I think it should work like Wheel of Fortune.

00:43:14

You know what I mean?

00:43:15

Where, like, when you guess a one,

00:43:18

if there's other ones, you also get those filled in, too.

00:43:21

I think that would be great.

00:43:22

Not good at that as a dad.

00:43:24

If there's something I'm looking for in the pantry

00:43:26

and there's anything else in the pantry,

00:43:27

also a problem for me. Not good.

00:43:30

Now, more than that, right?

00:43:32

I realized early on as a kid,

00:43:34

I have this memory at a baseball practice,

00:43:37

and our coach was having us run before practice.

00:43:42

And my whole team starts to run,

00:43:45

and we run to the end of the baseball field

00:43:47

all the way to the outfield of the fence.

00:43:48

We touch the fence and we turn around.

00:43:51

And I was the last kid back.

00:43:55

And I wasn't just the last kid back.

00:43:57

I had trouble breathing, and I actually

00:44:00

had to sit out the next 15 minutes of practice.

00:44:04

Why? Because I had asthma.

00:44:06

I learned that maybe I wasn't so strong.

00:44:09

Maybe I wasn't so fast.

00:44:12

I also, as I grew up, I noticed that

00:44:14

other kids grew up and and I just sort of like,

00:44:19

you know, er, er, er, er, and then I stopped

00:44:22

at some point way too early.

00:44:24

That was kind of it for me.

00:44:25

I was always been very small, always been very short.

00:44:27

I just noticed that about me.

00:44:29

Well maybe I'm not big, maybe I'm not heroic.

00:44:32

You know? I also noticed, where the other kids

00:44:35

in my class, they could just pay attention

00:44:37

and they could, like, do two things at once.

00:44:39

They could, like, hear the teacher

00:44:41

and listen to instructions and do their work.

00:44:45

That was not me. I could do my work,

00:44:47

but whatever else was happening around me,

00:44:49

I had no idea it even existed.

00:44:51

That's the same thing that happens to this day.

00:44:53

Not even kidding.

00:44:54

I have to, like, when I'm backstage,

00:44:56

I have to, like, very intentionally go, like,

00:44:58

"You know what? You're supposed to preach soon.

00:45:00

You should go out and get on stage and start."

00:45:03

I will absolutely, just completely forget.

00:45:05

That's called ADHD, by the way.

00:45:08

And I learned this about myself.

00:45:09

And for a long time, all this stuff piled up

00:45:11

and who I thought I was at some point in my life

00:45:14

was not a fearfully and wonderfully made person,

00:45:17

but a deeply and tragically flawed one.

00:45:19

I thought I was the lump.

00:45:21

I thought I was nothing.

00:45:23

I thought I was a small, weak, absent minded lump.

00:45:29

What about you?

00:45:31

I wonder, in your life, what are the things

00:45:33

that have added that up to you?

00:45:35

Was it as you walked around, did you notice

00:45:37

that you were slow? Were you too small?

00:45:39

Were you too big? What is it in your life?

00:45:43

This happens to every single one.

00:45:46

What are the hardest parts of parenting

00:45:48

is actually watching your kids enter into this phase

00:45:52

where they stop believing that

00:45:54

they're fearfully and wonderfully made,

00:45:56

and they start believing maybe they're not.

00:46:00

One of the highlights of my last year

00:46:02

was getting to do Christmas Eve services

00:46:04

with my daughter, Gracie.

00:46:05

If you were here, Gracie was on stage with me.

00:46:07

It was so incredibly special and she read

00:46:10

a scripture verse in front of everybody.

00:46:13

And when I say everybody, just for perspective,

00:46:16

if you're newer to Crossroads,

00:46:17

it's a lot of people, a lot of people.

00:46:21

In the room that she was reading in,

00:46:22

the very first service she did it

00:46:24

was completely packed, 3500 people.

00:46:25

There were another 1100 people in overflow

00:46:28

at just the location that she was at.

00:46:30

Tens of thousands of people heard her.

00:46:32

And my wife asked her before and after.

00:46:36

She was like, "Gracie, were were you nervous?"

00:46:38

And Gracie's like, "No. You know, like,

00:46:40

why would I be nervous?"

00:46:42

She's just got this amazing, natural confidence.

00:46:46

Well, that same girl just last weekend

00:46:49

played soccer and she came off the field

00:46:53

and she looked at Sarah and I, and she goes,

00:46:55

"I just feel like I'm disappointing you."

00:46:57

And she hung her head.

00:47:00

And as a parent, it's so hard

00:47:03

because you know those feelings.

00:47:05

You walked that path and you know that

00:47:07

I feel like I disappointed you

00:47:10

leads to I feel like I am a disappointment.

00:47:14

It is heartbreaking.

00:47:16

And it's exactly how God feels about you

00:47:19

when you think the same thing about yourself,

00:47:22

when you look at you and you go, "You know,

00:47:25

I'm just not like everybody else.

00:47:28

Everybody else has this nice shape to them.

00:47:31

I'm just too quirky."

00:47:36

Breaks God's heart. That's what we do to ourselves.

00:47:39

"Oh, you know me. I'm just kind of, I don't know,

00:47:42

just, just too small. Yeah, I don't know.

00:47:46

Me, I just feel too big."

00:47:47

That didn't break at all, [laughter]

00:47:52

because of how big it is, I guess.

00:47:55

That's God. Look, He just listens to us

00:47:58

make these complaints that we think are innocent.

00:48:01

That self-talk that we have in our heads,

00:48:02

I think, is the thing that bothers God the most

00:48:05

about the entire world.

00:48:06

You might look around and point a finger

00:48:08

at somebody else, "Bet God's really upset about that."

00:48:10

No, I think God's really upset about

00:48:11

the way that you talk about you to you,

00:48:14

that's what God's upset about. Why?

00:48:16

Because you're His masterpiece.

00:48:19

He made you fearfully. He made you wonderfully.

00:48:22

He doesn't want you to bash yourself.

00:48:23

He wants you to embrace it and to praise Him for it.

00:48:28

Praise Him for it.

00:48:30

He says this in Isaiah 29:16. He says:

00:48:32

You turn things upside down!

00:48:34

You've got it all wrong.

00:48:47

In other words, the potter --

00:48:49

The pot saying to the potter, "You messed up.

00:48:52

You don't know what you're doing.

00:48:53

You made me wrong." No.

00:48:57

See, The real gospel of grace is that

00:48:59

He formed you from clay,

00:49:00

but you haven't stayed that way.

00:49:03

He breathed His life into you.

00:49:06

He made you from the dust. You're not still dust.

00:49:09

You're not common. You've been created by the master.

00:49:14

Do you know what you call

00:49:15

a common Michelangelo sculpture? A masterpiece.

00:49:22


00:49:24

a common Leonardo painting? Masterpiece.

00:49:28


00:49:30

a common Frank Lloyd Wright house? A masterpiece?

00:49:34

Do you know what you call a common Keanu Reeves movie?

00:49:38

It's not quite the same. Okay, I get it.

00:49:40

No. It's fine. Yeah.

00:49:42

Point is, everything made by a master artist

00:49:48

is, by definition, a masterpiece. That's you.

00:49:53

Ephesians 2:10 says, we are God's masterpiece.

00:49:56

He's created us anew in Christ Jesus

00:49:58

so we can do the good things He planned for us

00:50:01

a long time ago. This is the truth.

00:50:05

If you believe in Jesus, there is no other gospel.

00:50:09

I just wondered, has the gospel of religion grabbed you?

00:50:12

No, I'm just common. No, I'm just low.

00:50:14

No, I just --- I think bad of myself.

00:50:16

No, I just need to not get too high and not get too mighty.

00:50:19

No, you need to agree with God.

00:50:20

You know what's high and mighty?

00:50:21

Not agreeing with God. That's pride.

00:50:23

You know what's humble? Agreeing with Him,

00:50:25

even if He says something good about you.

00:50:26

That's the call of God.

00:50:28

I think we don't do it because

00:50:29

we're afraid of overvaluing ourselves.

00:50:32

You ever overvalued something?

00:50:34

I did this not long ago.

00:50:35

My kids have gone to school for the very first time.

00:50:37

Let me fact check that for a second.

00:50:38

They were homeschooled before.

00:50:40

Okay, it wasn't like we just kind of sat around.

00:50:42

We went to, like, a real school

00:50:43

for the first time this this year.

00:50:45

And they never had grades before, no report cards.

00:50:47

And I really wanted to incentivize them

00:50:49

to do good work. And so I told them, you know,

00:50:53

"I'll pay you for you for good grades,"

00:50:55

basically it. That's what I did.

00:50:56

Don't know if that's good parenting or bad parenting.

00:50:58

Please don't take my advice. Totally untested. \

00:51:00

Try this out. And I don't know, again, I'm a dad.

00:51:03

I'm not good at many things.

00:51:04

Like, I barely know what school they go to,

00:51:06

much less how many classes they have.

00:51:08

And so I just said, you know, "I'm going to pay you

00:51:11

20 bucks for an A, 25 for an A+, 15 for a B.

00:51:15

Heck, let's throw on a bonus,

00:51:16

if you get straight A's 25 more bucks."

00:51:19

I say this and Sarah's looking at me

00:51:20

and she's like, "Oh no, oh no."

00:51:23

Turns out that all of them got straight A's,

00:51:26

so I'm very poor is what that means.

00:51:29

Totally overvalued it, really bad.

00:51:31

Had to have a conversation about, you know,

00:51:33

management's going to reduce the prices

00:51:35

for the next semester.

00:51:37

So had that talk with them.

00:51:39

It's totally overvalued. I think this is us.

00:51:42

I think that many of us believe that we're common.

00:51:44

It's easier for us to believe that

00:51:46

because we don't want to overvalue ourselves.

00:51:48

We don't want to find ourselves in the position

00:51:50

where God goes, "You thought you were worth what?

00:51:53

Can't believe you'd ever think that."

00:51:55

That's us, but that's never going to happen.

00:51:58

God is the master. He's proud of you.

00:52:01

How do I know that?

00:52:04

Well, because when an artist creates something

00:52:07

that they're proud of, do you know what they do to it?

00:52:11

They sign their name.

00:52:13

Do you know that God has signed His name on you?

00:52:17

The Bible says this in a couple places.

00:52:19

One 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, it says:

00:52:30

(That means His signature on us)

00:52:37

And then, even more directly,

00:52:38

in the very last book of the Bible,

00:52:40

Revelation 22:4, it says it this way,

00:52:43

very explicitly. It says:

00:52:44

They will see His face,

00:52:46

and His name will be on their foreheads.

00:52:50

God says, "One day you're going to see yourself

00:52:54

and you're going to see yourself

00:52:55

as a masterpiece with My signature on you."

00:52:59

Don't buy the religious gospel

00:53:01

that what God wants for you

00:53:02

is to believe you're common and accept it.

00:53:04

No, what God wants for you is to believe

00:53:06

that you're a masterpiece

00:53:08

and that He has made you for a purpose.

00:53:11

That's the gospel of grace.

00:53:13

It doesn't matter what mistakes you've made,

00:53:15

doesn't matter what flaws you see,

00:53:16

none of that matters. God isn't done with you.

00:53:21

This is the last piece of this gospel of grace.

00:53:23

Notice that in the middle of Psalm 139:14 it says,

00:53:26

I praise you because I am, two words,

00:53:29

I am, present tense. I am.

00:53:32

That just means that this isn't something

00:53:33

God is doing in the future.

00:53:35

It's not something God has accomplished

00:53:36

fully all the way already.

00:53:39

In a very real sense, you and I are still being made.

00:53:43

I think many of us, we want to discard this idea of growth,

00:53:46

but the reality is that God's not done.

00:53:50

He says, I am, not I was.

00:53:52

You know, who wrote the Psalm 139,

00:53:54

those words that we've been looking at?

00:53:56

It's David, not, by the way,

00:53:59

at the beginning of his life,

00:54:01

at the very end of his life.

00:54:02

Scholars are pretty in agreement on this fact

00:54:05

that these are words, they represent maturity from him.

00:54:07

These are at the end of his life.

00:54:08

That means David wrote these words after he had an affair.

00:54:14

David wrote these words after he failed as a father

00:54:17

and his son, Absalom rebelled against him.

00:54:20

David wrote these words after

00:54:21

David himself rebelled against God,

00:54:23

did something he knew he wasn't supposed to,

00:54:25

and took a census which resulted in

00:54:26

the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

00:54:29

David wrote these words after all that,

00:54:31

and he still says about himself,

00:54:34

"I praise You because I am fearfully

00:54:38

and wonderfully made."

00:54:39

How in the world could he say that?

00:54:42

Because he knew God wasn't done.

00:54:45

He knew his life was a life lived on the wheel.

00:54:50

This is your life, for the rest of your days

00:54:53

you're on the wheel.

00:54:55

And the good news about it is

00:54:57

no matter what hangups you have,

00:54:58

no matter what outages you have,

00:55:00

no matter what flaws you see

00:55:03

God's still working on you. He's not done.

00:55:07

I think the older you get, the more important

00:55:09

this message becomes for you.

00:55:10

Because, see, what I find is that the older you get,

00:55:12

the easier it is to believe that growth

00:55:14

was a thing that happened in the past,

00:55:16

that your days of getting better are over.

00:55:20

No, they're not. No, they're not.

00:55:22

The worst you that will ever exist

00:55:24

is the you that exists now. Do you know that?

00:55:28

See, tomorrow you'll be better. Why?

00:55:30

Because God is working on you every single day.

00:55:34

He's not done with you.

00:55:37

This is what it says in Jeremiah 18:1. It says:

00:56:08

God can make you and remake you again

00:56:12

and again and again and again.

00:56:15

Last week we had an amazing opportunity for people

00:56:17

to come down and receive prayer for healing,

00:56:20

in other words, to get better.

00:56:21

We had an amazing response.

00:56:23

Over 2400 people across sites and online got prayed for.

00:56:27

If you are one of the prayer volunteers,

00:56:28

thank you, thank you, thank you.

00:56:30

It's hard to clap with this kind of music,

00:56:32

but let's give it our best shot anyway, right?

00:56:36

It's an amazing experience.

00:56:37

We saw many, many healings, by the way.

00:56:39

Many people were made better instantly.

00:56:41

And by the way, if that wasn't you,

00:56:43

if you didn't receive instant healing,

00:56:45

do not worry, you are on the on the wheel.

00:56:47

You're on the wheel. God's not done yet.

00:56:49

Do not be discouraged. God's not done yet.

00:56:52

Saw so many people go forward.

00:56:54

Now, do you know who went forward?

00:56:58

The people who thought they could get better.

00:57:00

The people who believed God wasn't done with them.

00:57:04

That was me. I went, I went forward.

00:57:05

I was at the East side. It was a great service.

00:57:08

And, you know, Brian gave that call

00:57:09

for healing prayer at the end of the message.

00:57:11

And at first I sat there and I thought,

00:57:13

"You know, I don't have any physical healing issue needs.

00:57:17

I don't have a knee that's bad

00:57:18

or a shoulder that's out or anything like that.

00:57:20

And, you know, it's just like,

00:57:21

oh God, that's so great. Thank you so much for that."

00:57:23

And then Brian talked about what he wanted prayer for.

00:57:26

He talked about being self-centered

00:57:28

and wanting God to make him better

00:57:29

and to heal him from that and to bring him to a new place.

00:57:32

And that was convicting to me because I sat there

00:57:34

and was like, "Oh, right,

00:57:37

You're making me better in all the ways.

00:57:38

Maybe you're not so concerned about my elbow

00:57:40

as you are the way that I treat my family."

00:57:43

And I thought to that morning

00:57:45

and I thought to the day before

00:57:46

where I was harsh with my family.

00:57:48

And so I went down and I received prayer

00:57:50

from an amazing volunteer named Pam.

00:57:51

I walked up and I just said, "You know, Pam,

00:57:54

I would love you to pray for me

00:57:56

that God would make me gentle and kind,

00:57:59

in particular with my kids.

00:58:01

It's a real struggle for me."

00:58:03

And she said, "Oh, I'd love to pray for you."

00:58:04

She told me that that was actually a thing

00:58:06

that she asked God for recently.

00:58:07

It was her word for the year, and how God had changed her,

00:58:10

had grown her, and she prayed for me.

00:58:12

I'm happy to tell you since then. Guess what?

00:58:13

It's been way easier to be kind and to be gentle.

00:58:16

Why? Because God's not done.

00:58:19

And I want to just push on you a little bit.

00:58:22

If you were here last weekend,

00:58:25

if you watched online and you didn't text in for prayer,

00:58:29

you didn't chat in, can I just ask you,

00:58:32

is it because you think God's done?

00:58:35

Does any piece of you believe that you can't get better?

00:58:39

If so, you don't believe the gospel.

00:58:42

And I have good news,

00:58:43

it's so much better than you've been thinking.

00:58:45

See, God wants to make you

00:58:47

better than you can ever imagine.

00:58:49

Better. Philippians 1:6 says:

00:58:51

I'm sure of this, that He who began

00:58:54

a good work in you will bring it to completion

00:58:57

at the day of Jesus Christ.

00:58:58

God will complete the work.

00:59:00

It's not an if. It's not a maybe.

00:59:03

It's an absolute.

00:59:05

This is the verse we've been looking at:

00:59:07

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

00:59:14

See, God wants from you more than

00:59:16

just intellectual assent to this idea.

00:59:20

What God wants is for you to praise Him

00:59:23

specifically for some way that you're thankful

00:59:26

for how He's made you.

00:59:29

That's what we're going to end our time with,

00:59:31

just to just do really tactically.

00:59:32

And first, I just want to invite you,

00:59:34

if you've believed something less of yourself

00:59:37

than what God has and what God says about you,

00:59:39

I just want to invite you

00:59:41

to do something very, very simple,

00:59:42

and that's just repent.

00:59:45

Just say, "God, I'm sorry."

00:59:47

Because guess what?

00:59:48

It doesn't matter if you've said no offense.

00:59:51

When you criticize the art, you've criticized the artist.

00:59:54

You can just say, "God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

00:59:56

Help me agree with what You say about me."

01:00:01

The step two is just praise Him.

01:00:03

You got that clay still on your hand?

01:00:05

I want you take that clay and we're going to do

01:00:09

what we did in that staff prayer all those weeks ago.

01:00:12

I want you right now as you hold this clay

01:00:15

to think about something about yourself

01:00:18

that you are grateful to God for.

01:00:21

What is a way that God has made you

01:00:23

wonderfully, fearfully, uniquely, awesomely

01:00:26

that you just want to say thanks.

01:00:28

And just make the thing that represents that.

01:00:30

Maybe you're somebody with wisdom.

01:00:32

If that's you, you don't have to be ashamed of it.

01:00:34

You can just sculpt a little owl that represents wisdom.

01:00:37

Maybe you're strong, make a little elephant.

01:00:40

Maybe you're into hospitality, make a little pot.

01:00:42

I don't know what it is.

01:00:44

Make something that just says to Him.,

01:00:46

"I believe that I am who You say I am."

01:00:51

And as we do that,

01:00:53

we're going to listen to this song together.

01:07:52

- That's the gospel.

01:07:55

You're not a lump of clay.

01:07:58

You're not a random accident.

01:08:01

You're a masterpiece made by

01:08:03

the creator of the universe who thought about you

01:08:05

before the foundations of the earth

01:08:07

were ever put into place and said,

01:08:09

"I'm excited to make you."

01:08:13

I don't know what you made to thank God.

01:08:15

I made a question mark, represents curiosity.

01:08:19

It's the thing I'm most thankful for

01:08:21

about how God has made me.

01:08:22

It's a gift from Him.

01:08:24

I have this innate sense of just asking questions

01:08:26

and being curious, and it makes me a learner.

01:08:29

It's so great and I love it from God.

01:08:31

It's a gift and my response is to say, "God,

01:08:34

I praise You because of how You made me.

01:08:37

You made me fearfully and wonderfully."

01:08:40

And guess what? He made you that way too.

01:08:45

I hope You said thank you to Him as he sang that song.

01:08:49

God, I thank You for the truth of Your gospel

01:08:52

that is always better than all of the imposters.

01:08:57

I thank You for the reality

01:08:59

of the fact that You've made us.

01:09:00

And I just pray, God, for everyone here,

01:09:02

particularly the person who walked in

01:09:05

believing they were just a lump of nothing,

01:09:09

God, that you would reform their identity,

01:09:12

that they say yes to You.

01:09:13

And I just say, if you've never said yes to Jesus before,

01:09:16

you can do it for the very first time.

01:09:17

You just say, "Jesus, I believe You are

01:09:19

who You say You are, and I say yes

01:09:24

to everything You have for me.

01:09:27

You define me because You made me. Amen.

01:09:34

- Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.

01:09:36

Now, while it's impossible for us to ship out

01:09:38

little pieces of clay to everyone on the planet,

01:09:41

I hope that you were connected with something

01:09:44

that Kyle shared today, that it resonated with you,

01:09:46

and that you can find a way to carry it into your life.

01:09:49

We never want this to just be something

01:09:51

that you watch and then forget about,

01:09:53

but our lives never change.

01:09:54

Everything that we do, we want

01:09:56

to help you grow closer to God.

01:09:57

And another way to do that is actually

01:10:00

on your phone through the Crossroads app.

01:10:02

Together as a church, we read through

01:10:04

different Bible scriptures, we daily pray together

01:10:07

thousands of prayers for each other,

01:10:08

we post articles, podcasts, and so much more.

01:10:11

Now, this isn't just more content to consume,

01:10:14

it's actually tools to help you grow

01:10:16

in relationship with Jesus and grow closer to Him.

01:10:19

You can check it out and download it

01:10:20

on your mobile device wherever you get your apps.

01:10:23

Hey, thank you so much for coming.

01:10:25

We'll see you back here next week.

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