How to Gain the Power to Last-DO NOT USE

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- This could be one of

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the most memorable experiences you will have in your lifetime.

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A chance to see true transformation.

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- Yeah. Sometimes we don't know what to do

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other than just run to the Father and say,

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"Papa, help!" [applause]

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- Even though we were born wild,

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we were also designed to live free.

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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As you just saw, we are one week away

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from one of the most unique

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and powerful experiences I have ever seen at a church.

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Todd Pierce, a former rodeo champion,

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will be training a wild horse on our stage live

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and using it as this powerful metaphor

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for how God leads, trains, and loves us.

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Each service is unique, it's unscripted

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and will be streamed live.

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Crossroads is one church meeting at multiple sites

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and across the nation, and even globe,

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meeting online and in homes, coffee shops,

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breweries, dorms and even prisons.

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And as a community across the globe,

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we're going to do something together right now.

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Life is busy, crazy and hard enough as it is

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that we all just need moments to pause

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and to be reminded of what's true and what's not,

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to be filled up, not drained.

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And right now, we have a chance

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to not just listen to some music,

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but to connect with God through these songs,

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to be reminded about who God says that He is

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and who He says that we are.

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So whether you're alone or with a group of people,

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whether you're in your car or your living room,

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sing these songs with us

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to connect with God right now.

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- I lift my eyes up off everything in front of me

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and put my eyes on Him, the Maker, the power of all.

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- Come on, church, sing it one more time.

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- If you believe this, we sing this from our being.

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- Come on, sing this out with everything you got.

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- Let's sing forever His kingdom come.

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- Where do you want to see His Kingdom come in your life?

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- God, we thank you so much

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that Your Kingdom can come in our lives.

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God, that the Kingdom of God is not at all

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what we think it is, but it's reversed, God,

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that we can worship You, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

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God, we are so grateful for who You are,

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for what You're doing in our lives.

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God, we pray that forever Your Kingdom

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would come in our lives.

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God, that we start to think differently,

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we start to act differently because

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we have Your Kingdom in our lives, God,

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we can operate in the Kingdom of God.

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We love You so much. In Jesus' name, Amen.

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- And He's so, so good.

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It's so good to sing to Him with you.

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If you're online, we're glad you're joining us there.

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And we sing those words, we worship Him,

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for me, that means I try to give my whole life to Him

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and I don't want any part of me hidden from Him

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and so everything is what He gets.

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And that shows up at this place,

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this website called Crossroads.net/give.

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If you're here and you're part of Crossroads,

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you can meet me there and worship there

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if you're brand new,

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then don't worry about that right now.

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I got something for you if you're brand new

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and if you call this place home.

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I don't get to do this kind of thing often.

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But this weekend we get to give you

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a great, great gift.

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Our music team has been working

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for the last several months writing new songs,

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testing out new songs on the weekend,

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seeing how they connect with you.

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Songs like Anything That's Good,

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songs like Kingdom of God that we just sing.

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All those songs are available

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on our new EP this weekend, completely free to you.

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You don't have to buy them. Nothing like that.

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On every platform, wherever you get your music.

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Here's why we do this, and I hope you hear me.

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We write songs, we sing our guts out

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all to connect you to Jesus,

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all to help you connect with

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the One who made you, who gives life.

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So get that music. Listen to it Monday, Tuesday,

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Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

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Take it with you wherever you go

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and keep connecting with Him.

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That's what we want, so check that out.

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Right now turn to somebody as you grab your seat

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or make your way back to your seat.

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Say, "Hey, I'm Spotify, nice to meet you.

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Apple Music. Whatever you got."

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- Yeah. Let's go! You gotta love that song, right?

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It just has the feel of what we're talking about

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in this series, a feel of power.

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And I know that there's people in here,

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we're all over the spiritual spectrum.

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Some of us are all in, and we're like,

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"Every word of that song, that's the God we believe in."

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And other of us are like,

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"I've never seen that God before.

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I'm not so sure He exists."

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And I just want you to know, no matter who you are

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and how you walked in this place

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or tuned in to this video,

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you can end this experience different

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because see that God of Power

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doesn't just hold on to it for Himself.

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That would be reasonable. That would be okay.

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But that God of power says that we, you and I,

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can have access to the same power.

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Let me read you from Ephesians 1, it says:

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That's the power and the point of today.

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The point of this series is that we're in,

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is that you and I can tap into that power

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in our lives and see it in its fullness.

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Now, one of the greatest displays of power

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I've ever witnessed in my life

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was on a 4th of July, a number of years ago.

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No, it was not the fireworks,

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that's what you would assume, not the fireworks.

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It was actually earlier in the day,

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a friend of mine came over.

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And just to protect his anonymity

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for the purpose of this story,

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because you might judge us later on.

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I don't him to perceive that.

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We're just going to call him G. Mcelfresh,

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which that might be too obvious.

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Let's just go. Let's go. Greg M.

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So me and Greg M., we were hanging out.

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The plan was just spend 4th of July together.

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Families, get everybody together,

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you know, do the classic stuff:

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tubed meat, ice cold beers, fireworks at night.

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But when he got to my house, he said,

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"Hey, man, I got something --

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Something we could light up before the fireworks."

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And it's not what you're thinking.

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A stick of dynamite.

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An actual stick of dynamite.

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And, you know, we were responsible adults, right?

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And by the way, let me just say too,

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you guys are already judging us.

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I want you to know this was a long time ago, okay?

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We were much younger, much stupider.

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This is like 2022, probably, like -- [laughter]

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We've grown a lot. So just just relax. Just relax.

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We just started, like, "What should we do with this?"

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We did what any responsible American male would do,

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we made a plan to blow up a bucket.

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We were like, "If we could put this

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under a Home Depot bucket, maybe the Home Depot bucket

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could go to the moon like Apollo 11.

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This is worth a shot."

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And I know some of you are like, "Okay, what?

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Did you really do this?

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And did you think this through? Did you wear eye protection?

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Did you have ear protection?

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Did you clear out the grass

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so you wouldn't burn your yard up?

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Did you call your local county to see if you needed a permit

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before you detonated something?

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Kyle, did you check the statute of limitations

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with said county before you started telling us

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this story to make sure

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you're not incriminating yourself?"

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The answer to all of this is, no, we did not.

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We did none of those things.

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We put it out in a field in front of my house,

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put the bucket over it, lit the fuze,

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and then we ran. I mean, just ran.

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Because, you know, like, what's going to happen

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when dynamite blows up?

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I don't know, I've never seen it before.

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So we hunker down, we run far away, hunker down.

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And then we just wait and we wait and we wait.

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And the moment where we're pretty sure

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the fuze isn't maybe lit,

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the whole thing goes boom, explodes.

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And it was awesome.

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Now, if you've never seen this before,

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let me tell you what happens.

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The bucket did not go up.

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The bucket went apart in about a million pieces.

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It was a solid ten minutes of bucket shrapnel

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just raining down from the heavens on this field.

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There was a three foot crater smoking

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where there used to be grass.

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It was amazing. Amazing.

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Oh, let me just say, there's probably

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a parent in here, you brought your kid.

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And I'm sorry, you do Kids' Club

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or middle school or whatever.

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Let me just speak to your kid for a second.

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Kid, I'm Uncle Kyle. Nice to meet you.

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And I just want you to know

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what we did was terribly irresponsible.

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It was. It was horribly awesome.

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And I just want to say our legal team

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has asked me to make a disclaimer at this point.

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I am not a safety expert.

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I'm the same guy who cut my hand apart in a table saw.

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So don't do anything that I do that's dangerous.

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That's not what I'm here for.

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The point of all that is this.

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We love those big bursts of sudden power, don't we?

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Fireworks that shoot off, explosions that go off.

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We all love that, but none of us want a life

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that's like a stick of dynamite

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or a firework bursting in the sky.

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No matter what Katy Perry says,

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that's not what we're going for.

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See, a sudden burst of power has a name,

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it's called a a flash in the in the pan.

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And a flash in the pan, unfortunately,

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describes to many of us in our life

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and our faith and our sticktoitiveness.

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Too many of us, we have these moments

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where maybe we get baptized and it's amazing

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and everybody is celebrating and we're clapping

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and and it feels incredible.

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And then a few months go by

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and something difficult happens

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or something disappointing and we start to wonder,

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was any of that real? We walk away.

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Too many of us we start into a major at college.

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We have a thing that we feel called to,

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but it gets difficult, it gets hard,

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and we struggle and we decide

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maybe it's time to to quit, maybe too early.

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Or your relationships this happens

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over and over and over again.

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The thing is, the world is pushing us in that direction.

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Because, see, the world whispers

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when things get hard, it whispers, "Quit, stop.

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You don't have the power and you probably won't.

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The best thing you can do is stop. Just stop."

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I know every single one of us

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have heard this voice in our lives.

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I know I've heard it.

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I've heard that voice in my marriage.

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We had three kids in three years.

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We were so tired and nasty to each other.

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There were absolutely moments

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where I know Sarah looked at me

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and went like, "That guy, really? Forever?"

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I felt this in my work.

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I felt a calling into ministry, and yet

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there have been plenty of moments

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where I've been frustrated.

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I had the same job for seven straight years.

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Do you really think I didn't have moments

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where I thought, "I've been overlooked?

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No one sees my potential. I'm stuck."

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I had moments where I wanted to quit.

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I've had this same thing in my faith,

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the same moments that you have,

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moments where I've prayed and I've asked God,

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"God, would you give me a miracle?

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Could I get a healing from you for my friend?"

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Instead, what I get is an invitation to a funeral.

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And you go, "Really? Is this -- is this it?"

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See, this is the thing that all of us will come up to.

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It's called the end of our own power.

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And in this moment, we have to decide

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what we're going to do.

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Now, the good news of today is that

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we're not talking in this series about

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the kind of power that's a sudden burst,

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the flash in the pan and then nothing else.

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We're talking about the kind of power

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that only comes from God, the power to last.

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It has a name. It's called resilience.

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It's a character trait that only the Holy Spirit,

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only the Spirit of God can put inside of you.

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And the key to getting it is what you fix your eyes on.

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Before we go any further, I want to pray

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that God would give us access to that power today,

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and then we'll catch you up on where we are in the Bible.

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God, thank You so much for the folks who are here,

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who are listening, who are tuned in,

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who are at all of our sites, God, bless them.

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I pray that for all of us, me included,

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we would take a step closer to You

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and tap into the power to last. Amen.

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The old man knew that the end was coming for him.

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His eyes had been fixed on the moment for decades.

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It was an obsession.

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His friends thought it was a strange quirk,

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one they didn't quite understand.

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But the old man had this vision of the end coming.

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It was fixed in his mind from the moment he woke up.

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It was the last thing he thought of

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before he went to bed at night,

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the end getting closer and coming for him.

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And now he knew in a way that goes past knowing

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that the end would arrive soon.

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Now this wasn't the place

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where he wanted to meet the end.

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It wasn't the script he would have written for his life,

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but he had given up on that delusion

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a long, long time ago.

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He looked up at the stone walls of his prison cell.

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The blocks were smooth, straight,

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unmistakably Roman, made of ashlar,

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a volcanic ash that had been compacted

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by pressure and time, and turned

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from soft black snow floating down from the sky

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into something hard and unbreakable.

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The man smiled at the thought, closed his eyes,

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and remembered the stone that he grew up with

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back home in the foothills

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of the great Taurus Mountain range.

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Basalt, crushed sediment from ancient oceans

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long gone, something soft and decaying,

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turned by pressure and time

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into something impossibly strong,

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just like the walls of his prison cell,

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just like him.

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He didn't know if he'd meet the end today,

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tomorrow or next week, but he knew

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the sound that would reach his ears

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long before his eyes caught a glimpse

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of the approaching shadow.

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It would be the faint clink of the keys

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hanging from the jailers belt

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as he walked down the long hallway.

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The old man closed his eyes to listen,

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no keys. Not yet.

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He supposed that mean he'd get to finish

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the letter, though, the letter he had begun this morning.

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It would be his last and a surprise

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to the world who followed his writing.

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Well, most of his letters had been addressed

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to cities Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi, even Rome.

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The Athenians probably thought they would be next,

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and for good reason.

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But he had a more important letter to write

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to a young man he had met more than a decade before.

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A young man who needed that same vision

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that burned inside the old man,

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the vision of the end coming for him.

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Nothing was more important than that.

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Too many others had failed to find the vision.

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Too many of them had gone away like chaff

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carried off by the western wind.

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The old man turned back to his parchment,

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ink stained fingers, twirling the calamus pen

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until the words formed in his spirit,

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placed there by a power

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he knew no walls could contain.

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These were the words. He was sure of it.

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And so he began to write:'

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He closed with a few personal instructions

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and greetings, put the pen down,

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rubbed his tired eyes and stretched his cramped legs.

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That's when he heard it,

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the soft clinking of keys growing louder.

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The end was here.

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The old man grinned.

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He had made it. He had actually done it.

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The jailer placed a hand over his swinging keys

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to silence them, and paused in the hallway,

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straining towards the old man's cell.

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Was that laughter?

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Now that old man went by a Roman name.

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His name was Paul.

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And by the time he wrote that last letter

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inside of that jail cell,

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he was famous all over the known world.

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His letters had influenced

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tens of thousands of people

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and turned the known world upside down.

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That last letter, though, was no accident.

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He picked out a specific person to write it to: Timothy.

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Timothy he had met about a decade earlier

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in the city of Lystra in central Turkey.

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Timothy had been a convert after he heard

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Paul teach, and had been called into ministry.

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For the last four years, at the point he got this letter,

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Timothy had been serving in the city of Ephesus,

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a coastal city, and the northern Mediterranean Sea.

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And he was a young guy.

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He was probably late 20s, early 30s tops,

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young guy at the beginning of his ministry.

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And Paul decided in this moment

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that the beginning of his ministry

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was the perfect time to focus Timothy's mind on the end.

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He said, "Fulfill your ministry." 2 Timothy 4:5:

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Ministry is the good works that God's called you to,

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they're good works that God's called all of us to.

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It's not about being a professional Christian person.

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People like to say that I'm in ministry

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because I get paid to work at a church,

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but that's not what ministry means in the Bible.

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It's just the good works

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that God has prepared for you to do.

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And He's got them for all of us.

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Ephesians 2:10 says:

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So why would Paul write a letter to

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a 20 something all about ending well? It's odd.

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Well, the reason is because Paul was surrounded

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by people who were not ending well.

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This same letter that he wrote,

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that letter in the jail cell, 2 Timothy,

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Paul names seven people by name

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who he had done ministry with,

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who had been part of the church with,

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and six of them did not end well.

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That's one out of seven if you're counting at home.

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The stats today aren't much better than that.

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I saw a recent survey that said only 30%

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of people in full-time ministry will end well.

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I saw another one that matched it that said

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if you're raised inside of a family of faith,

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only 30% of those people

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will have their faith survive through adulthood.

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See, the fact is that few people do fulfill,

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and most don't, most don't at all.

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And you and I, we have to reconcile

00:42:07

we walk to in this moment is the understanding

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that we will be one or the other.

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We will be part of the few or part of the most.

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So a good question is what's the dividing line?

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How do you get from one to the other?

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How would you become somebody who fulfills

00:42:22

all the good work that God has prepared for you?

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Well, I believe that Paul's life

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uniquely holds the secret to it.

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Now, my impression of Paul, it was different.

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It was dramatically changed

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by a trip I took a number of years ago,

00:42:36

where I actually got to go to Turkey and Greece

00:42:38

and walk in his footsteps from town to town

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and see these places and understand who he was.

00:42:44

I always thought of him as, like,

00:42:45

this egghead scholarly guy because

00:42:47

he writes these really smart things.

00:42:49

Romans is brilliant.

00:42:51

It was studied at Harvard

00:42:52

when they founded the university,

00:42:54

not as a spiritual document,

00:42:55

but as an example of incredible legal reasoning.

00:42:59

The guy was brilliant.

00:43:00

But if you only see an egghead, you miss out on Paul,

00:43:04

because that's not the most important thing to him.

00:43:06

It's not the defining characteristic.

00:43:09

He was born in Tarsus.

00:43:10

It was a city in central Turkey.

00:43:13

As a young man he had a violent kind of run at it.

00:43:17

He was a Pharisee.

00:43:18

And when the Christians came on the scene

00:43:20

and Jesus kind of upended everything,

00:43:22

Paul decided it was his duty to stop them.

00:43:24

And so he would literally go into towns,

00:43:26

hunt down Christians, and execute them.

00:43:29

One day he's on a road to Damascus.

00:43:31

Maybe you've heard this story.

00:43:33

Going to that city with letters in hand that

00:43:35

would allow him to arrest and kill Christians.

00:43:38

On the way, a bright light shines out of the sky,

00:43:41

knocks him off his horse.

00:43:42

He gets blinded, and he hears a voice that says,

00:43:46

"I am Jesus, Paul, why are you persecuting me?"

00:43:49

And immediately Paul changes.

00:43:51

He goes from this guy hunting Christians

00:43:53

to a guy following Jesus.

00:43:56

It says this in Acts 9:20:

00:44:04

Paul has this immediate thing to him,

00:44:07

this thing that just springs into action.

00:44:09

He's got that burst of power

00:44:10

that so many of us have in our life.

00:44:12

He can resonate with that moment,

00:44:14

that moment you first came to faith

00:44:15

or that moment you first fell in love,

00:44:17

that initial like, "Yes, everything is awesome."

00:44:19

He had the same exact thing.

00:44:21

And just like many of us,

00:44:23

he had the same thing that follows,

00:44:25

which is always the immediate resistance.

00:44:28

See, Paul wasn't received well.

00:44:30

No one was, like, "Great, that's awesome, Paul.

00:44:33

Thanks for preaching to us." High fives.

00:44:35

That's not what happened.

00:44:36

Instead, the people in Damascus tried to kill him

00:44:39

and so he flees to Jerusalem.

00:44:41

He gets in that city, he starts preaching the gospel.

00:44:43

And the same thing happens there.

00:44:45

Everyone wants to kill him.

00:44:47

And so the disciples,

00:44:48

fearing for his safety and for theirs,

00:44:51

they actually send him in a bucket out a window,

00:44:54

drop him out of the city wall and say,

00:44:56

"You should go back to Tarsus."

00:44:58

So Paul does, he goes back to Tarsus, his hometown.

00:45:01

I don't know how long it had been

00:45:02

since he had been there many, many years.

00:45:04

His family likely shunned him.

00:45:07

They didn't believe what he believed anymore.

00:45:09

If he had a wife,

00:45:10

she would have abandoned him at this point,

00:45:12

we don't know, but that's what would have happened.

00:45:14

And so many scholars believe that Paul

00:45:16

likely spent his time in Tarsus living as

00:45:19

an outcast, utterly, completely alone.

00:45:22

In fact, the friend who I went over with,

00:45:24

the expert who toured me around the life of Paul,

00:45:27

said his belief is that Paul actually

00:45:29

lived in a cave alone, by himself for eight years.

00:45:35

Can you imagine that?

00:45:37

What would you do if you took a step towards

00:45:40

the thing that you wanted in your life,

00:45:42

your career path,

00:45:43

and then there was eight years of stall?

00:45:45

Would you have the power to wait?

00:45:48

What if you got into a marriage

00:45:49

and it was amazing in year one and then it stalled?

00:45:51

Would you wait?

00:45:53

What if you got into faith and it was amazing

00:45:55

and it was incredible.

00:45:56

And then things just felt disappointing

00:45:58

and strange and confusing.

00:46:00

Could you have the stamina and the power to last?

00:46:05

Well, the remarkable thing about Paul is that he did.

00:46:08

He did last eight years.

00:46:12

See, resilient people

00:46:14

have one defining characteristic

00:46:17

that sets them apart from all others.

00:46:19

They stay.

00:46:21

You know, we have that saying,

00:46:23

complete this sentence:

00:46:24

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

00:46:29

They don't though actually.

00:46:31

See when the going gets tough,

00:46:33

the tough, the powerful stay.

00:46:35

They don't go anywhere.

00:46:37

And Paul is resilient.

00:46:39

His patience, this power that he's tapped into,

00:46:42

it pays off because after eight years,

00:46:44

his old buddy Barnabas comes to Tarsus

00:46:46

and says, "All right, Paul, we're ready for you.

00:46:48

Come on back."

00:46:49

They go back and they do ministry

00:46:51

and everything is completely awesome after that.

00:46:54

I mean, just smooth sailing for Paul.

00:46:57

I'll read it to you out of Acts 4:04, it says:

00:47:13

That's Paul.

00:47:15

No, actually, 4:04, because that's not found.

00:47:17

That's actually not in the Bible.

00:47:18

It's not what it says at all.

00:47:22

But it's what the illusion that we have

00:47:24

of what it should be like. Right?

00:47:26

After the initial excitement,

00:47:28

after the initial burst of the initial awesomeness,

00:47:30

it should just be all awesome.

00:47:32

But it's not.

00:47:33

Here's Paul's own account of what happened next.

00:47:37

This is from 2 Corinthians 11. Paul says:

00:48:24

Indignant means angry at

00:48:26

what I perceive to be unfair treatment.

00:48:28

Paul goes, "It feels like in my life sometimes

00:48:31

I'm literally made to fall and to fail,

00:48:34

and it makes me angry."

00:48:36

See, there were moments where Paul wanted to give up.

00:48:39

There were moments when Paul for sure

00:48:41

wanted to shout angrily at God.

00:48:42

Eight years in a cave?

00:48:44

What about my purpose driven life, God?

00:48:47

What happened to that? Eight years.

00:48:50

Paul says, "Of course,

00:48:51

of course I wanted to quit, but I didn't."

00:48:55

Instead, he traveled all over the known world,

00:48:58

starting churches every single place he went.

00:49:02

The best picture, if you want to picture

00:49:03

the life of Paul, it's not a classroom,

00:49:05

it's a mountain range.

00:49:07

These are the Taurus Mountains in Turkey,

00:49:10

mountains that Paul climbed to get from place to place.

00:49:13

Taurus, just like Ford Taurus, by the way,

00:49:15

I figured this out doing research.

00:49:18

I'm not sure why Ford chose to name

00:49:21

this car after a mountain range.

00:49:23

Not a lot of resemblance there, but I don't know.

00:49:26

They were shooting for it, shooting for it.

00:49:28

So good job, Ford.

00:49:29

Now we know why it's no longer made.

00:49:30

Okay, now, after all these hardships,

00:49:34

all this difficulty, all this pain,

00:49:35

all this turmoil, somehow Paul did not quit.

00:49:40

In 2 Corinthians, that same letter he wrote:

00:49:55

How? How would you have resilience?

00:50:00

How would you find the power

00:50:01

to overcome pain and difficulty?

00:50:04

Well, the answer of the world right now

00:50:06

is you fix your eyes on your problems,

00:50:08

you focus on them, you think about them,

00:50:11

you obsess about it, you talk about them,

00:50:12

you work on them, you find the power from within.

00:50:16

But the problem is,

00:50:17

whatever you stare at is what you become.

00:50:20

And so if you stare at the problems

00:50:22

and the pain in your life, friend,

00:50:23

your life will become nothing

00:50:24

but a series of pain in problems.

00:50:28

That's not what Paul did.

00:50:29

There's no verse in the Bible we can find

00:50:31

that remotely sounds like the best advice

00:50:34

is to focus on your pain and your problems.

00:50:36

Think about that all the time.

00:50:37

There's no recording in the book of Acts

00:50:40

where Paul sits down and has a long thought

00:50:43

about the pain of the eight years in the cave

00:50:45

and what that did to him.

00:50:46

No, it doesn't happen.

00:50:49

See, instead, what Paul did is

00:50:52

he fixed his eyes on one thing: the end.

00:50:58

And at the end what he saw

00:51:00

was Jesus standing right across the finish line.

00:51:02

If there's a finish line to life,

00:51:03

Jesus is right here.

00:51:05

And what Paul imagined in his mind eye

00:51:07

was Jesus standing there cheering him on,

00:51:09

and Paul crossing that finish line

00:51:11

in full stride on his feet.

00:51:14

See, Jesus is the end.

00:51:17

I don't know if you've ever connected these dots before.

00:51:19

There's a verse in Hebrews 12 that says:

00:51:21

Let us run with perseverance

00:51:23

the race marked out for us,

00:51:25

fixing our eyes on Jesus,

00:51:27

the author and perfecter of faith.

00:51:31

So Jesus is the one we're supposed to fix our eyes on.

00:51:34

One of the names for Jesus comes from

00:51:36

Revelation 21, where He says:

00:51:38

I'm the Alpha and the Omega,

00:51:39

the beginning and the end.

00:51:43

See, when you fix your eyes on Jesus,

00:51:45

you're fixing your eyes on the end.

00:51:47

When Paul is sitting in his prison cell

00:51:49

and he's waiting for the end to come,

00:51:51

and he's imagining the end to come.

00:51:52

The end finally comes and he smiles and he laughs.

00:51:56

It's because Jesus had arrived.

00:51:58

He had done it.

00:52:00

And when he writes this letter to Paul --

00:52:03

When writes this letter to Timothy,

00:52:04

he writes about the end.

00:52:07

Now it's kind of an abstract thing to think about, right?

00:52:10

Somewhat depressing.

00:52:11

And so Paul gives three pictures,

00:52:13

three pictures to Timothy that actually

00:52:16

show up across all of his other letters.

00:52:18

They're powerful portraits of what it means

00:52:21

to have power that lasts, to have resilience.

00:52:24

We're going to go through each of them

00:52:25

with the remainder of the time that we have.

00:52:27

And one of them, I believe, is for you today.

00:52:30

As I talked through, I want you

00:52:31

to capture the one that's for you.

00:52:33

I want you to burn it in your mind.

00:52:34

I want you to have a conversation

00:52:36

with God about these images.

00:52:40

Paul writes about them in 2 Timothy 2. He says:

00:52:43

No one engaged in warfare entangles himself

00:52:47

with the affairs of this life,

00:52:49

that he may please him

00:52:51

who enlisted him as a soldier.

00:52:53

And if anyone competes in athletics,

00:52:56

he is not crowned

00:52:57

unless he competes according to the rules.

00:52:59

The hardworking farmer

00:53:01

must be first to partake of the crops.

00:53:04

Consider what I say, and may the Lord

00:53:06

give you understanding in all things.

00:53:09

He talks about the soldier,

00:53:11

the farmer, and the athlete.

00:53:13

Paul's all time top three metaphors.

00:53:17

Let's look at the farmer first.

00:53:19

Who is the farmer?

00:53:21

What's the power the farmer has?

00:53:23

The power of the farmer is the power

00:53:26

to fix your eyes on the harvest

00:53:28

and the Lord of the harvest,

00:53:30

and have the power to work

00:53:32

and wait while nothing is happening.

00:53:34

The secret of the farmer

00:53:36

is the farmer gets up every single morning,

00:53:38

works hard, waters the field, tills,

00:53:40

fertilizes and just has to wait.

00:53:43

See, for most of the time nothing's happening.

00:53:45

There is no sign that it's working.

00:53:47

There's nothing above the ground.

00:53:49

It's just hoping and praying and waiting.

00:53:52

The farmer has the patience to not give up.

00:53:56

In Galatians 6, Paul said:

00:54:07

The key trait of a farmer is they don't give up.

00:54:10

They don't give up.

00:54:11

Maybe you're in a season

00:54:12

where you've been tempted to give up.

00:54:14

I don't know on what, but you're tempted to give up.

00:54:17

If so, fix the image of the farmer in your mind

00:54:21

and ask God to give you the power that only He can

00:54:24

to have the mindset of the farmer.

00:54:28

Next is the soldier.

00:54:30

The soldier fixes their eyes on victory

00:54:32

in the commander of the angel armies,

00:54:35

and because of that,

00:54:37

they find the power to follow commands.

00:54:39

Paul wrote: No one engaged in warfare

00:54:41

entangles himself with the affairs of this life,

00:54:43

that he may please him

00:54:44

who enlisted him as a soldier.

00:54:47

So the soldier trains and drills and battles

00:54:50

and follows commands, in order that he might

00:54:52

please the person who has been enlisting him.

00:54:56

This is the picture that God gave me

00:54:59

years and years and years ago,

00:55:01

when I first entered into ministry,

00:55:02

before professional ministry.

00:55:04

I'm talking to the point where I just said to God,

00:55:06

"God, I want You to have my life.

00:55:07

I want You to steer my steps.

00:55:09

I see in the Bible that

00:55:10

You have good works prepared for me.

00:55:12

I don't know what those are, but I want to follow.

00:55:14

I want to experience all of them."

00:55:16

And at that time in my life,

00:55:17

God gave me this picture of the soldier

00:55:20

from another one of Paul's writings, Ephesians 6.

00:55:22

Paul wrote:

00:55:33

In ministry since then, there's been many times

00:55:35

when I've wanted to quit.

00:55:37

During COVID, it was hard, man.

00:55:38

If you let anything in COVID,

00:55:40

oh my gosh, you deserve a vacation.

00:55:42

It was horrible. Awful.

00:55:45

There's days and weeks and months

00:55:47

where it felt like anything I did was wrong.

00:55:49

Everything I did would lose.

00:55:51

There was turmoil inside.

00:55:53

There was turmoil outside.

00:55:54

It was just awful.

00:55:56

Many days I'd hear that voice whisper to me

00:55:58

and say, "Kyle, is this worth it?

00:56:00

You don't have to do this.

00:56:02

You could probably get a different job

00:56:03

somewhere else, maybe even making more money.

00:56:05

It'd be great. Why are you putting up with this?"

00:56:08

And to be honest, a massive part of the reason

00:56:10

I did not quit is because of this image

00:56:14

that was burned in my mind 20 years ago,

00:56:16

of wanting to be the soldier

00:56:18

who pleases commanding officer

00:56:20

and gets to the end of his life on his feet,

00:56:22

having stood.

00:56:24

I always imagined this as this old soldier,

00:56:26

battle scarred, weary, but still standing,

00:56:29

ready for what's next or ready to be called home.

00:56:32

That's the soldier.

00:56:34

Now, the key trait is

00:56:35

the soldier doesn't live to please himself.

00:56:38

The soldier lives to please their commanding officer.

00:56:40

And so my question to you with the soldier is,

00:56:43

are you living to please yourself?

00:56:46

If you are, that's why

00:56:48

there's a gap of power in your life.

00:56:50

See, the soldier fixes their eyes on God

00:56:53

and lives to please Him and Him alone.

00:56:57

If that's you, ask God to burn the picture

00:56:59

of the soldier into your heart, into your mind.

00:57:04

The last is the athlete.

00:57:05

The athlete, they fix their eyes on the prize

00:57:08

and what the Bible calls

00:57:09

the champion of our faith, Jesus.

00:57:12

And they have the power because of that

00:57:14

to train and to endure.

00:57:17

Paul said, if anyone competes in athletics,

00:57:19

he's not crowned unless he competes

00:57:21

according to the rules.

00:57:23

Now, speaking of athletics,

00:57:25

the Olympics are coming up again.

00:57:27

Very excited about that. Paris '24.

00:57:29

Excited. Can't wait for the Olympics.

00:57:31

Now I would be excited a little bit more

00:57:34

if they would do my idea,

00:57:35

which I don't want to brag,

00:57:36

but I do think this is the best idea

00:57:38

I've ever had in my entire life.

00:57:39

We'll see if you agree.

00:57:40

And if you have a contact at CBS, NBC,

00:57:42

whatever, you can share this idea

00:57:44

with them free of charge, you're welcome for it.

00:57:46

Okay, this is what I want.

00:57:48

When you watch the Olympics, you know

00:57:51

you're watching the world's top athletes, right?

00:57:53

They're amazing. They're incredible.

00:57:55

And you know that there's so much stronger

00:57:57

and faster and more talented than us.

00:57:59

But we don't know how much stronger

00:58:03

and how much faster and how much more talented than us.

00:58:05

But I have a solution.

00:58:07

I would like an average guy lane

00:58:10

added to each and every event.

00:58:12

That is what I want.

00:58:13

Now, the person cannot be prepared.

00:58:15

It can't be that, because that's not average.

00:58:17

None of us are prepared to run a marathon,

00:58:20

you know what I mean?

00:58:21

So it's got to work like this.

00:58:22

Loudspeaker comes on and goes,

00:58:24

"Darryl, section 307. Darryl, are you there? Darryl."

00:58:28

And Darryl is sitting there.

00:58:30

Darryl is two and a half Mic Ultras in,

00:58:33

shoving nachos into his face.

00:58:35

They go, "Darryl, we need you down on the field

00:58:37

for the 800 right now."

00:58:39

That's what I want. It'd be amazing.

00:58:42

Or think about the high dive, right?

00:58:43

The high dive is, like, nine stories tall.

00:58:46

Can you imagine calling somebody up there?

00:58:47

If that was me,

00:58:49

I would build a house and live there.

00:58:50

I would not be jumping off. It'd be amazing.

00:58:53

That'd be incredible TV. Incredible.

00:58:55

Now, the point of all that is this:

00:58:56

there is a massive difference between us

00:58:59

and Olympic athletes. Of course there is.

00:59:02

In fact, I don't mean to have low self esteem,

00:59:05

but I do want to be honest with you guys.

00:59:07

I don't think I'm going to make the Olympics this year.

00:59:10

I don't.

00:59:11

I work out, you know, 2, 3, sometimes 4 days a week,

00:59:14

and I drink Diet Coke and sometimes light beer.

00:59:18

I made friends with a vegan for health reasons,

00:59:20

you know, just try and take care of myself

00:59:23

like you guys.

00:59:24

I don't think I'm going to make the Olympics.

00:59:26

In fact, I'll bet when you watch the Olympics this summer

00:59:28

and we're seeing these videos play,

00:59:30

which they always play a little bios,

00:59:32

five minute little bio picture about

00:59:34

what these people were like when they were kids

00:59:35

and their parents are interviewed

00:59:37

and their coaches and all that stuff.

00:59:38

You probably won't watch any of those

00:59:40

where it goes like this:

00:59:42

Yeah, I mean, Johnny just was kind of lazy

00:59:45

and sat in the couch all day

00:59:46

and we have no idea how he made the Olympics.

00:59:49

That's not going to happen.

00:59:51

No one accidentally gets to the Olympics.

00:59:55

No one accidentally wins the race.

00:59:59

The only way you do it

01:00:00

is you enter into strict training.

01:00:03

So what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:

01:00:23

My question, if you would allow me,

01:00:24

if I could just poke you just a little,

01:00:26

my question would be:

01:00:27

is there anything in your life that looks like

01:00:30

strict training when it comes to you and God?

01:00:33

Is there anything in your life

01:00:35

that your neighbors would go, "Like, man,

01:00:37

I don't understand why every single day

01:00:39

Dan does that"?

01:00:41

Is there anything in your life?

01:00:43

If there's not, I just want to warn you,

01:00:46

don't be surprised if you don't finish the race.

01:00:51

The only way to finish is to train.

01:00:54

Maybe in your life you have

01:00:55

a moment of conviction hearing that.

01:00:57

Be the athlete, a moment of conviction about training.

01:00:59

If so, fix that image of the athlete in your mind

01:01:02

and ask God to give you the power

01:01:05

to be like the athlete.

01:01:08

Now all three of them have the same idea,

01:01:12

same big idea, right?

01:01:13

Fix your eyes on the end

01:01:15

and let that vision of the end

01:01:17

drive how you act and behave today.

01:01:22

All of them are the same exact way.

01:01:24

This is Paul's secret.

01:01:25

This is how Paul goes all over the known world

01:01:28

and overcomes obstacles that

01:01:29

would set so many of us back

01:01:31

and overcomes disappointments again

01:01:33

and again and again and again.

01:01:35

Because he said, "God, would you form

01:01:37

the image in my mind? I want to finish well."

01:01:39

Friends, I'm just asking you in your life,

01:01:42

what would it change if today

01:01:44

you adopted the vision of finishing well?

01:01:47

What would change in your life if you said,

01:01:48

"God, I want to be the athlete. Focus my mind.

01:01:52

Focus my attention on the prize.

01:01:53

I want to be the soldier

01:01:54

who just wants to be victorious.

01:01:56

And I know the only way to do that is to wake up

01:01:58

and please You every single day."

01:02:00

What would change in your life

01:02:01

if you were the farmer focused on the harvest,

01:02:03

praying to the Lord of the harvest

01:02:04

to give you the patience to wait,

01:02:07

to keep praying for them,

01:02:10

to keep standing in the gap,

01:02:12

to not move, to not quit?

01:02:15

What? What would change?

01:02:17

I want to be really clear at this point.

01:02:19

This is not a self-help message.

01:02:22

This is not a work up the power to get up every day

01:02:26

and just be super disciplined yourself

01:02:28

and do it all on your own.

01:02:29

You and I cannot do any of these pictures.

01:02:32

We can't. It's impossible for us.

01:02:35

But the good news is that Jesus promised

01:02:38

the same power that raised Christ from the dead

01:02:41

is available to us, and that's what we see.

01:02:44

That's the story of Paul.

01:02:46

He said he's just a guy.

01:02:48

He's a guy who experiences so many setbacks,

01:02:50

and he gets up and he keeps going

01:02:52

because the power of the living God was in him,

01:02:55

and it can be in you too. It can.

01:02:58

I don't know where you are.

01:02:59

Maybe you're in a spot where you hear that

01:03:00

and you're like, "Kyle, it's too late.

01:03:02

I already gave up. I gave up years ago.

01:03:04

What do you mean, man?

01:03:05

This message would have been

01:03:06

really helpful 15 years ago."

01:03:08

Guess what? You're not at the end yet.

01:03:10

You can get back up. You can.

01:03:12

You can stand up.

01:03:14

It doesn't have to be the end for you.

01:03:16

You can keep on going.

01:03:18

God has more for you.

01:03:22

And before we leave, we're almost done.

01:03:23

I know you're getting that itch to stand up

01:03:25

and get to your car and beat the traffic.

01:03:27

Just crush it down for just a second.

01:03:30

I want to do an exercise.

01:03:31

This is no good if it's just

01:03:33

an interesting message and we walk out.

01:03:34

This has to be burned

01:03:35

and go from our mind into our hearts.

01:03:37

I want you to close your eyes right now.

01:03:39

Close your eyes.

01:03:44

Let one of those images pop into your mind:

01:03:47

the soldier, the farmer, the athlete.

01:03:52

Whichever one stuck in there right now,

01:03:55

I want you to have a conversation with God

01:03:57

before you leave.

01:03:59

If there's something you want to repent from,

01:04:02

maybe it's for not waiting, not training.

01:04:05

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

01:04:09

It wasn't my intention. Would You forgive me?"

01:04:13

And His answer is always yes.

01:04:15

He does. Good news He does.

01:04:19

Now, I want you to ask God

01:04:21

to fix the image in your mind,

01:04:25

and to give you the power that only He can

01:04:29

to end well, to see the harvest, to see victory,

01:04:35

to get the crown and win the race.

01:04:38

Let me pray for you.

01:04:39

God, thank You for the power of Paul's words,

01:04:44

the example of his experience.

01:04:47

Thank You for the pictures that he gives.

01:04:49

God, I ask for all of us that you would,

01:04:51

You'd give us the power that goes

01:04:52

beyond our ability to run our race well,

01:04:56

to finish well, God.

01:04:58

We want to be resilient.

01:04:59

We don't want to be the church that's a flash in the pan.

01:05:01

We don't want to be an amazing 28 years

01:05:03

and nothing after, God.

01:05:05

We want more than that.

01:05:06

Would You give us the power to last? Amen.

01:05:12

- Jesus was so clear that life wouldn't be easy

01:05:15

and that we wouldn't be alone,

01:05:17

that His power, that His Spirit,

01:05:18

that His presence would help us

01:05:20

experience greater levels of resiliency

01:05:22

and endurance to finish all the good things

01:05:24

that He puts in front of us

01:05:26

and to help us overcome the challenges

01:05:28

that we inevitably face.

01:05:30

That's what we want for you,

01:05:31

and that's our whole goal as a church,

01:05:33

to help you grow and move forward

01:05:35

on your journey with God.

01:05:36

A couple things to that end.

01:05:38

If you need encouragement

01:05:39

or even a miracle, guess what?

01:05:41

We have our monthly night of prayer

01:05:43

coming up May 2nd, and we believe

01:05:44

that miracles still happen.

01:05:47

Literally every month we see God show up

01:05:49

and bring encouragement, wisdom, freedom,

01:05:51

and even healing miracles

01:05:53

as we meet together on Zoom. So be bold.

01:05:56

How many miracles have we seen in these things?

01:05:57

Hey, you literally can't count them!

01:05:59

Head to Crossroads.net/anywhere

01:06:01

to sign up and to RSVP.

01:06:03

And as we like to say around here,

01:06:05

we are a community, not just content.

01:06:07

We are something you belong to,

01:06:08

not just something that you watch.

01:06:10

And we want you to come join us in Cincinnati,

01:06:12

where our church started,

01:06:13

for an incredible weekend of great food,

01:06:15

new friends from across the globe,

01:06:17

time with Crossroads leaders, and encouragement

01:06:19

to be the church wherever you are.

01:06:22

We believe in this so much that

01:06:23

if you have sign up in the next week,

01:06:25

you'll be entered to win free airfare

01:06:27

to help get you here for it.

01:06:28

Head to Crossroads.net/anywhereweekend

01:06:31

to sign up.

01:06:32

And one final reminder,

01:06:33

don't miss Born Wild next week

01:06:36

as we see what a wild horse

01:06:38

has to teach us about ourselves and God.

01:06:40

Thanks for watching.

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