First, Go. Then Grow | How God Uses Your Movement to Bring Heaven to Earth

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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If you are checking us out for the first time today,

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I want to let you in on a little secret.

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You don't have to have your life together.

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You don't have to know the Bible real well

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or be an expert.

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You don't even have to be sure what you believe.

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You just have to be willing to lean in

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and explore more of what God has for you.

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Hey, my name is Andy. I've got Mico with me here right now.

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- Yeah, so glad to be here. My name is Miko.

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I'm the prison director here at Crossroads Church.

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Glad to be here with us today, man.

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- Awesome. Great to have you.

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Now we are in week two of Origin Stories.

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We're looking at how ordinary people in the Bible

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are remembered for extraordinary faith,

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not because they were superheroes,

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but because they trusted God.

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- Yeah. So whether you're full of faith today

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or carrying some doubts or wondering

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if God can still do something good with your life,

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this one's for you.

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But before we hear from Kyle, let's take a moment

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to do what we do every week

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and connect with God through worship.

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- Yeah, this is our opportunity to not just learn about God,

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but to experience Him right now through these songs.

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So let these songs like maybe articulate thoughts

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or feelings you've had for God,

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but maybe wouldn't have said for yourself.

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Let's sing them together right now.

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- Every single one of those names that we just sang,

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each of those is a promise of God

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that He makes to you and to me.

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One of the greatest promises,

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I don't know if you can say greatest.

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I guess all the promises of God are the greatest, I don't know.

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A great promise, a great promise that Jesus makes,

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it's one of the last words He said to His friends

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before He ascended into heaven.

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It's at the end of the book of Matthew says this:

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And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

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Hear that fresh this morning.

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Jesus, King Jesus saying this, and behold,

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I am with you always, to the end of the age.

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This next song we're going to sing is a brand new one,

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and it's got a lyric in it that says

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there's never been a day, there's never been a minute,

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there's never been a moment that He wasn't in it.

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It's a good rhyme. It's a pretty good rhyme. You know?

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It's also deeply true.

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I have lived through things in my life

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and faced things and walk through things in my life

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that I wish no one else had to walk through.

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And I can stand here today and say the one thing

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I look back on that I can say with grace and truth

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that's all true about those times,

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is that Jesus never let me walk alone.

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Jesus has never been absent.

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He's never been late.

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He made that promise then to say

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He will be with us always,

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and He's keeping it today for you and for me.

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That's just who He is.

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- Man, I love that song.

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Most of my favorite worship songs, it's like

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they articulate something better than I could have.

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Like they deeply say something that I couldn't articulate.

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I want to pray for us right now.

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God, for the ways that we might have felt

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like we were walking alone, for the ways

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we might have felt like You were late,

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for the ways that we wondered if You were going to show up,

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but you did. God, pray that You'd give us perspective.

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You'd give us patience. You'd give endurance.

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That You'd give us joy to trust that You're for us,

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no matter what we're going through. Amen.

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- Amen.

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- Now, we don't sing songs just to sing them.

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We don't even just come to church just to come to church.

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We're not checking a box.

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We're trying to grow and become more of

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who God called us to be, more of who --

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More loving, more patient, more peaceful,

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and even more generous.

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- Yeah, man. Every week around here, unapologetically,

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we talk about generosity because that's what the Bible teaches.

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But today we're going to do it a little differently.

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We're going to hear a story

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from a guy in our community named Hayden.

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- But there's a watch out here with his story.

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Before you watch, I just want to, I want to --

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I want to frame this up for you.

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You're going to hear parts of Hayden's story

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and you might think, wait, wait, this is one of those,

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like, if I give money,

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then God's going to give me whatever I want.

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No, there's no formula. There's no equation.

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- Yeah. That's not what we believe.

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That's not what the Bible teaches.

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God isn't a genie, and generosity isn't

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some sort of secret formula

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to you getting what you want from God, either.

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- Yeah. What we do believe is that when we trust God

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and follow His ways, whether our finances, our time,

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our relationships, or whatever,

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He's inviting us into finding Him working in our ways,

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working in our life in ways we couldn't have expected.

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- Yeah, man, and sometimes that changes our circumstances.

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Sometimes it changes us.

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But a lot of times it does both.

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- Yeah. I want to show you Hayden's story right now.

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- Every one of these seats has a story

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about what God has done,

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and there are more than we can tell.

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This is Hayden's story.

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- I was in high school.

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I was really trying to really explore my faith at that point.

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I was trying to read the Bible.

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I would get to, like, parts where I was so confused

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about, you know, things happening,

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all the scientific questions of, you know,

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was there a global flood? Was there, this was there that?

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Just a bunch of questions going into my mind

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and so I started watching YouTube videos about,

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I guess it's called new atheism, like, the new term now.

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I had no clue what it was called back then,

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but of like Richard Dawkins and all these people

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talking about, you know, the arguments against.

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And I just fell into it.

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I was like, okay, this makes sense to me.

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Um, I would say I was like a staunch atheist.

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I guess the points where faith really entered my life,

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the first point was me and my wife Kayla.

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She's been faithful her whole entire life.

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She always kept on telling me, like,

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if there's a heaven out there, like,

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when we get to heaven, you're going to be there.

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And like a year went by, probably the first time

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I ever heard God's voice, um,

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really nudged me to do something.

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And He literally said to me go to Crossroads this weekend.

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And I was, I -- I told my wife

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and I like kind of blindsided her.

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I'm like, "Hey, I think we need to go to Crossroads."

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Kyle comes on and he starts talking about

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all these science questions.

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I know he's talking about like carbon dating and this,

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and this is all the questions that I struggled with.

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Like, it was just amazing.

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I always wanted to be a dad.

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Our IVF journey started literally seven years ago.

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We had five in a row that just didn't work.

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Um, the four of those five times,

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I didn't believe anything at all.

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The fifth time, um, Kayla was really scared

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because the fourth transfer we had, um,

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we actually got all the way up to like, um, like 18 weeks.

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Um, and we told everybody like the gender

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and the very next day my wife had a miscarriage.

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And, uh, watching her go through that

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and kind of be helpless was so tough.

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But she had this like peace about her knowing that.

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Like, this is the way it's supposed to happen,

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that I just couldn't, I couldn't look past.

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When we started coming, um, when we start to prepare

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for this fifth transfer that we're having,

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um, we actually got prayed over.

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Now that I went through the New Testament,

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I was reading through giving God your first born

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and your first fruits, and I'm like,

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I think that's something we need to do.

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We need to start giving.

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I just felt like that was the right thing.

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We started giving, and at first my wife was super skeptical.

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Um, she was, and it's so, so funny, like looking back

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and being like, wow, I was a skeptic

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for ten years through our relationship.

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And now I'm, um, trying to get her closer to it

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and she's skeptical about it.

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The crazy thing about it is that I got baptized,

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like two weeks right after that, we started tithing,

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and then the day after is when we had the transfer

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and a couple weeks later, like Sammy was there.

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Um, uh.

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Just seeing her in like --

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Like the feeling of getting off of work

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and then picking up her and just seeing her

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and being like, wow, like this is what I was made to do.

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Um, it's just amazing.

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And I don't think that everybody that gives

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is going to have like success

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and just everything is going to work out for them.

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It really just, it just shows that you're putting

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that first step forward.

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Um, and you never know what God's going to do for you

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or for others around you when you make that first step.

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Not expecting a reward from it, right?

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Like, just saying, I know that this is going to be

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the way and I'm gonna do it.

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The same thing with, like, just helping out

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and Crossroads and volunteering, like,

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seeing my eighth graders, connecting with them.

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And then being this father for my child is just amazing.

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Like it's -- it is truly, I feel like,

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the reason why I'm here,

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the reason I was put on this earth.

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- That is such a good reminder, man.

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I just love how God often meets us in places

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we never would have chosen to go.

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Hayden and his wife chose to trust God

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in the middle of an incredibly difficult season,

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and they experienced Him showing up in a way

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that they never would have expected, man.

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- That's right. God's always with us,

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and we want you to figure out how you can experience

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more of the peace, the trust and purpose

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that God intends for you.

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And I just want to call this out.

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I want to acknowledge, like, if infertility

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has been a part of your story,

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I know personally how difficult and painful that can be.

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We'd love to pray with you, pray for you, encourage you.

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We've got amazing, amazing volunteers

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who have been through some stuff,

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they would love to chat with you, pray with you,

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connect with you any way we can to encourage you

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and help you experience more of

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the good things God has for you.

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- Yeah. Real place for real people, man.

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Stories like Hayden's remind me that

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growth rarely happens by accident.

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It usually takes intentional steps to trust God

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in places where He can work on us,

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which is one of the reasons

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we do something around here called camps, man.

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- Yeah, yeah. Hey, if you didn't know, Crossroads has camps.

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We started this years ago

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with just, like, a handful of friends,

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and it's grown into multiple camps that help

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tens of thousands of people throughout the year

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get out of their normal routines and get off the grid

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to connect with God and with other people.

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I heard a quick story from a woman named Tiffany

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who was at Family Camp last year.

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She said one of the best parts wasn't just getting away,

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it was getting to experience it with their whole family.

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Her kids even started calling it the Cousin Campout.

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- Cousin Camp. - Yeah.

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Like they grew closer and they got away from distractions

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and they encountered God,

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even saw their brother-in-law get baptized.

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- Yeah, that is amazing.

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It's not just like this weekend getaway, y'all.

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It's memories. It's friendships.

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It's moments that we can all stick with you

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for the rest of your life, or moments that

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will stick with you for the rest of your life.

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It's whether you're looking for adventure

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or you're looking for community, or a challenge

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or just a chance to recharge, there's a camp for you.

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- Yeah. Register by July 27th to lock in

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the best pricing for our 2026 fall camps.

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You can get all the info@camps.us.

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- And one more thing before we go, summer movie night.

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It's on the way. Friday, August 7th.

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- Yeah, for copyright reasons,

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the lawyers won't let me tell you the name of the movie,

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so I'm gonna give you a hint.

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It's a classic '90s comedy about a group of kids

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who accidentally turn, like, losing a baseball

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into a full scale crisis is hilarious.

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- Yeah, honestly, it's I would say it's proof

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that before smartphones existed,

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kids actually had unlimited free time

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and a boatload of confidence, man.

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So we would love for you to join us.

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We would love for you to join us there, man.

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So connect with us at and Crossroads on the app

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or at Crossroads.net.

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- Yeah. Hey, want to just call something out.

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You're watching this on a screen right now,

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but you might be across the street

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or you might be in another time zone,

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you might be on the other side of the globe.

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Crossroads is a community for anyone, anywhere,

00:26:35

who wants to experience more of the fullness

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that God has for their lives.

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So we got people that meet in buildings like this.

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We've also got people that meet in homes and dorms

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and bars and coffee shops and even in prisons.

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- Absolutely, man. Like you said, dorms, man,

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we have people connecting every week,

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week in and week out in dorms and prisons

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all across America, man.

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Through the Pando app they're watching all of the content,

00:26:55

seeing all of the services that we're seeing online,

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they're seeing them on their tablets in prisons, man.

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It's amazing. - Love it, love it.

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So today we're continuing our series called Origin Stories

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with the story of Joseph.

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He's another ordinary person

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that God used to make an extraordinary impact.

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- Yeah. But before we hear from our Lead Pastor, Kyle,

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let's take a look at where Joseph's story

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fits into the bigger story of the Bible.

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- Yeah. And hopefully today you're not just going to see

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the story of God and Joseph's story,

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but you're going to see yourself in the story.

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- An origin story is the part nobody talks about,

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the part before confidence and success,

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before anyone knows your name.

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It's false starts, wrong turns, and total failure.

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It's the beginning.

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Every person you admire has one.

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The Bible may just be the greatest origin story ever told.

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It's a book about how God meets people at the beginning.

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In the beginning, God creates.

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In the beginning, humanity is formed from dust.

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In the beginning there is possibility,

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purpose, and relationship.

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Then things fall apart.

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But God rebuilds

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and enlists humanity in the work of restoration.

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The Bible is full of people who eventually become known

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for things like faith and courage, wisdom and sacrifice.

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We call them heroes of the faith,

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but none of them started there.

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The story God tells is about Him meeting ordinary people

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in ordinary places

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and inviting them into something extraordinary.

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Today's origin story is about

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Joseph, a betrayed brother who became a visionary provider.

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- Well, hey everybody, welcome to Crossroads.

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My name is Kyle.

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I'm fresh back from a trip to Go Puerto Rico,

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one of our go trips where we send ordinary people

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to go make an impact.

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It was awesome, a family trip.

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I went with my daughter.

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Looks like I didn't even change my shirt.

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But you all changed a lot while I was gone.

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A lot of things changed.

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My whole life I was told, if you want to be healthy,

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you need to eat lettuce.

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And I get back and everyone's like, don't eat the lettuce.

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Like any -- like eat chocolate cake, fried food.

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Anything's better than lettuce right now.

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I'm like, praise God. I don't know how that happened,

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but I've been praying for this moment

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when those were all better choices.

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What a world we live in.

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This trip we went on, Go Puerto Rico, we send people

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all over the world at Crossroads,

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people who want to go

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and make an impact.

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And like I mentioned, this was a family trip.

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Got to go with my daughter.

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And on this trip, our volunteer trip leader, Mike Hillenmeyer,

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amazing guy, every morning and night,

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he started saying this thing to us as a group.

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He would say, "Hey, today, why don't you do it for the plot?

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Do it for the plot." What he meant was,

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you're going to have a choice today to do something

00:29:57

that's outside your comfort zone, something that pushes you,

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something that might be embarrassing or hard or scary

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or something like that.

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And he said, do it for the plot.

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In other words, do the thing

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that's going to lead to the better story.

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Good stories aren't: remember that time

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when we did the same thing we always do?

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Remember that time we did the thing

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that we felt totally comfortable with?

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That's not a good story.

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I think all of us want to live a life

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that lives the best story possible,

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a life of extraordinary impact.

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In this series that's what we're looking at,

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these origin stories, these people, ordinary people

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who lived an extraordinary life of extraordinary impact.

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Now, how do you do that?

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I'd say there's actually two recipes out there.

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Recipe one is the popular recipe, the pop culture recipe,

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the one that we digest in comic books and in movies.

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And its basic formula goes like this.

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It says that extraordinary impact happens

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when an ordinary person discovers

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that they actually have extraordinary power.

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So in the comic books,

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it's when Spider-Man gets bit by the spider,

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he discovers his fingers stick to walls. Oh my gosh.

00:31:07

And he can shoot webs out of his hands.

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And in the movies, it's the moment where Harry Potter

00:31:11

discovers he's actually a wizard.

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Hagrid shows up and says, "You're a wizard, Harry."

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And he's like, wow.

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It's when Luke Skywalker discovers he's a Jedi

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and can move rocks around.

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And when Rey does the same exact thing, same story.

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Sorry, I don't know why we needed a second one,

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but it's that moment, right?

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Ordinary person discovers extraordinary powers.

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But the second proposal for how an ordinary person

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makes an extraordinary impact is actually very different.

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It's from the Bible.

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And the Bible lists all these people that we're looking at

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in this series, and in a chapter, Hebrews chapter 11,

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it's known as the Hall of Faith.

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It's almost like the Hall of Fame of these people

00:31:45

who made these extraordinary impacts.

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And if you go through this list, it's a varied group of people.

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I mean, there's rich people and there's poor people,

00:31:52

and there's young people and there's old people

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and there's men and there's women,

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all kinds of different people,

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but they all share one thing in common.

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And it's actually not that they discovered

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that they have extraordinary power.

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It's not that they discover they have extraordinary smarts

00:32:08

or extraordinary charisma or anything else like that.

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In fact, this is a list of people

00:32:13

who would never make the cover of Forbes Magazine.

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They don't have the the list of traits that add up to a leader.

00:32:19

If you go through the list, you'll see a shepherd,

00:32:21

a boat builder, a wandering nomad,

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a stay at home mom, and a prostitute.

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That's not the list of people who you go like,

00:32:28

this is kind of they got the thing. They got what it takes.

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No, but they all share in common, though, is that

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they are all ordinary people who chose extraordinary faith.

00:32:43

See, this is the first lesson,

00:32:44

that origin of extraordinary impact

00:32:46

is ordinary people choosing extraordinary faith.

00:32:50

I think this is part of why the Bible has transcended

00:32:52

cultures and time periods and technological revolutions

00:32:55

and actual revolutions, and why 2000 years

00:32:58

after Jesus walked the earth, it's still today

00:33:02

the most important, impactful book that we have.

00:33:04

It's because it's not a book full of perfect people

00:33:07

who discover they have power.

00:33:08

It's a book full of ordinary people, underdogs,

00:33:11

anti-heroes who make an important choice,

00:33:15

who choose extraordinary faith.

00:33:19

This series that we're in Origin Stories, it's really a series

00:33:23

about how to supercharge the growth of your faith.

00:33:26

And I don't know if growing your faith

00:33:28

is an idea that excites you.

00:33:30

Like, I understand we're in church

00:33:32

and if I walked up to you,

00:33:33

I was like, "Do you want to grow your faith?"

00:33:35

You'd be like, "You're a pastor. So yes, of course I do."

00:33:38

But at Crossroads we're not really interested in,

00:33:40

like, what's the right answer.

00:33:41

And so I just say, it's okay if the idea doesn't excite you.

00:33:44

In fact, if it doesn't, that makes you normal

00:33:47

with a normal understanding of what faith is.

00:33:50

I think faith is

00:33:51

one of the most misunderstood concepts out there.

00:33:53

We tend to think of faith

00:33:55

as like a belief that I hold in my head.

00:33:57

You know? If I could check the right ten boxes on the quiz,

00:34:01

have the right beliefs, then that's the right faith.

00:34:04

When we think of faithful people,

00:34:05

we probably think of people

00:34:07

who were, like, stay inside the line kind of people.

00:34:09

But that's that's not really how the Bible describes faith.

00:34:13

Well, what is faith?

00:34:14

Last week, Chuck Mingo kicked off this series

00:34:17

and he did an awesome job. Talked about Gideon.

00:34:19

If you missed it, go back and watch it in the Crossroads app

00:34:22

or on our website or on YouTube.

00:34:24

And he referenced this verse where, Hebrews 11,

00:34:26

this Hall of Faith chapter starts

00:34:28

by giving a definition of faith.

00:34:31

It says this, Hebrews 11:1:

00:34:33

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,

00:34:37

the conviction of things not seen.

00:34:41

That word assurance means confidence.

00:34:44

And the word conviction most accurately means evidence.

00:34:48

And so what the Bible is saying is that faith is actually

00:34:51

confidence based on the evidence.

00:34:55

I think people who are anti faith, they tend to think that

00:34:58

faith is like this, you know, shut your eyes,

00:35:00

turn off your brain and, and just, just dream of stuff.

00:35:03

It's like this fairy tale living kind of thing.

00:35:06

No, not at all.

00:35:08

We heard this in Hayden's story that we just heard.

00:35:10

He had followed this sort of scientific path

00:35:12

that made this claim against faith, and it's just not true.

00:35:16

I'll say my faith is based on the evidence.

00:35:17

The confidence that I have in God is based on

00:35:20

what I have seen Him do in my life, in creation,

00:35:24

as I studied science, all of those things.

00:35:26

Because it gives you a confidence

00:35:29

to go out and to move and to act.

00:35:32

Now, how would you know

00:35:34

if somebody actually has confidence in something?

00:35:40

My wife, Sarah, and I, we've been renovating our house

00:35:42

for going on eight years now. Thank you very much.

00:35:45

Uh, almost done, so -- Not really. Still a lot to do there.

00:35:50

Um, in the process of renovating our house,

00:35:53

we've taken out three load bearing walls.

00:35:56

And when I say we, I mean, I mean we, okay, I mean we

00:35:59

because the first one I had a contractor come out.

00:36:01

And I was like, how much take out the wall?

00:36:03

He was like, uh, $15,000. I was like, wow.

00:36:07

And then I watched a five minute YouTube video,

00:36:09

went on the Menard's website, figured I could buy the wood

00:36:11

for 80 bucks, did it myself. Okay.

00:36:13

And it's fine. Relax.

00:36:14

We hired a structural engineer.

00:36:16

I built it right. It's fine.

00:36:17

Building, by the way, building, taking out a load bearing wall

00:36:20

and putting in supports. It's not complicated.

00:36:23

I can teach you to do it in five minutes.

00:36:25

Not hard. Process is very simple.

00:36:27

You remove your drywall, picture at the top,

00:36:30

before you cut out your studs, you build picture in the middle,

00:36:33

a temporary supporting wall because you need something

00:36:36

to bear the weight

00:36:38

while you're putting in your load bearing beam.

00:36:41

That's the bottom picture.

00:36:42

All of this is very easy, but there's one step in the process

00:36:46

that proves whether you have confidence in your work or not,

00:36:50

and it's the very last thing you do.

00:36:53

The very last thing you do is

00:36:54

you take out your temporary supporting wall,

00:36:58

and that's when you discover if your house falls down or not.

00:37:02

And so you can say,

00:37:04

I have confidence that I did this right.

00:37:06

But what you say doesn't mean Jack,

00:37:08

until you cut out those studs.

00:37:12

This is the same with faith.

00:37:14

You can say that you have confidence in God as a provider.

00:37:18

Doesn't mean Jack, until you actually follow

00:37:20

what He says to do with your finances,

00:37:23

until you cut out the supports in your life,

00:37:25

you cut out you controlling everything.

00:37:28

You can say that you have faith in the concept of grace,

00:37:32

doesn't mean Jack, until you go to the person

00:37:34

that you feel deserves none and you give it to them anyway.

00:37:38

You can say that you have faith that what you're meant to do

00:37:41

with your life is to serve people.

00:37:43

Clearly, Jesus says this, but it doesn't mean Jack,

00:37:46

until you binge your life to actually do it.

00:37:51

See, faith is not what you believe in your head.

00:37:54

It's not about your head.

00:37:55

It's about your hands and about your feet.

00:37:57

It's about what you do and where you go.

00:38:01

It says this in James 2:18:

00:38:04

Show me your faith without deeds,

00:38:07

and I will show you my faith by my deeds.

00:38:10

It's about what you do and where you go.

00:38:12

If you go through the list of faithful people

00:38:15

in Hebrews chapter 11, it doesn't describe

00:38:18

the things they thought about in their head,

00:38:20

it doesn't describe that.

00:38:23

It describes in these really profound, spicy,

00:38:28

action oriented words what they actually ido.

00:38:32

And it ends this way, Hebrews 11:32:

00:38:36

What more shall I say?

00:38:37

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak,

00:38:40

Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets,

00:38:44

who through faith conquered kingdoms,

00:38:47

enforced justice, obtained promises,

00:38:51

stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire,

00:38:55

escaped the edge of the sword,

00:38:57

were made strong out of weakness,

00:38:59

became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

00:39:03

Faith is action. Faith is taking ground.

00:39:06

Faith is taking risks. Faith is getting uncomfortable.

00:39:09

It's what you do.

00:39:11

My hope and my prayer for you today

00:39:14

is that you are bothered to action.

00:39:16

I've actually been praying this for you.

00:39:18

And I just want to say, if you're in the spot in particular

00:39:21

where you're like, man, my faith kind of feels flatlined.

00:39:24

It kind of feels like me and God,

00:39:26

we're just kind of going through the motions.

00:39:28

I've been coming here for a while.

00:39:29

I've been around faith my whole life

00:39:31

and never kind of clicked in.

00:39:32

It's kind of like a thing. I need, I need a spark.

00:39:35

Or maybe you're in a spot where you're like,

00:39:36

my faith is strong, but I want more. Awesome.

00:39:39

Either way, I want you to agree with

00:39:40

what I'm about to pray for you right now.

00:39:44

God, I'm asking that You would bother me to action.

00:39:49

I'm asking that You would bother us

00:39:52

to not just believe something in our minds,

00:39:55

but to do something with our hands and with our feet,

00:39:58

to go out and to serve in Your name, to partner with You

00:40:03

in bringing Your Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

00:40:10

Well, today, like you heard in that video earlier,

00:40:12

we're talking about Joseph.

00:40:14

Joseph is a character very near and dear to my heart

00:40:17

because my middle name is literally Joseph,

00:40:21

Kyle Joseph Ranson.

00:40:23

And Joseph is the family name handed down through generation

00:40:26

after generation of Ranson man.

00:40:27

So my dad's name was Joseph.

00:40:29

His dad's middle name was Joseph.

00:40:30

His dad's name was Joseph. On and on and on and on.

00:40:33

Back and back and back and back.

00:40:34

And so when my oldest son was born,

00:40:37

I had an important choice to make:

00:40:39

Which name do I hand to him? Kyle or Joseph?

00:40:46

Didn't want to do both, one or the other.

00:40:47

And I thought about it

00:40:49

and I came to the conclusion it cannot be Kyle.

00:40:52

Why? Because the world should only have so many Kyle's.

00:40:59

We're not really known for being productive members of society.

00:41:02

We're not really doctors or lawyers. You know?

00:41:04

We don't really run nations or anything.

00:41:07

We're just here for a good time, really.

00:41:09

And so you want a few of us, but you don't want a lot of us.

00:41:13

You know?

00:41:14

We're like the millennial Chad, that's what we are.

00:41:17

And so I decided to hand down Joseph to my oldest son.

00:41:21

And Joseph is like the opposite of Kyle.

00:41:23

You know, when you think of Joseph, you think of a leader.

00:41:25

You think of somebody who's strong and someone who's stable,

00:41:28

someone who makes good decisions,

00:41:29

someone who you can depend on.

00:41:30

And the reason traces all the way back

00:41:33

to the first Joseph that we know about.

00:41:35

It's actually one of the oldest ancient names in the world.

00:41:39

Joseph traces back to

00:41:40

the fourth generation of the family of faith.

00:41:42

You got Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, aka Israel, and then Joseph.

00:41:49

Quick flyover of his life, kind of what he did,

00:41:52

what that was remarkable about him.

00:41:54

So he's the he's the youngest of 12 brothers.

00:41:57

He's born to Jacob, and he's kind of his dad's favorite,

00:42:00

in no small part because

00:42:02

he trash talks his brothers to his dad.

00:42:06

Here's how his story starts in Genesis 37.

00:42:09

Joseph, being 17 years old,

00:42:11

was pastoring the flock with his brothers.

00:42:14

He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah,

00:42:17

his father's wives.

00:42:19

And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.

00:42:22

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons,

00:42:25

because he was the son of his old age.

00:42:27

And he made him a robe of many colors.

00:42:29

But when his brothers saw that their father loved him

00:42:32

more than all his brothers, they hated him

00:42:35

and could not speak peacefully to him.

00:42:38

Now, after this, Joseph has a dream,

00:42:40

a couple dreams, actually,

00:42:42

in which all of his brothers and his mom and dad bow down to him.

00:42:46

And Joseph decides the way to repair the relationship

00:42:50

with his brothers is to tell them about the dreams.

00:42:54

It goes poorly. So poorly that they actually throw in a pit,

00:42:58

sell him into slavery.

00:43:00

Now, here, at the lowest moment of his life,

00:43:02

the 17 year old sold into slavery,

00:43:04

is actually where it looks like the pop culture version

00:43:07

of how to have an impactful life starts to begin,

00:43:10

where he discovers that he has extraordinary powers.

00:43:13

Because he goes and works for a guy named Potiphar,

00:43:16

and Potiphar puts him in charge of a little thing,

00:43:18

and that thing goes amazingly well.

00:43:20

And he puts him in charge of a little bit more.

00:43:22

And that goes amazingly well.

00:43:23

And eventually Joseph is running Potiphar's household.

00:43:26

And Joseph has, like, the Warren Buffett economical touch,

00:43:29

like everything he does turns to gold.

00:43:31

Every decision he makes gets exponential returns.

00:43:34

And so Potiphar is flourishing.

00:43:36

All of his work is flourishing.

00:43:37

His household's flourishing. It's going amazing.

00:43:40

Joseph discovers this incredible power.

00:43:42

And then everything goes south.

00:43:43

Potiphar's wife wants to have sex with him.

00:43:45

He runs away. There's this whole thing that happens.

00:43:47

He gets thrown into prison.

00:43:49

But again, in prison,

00:43:50

he discovers another extraordinary power,

00:43:53

he can interpret dreams.

00:43:55

Pharaoh's cupbearer and Pharaoh's baker are in prison.

00:43:58

They have these dreams. No one can interpret them.

00:44:00

Joseph does, exactly what he says is going to happen happens.

00:44:04

A couple years pass, and Pharaoh himself,

00:44:07

king of all Egypt, has a dream.

00:44:10

He dreams of these seven fat cows

00:44:12

that eat these seven skinny cows.

00:44:14

He dreams of seven stalks of wheat

00:44:16

and these seven stalks of wheat that bend and they break.

00:44:19

And no one can interpret.

00:44:20

No one can tell him what these dreams mean.

00:44:22

And they remember there's this guy, Joseph, in the prison,

00:44:25

and they pull him out of prison.

00:44:26

He interprets the dreams correctly.

00:44:29

And Pharaoh says he's so impressed he puts him

00:44:31

in charge of everything in the kingdom of Egypt.

00:44:33

And again, the Warren Buffett touch plays out.

00:44:36

And so Joseph is doing tax reform.

00:44:39

Joseph's doing economic reform and the nation prospers.

00:44:41

They not only survive the famine,

00:44:43

they grow wealthier through the famine.

00:44:46

And Joseph saves all of Egypt,

00:44:48

the most powerful nation on the earth at the time,

00:44:50

and his entire family.

00:44:52

And oh, by the way, Joseph is in prison and a slave for 13 years,

00:44:57

from 17 to 30.

00:44:58

And that entire time he stays faithful to God.

00:45:01

Incredible, incredible things about this guy.

00:45:04

Here's the wild part.

00:45:06

None of those are mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11

00:45:12

as the reason that Joseph is in the Hall of Faith.

00:45:16

None of them are called out

00:45:17

as things that you and I are meant to emulate.

00:45:20

Well, what is? Hebrews 11:22:

00:45:24

By faith Joseph, at the end of his life,

00:45:29

made mention of the exodus of the Israelites

00:45:33

and gave directions concerning his bones.

00:45:38

That's the thing.

00:45:41

That's the remarkable part about his life,

00:45:44

direction, what to do when I die instructions.

00:45:48

Okay, so what did he -- What did he say?

00:45:51

Well, that answer is in Genesis chapter 50.

00:45:53

Joseph said to his brothers, "I'm about to die,

00:45:57

but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land

00:46:01

to the land that He swore that He promised to Abraham,

00:46:05

to Isaac, and to Jacob. The promised land.

00:46:09

Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying,

00:46:11

"God will surely visit you,

00:46:14

and you shall carry up my bones from here."

00:46:18

See the remarkable part about Joseph,

00:46:21

the thing that led him to have a life of extraordinary impact,

00:46:25

it was not the dream interpretation.

00:46:28

It was not the economic touch.

00:46:30

The thing that's extraordinary about his faith

00:46:33

is this right here.

00:46:34

That Joseph was was led,

00:46:36

compelled by a vision beyond his life,

00:46:40

a vision of the promised land,

00:46:42

a promise that was sworn to his family

00:46:44

for generations before him

00:46:47

and in which they had seen no progress happen.

00:46:49

Nothing had happened.

00:46:51

In fact, it had gone poorly

00:46:52

and seemed to be going the opposite direction.

00:46:54

They were further away from the Promised Land

00:46:57

than they ever had been at this moment.

00:47:00

And Joseph says, "I'm convinced, based on the evidence

00:47:04

of what I've seen God do in my life, that God will be faithful

00:47:09

to get us to the Promised Land.

00:47:11

In fact, I'm so convinced of this,

00:47:12

I want you to take my bones there when we go."

00:47:15

Now, I don't think Joseph knew this,

00:47:17

but it would take 359 more years

00:47:22

before his descendants left Egypt

00:47:24

on their way to the Promised Land.

00:47:25

And it would take 40 more years past that

00:47:28

for them to actually arrive.

00:47:31

Crazy, that kind of faith.

00:47:33

See the massive faith lesson in the life of Joseph

00:47:36

that's applicable to ordinary people like you and me,

00:47:39

is that our faith grows when our present work

00:47:42

is driven by a future vision.

00:47:46

That future vision is this Promised Land

00:47:49

that God says is coming,

00:47:50

that He's bringing to the defining trait

00:47:54

of Joseph's extraordinary life.

00:47:57

That somehow he was able to work,

00:47:58

not for a little bit of time,

00:48:00

by the way, he was 30 when he was put in charge of Egypt.

00:48:03

The Bible says he died when he was 110 years old.

00:48:06

So for 80 years he worked in Egypt

00:48:12

with his eyes fixed on

00:48:13

this future vision of the Promised Land.

00:48:16

Everything he did was about pushing towards that reality.

00:48:21

And Hebrews 11 actually says this is the common thing

00:48:25

that runs through all heroes of the faith.

00:48:27

All of them have this vision beyond their life,

00:48:30

working for something that

00:48:32

they might never see with their own eyes.

00:48:35

Hebrews 11:13 says: They all, all of them died in faith,

00:48:41

not having received the things promised,

00:48:44

but having seen them and greeted them from afar.

00:48:47

Like they're looking over the horizon, past their life,

00:48:50

and they see this coming Promised Land,

00:48:52

and they are determined to keep walking and working towards it.

00:48:57

Having acknowledged that they were strangers

00:48:59

and exiles on the earth.

00:49:00

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God,

00:49:03

for he has prepared for them a city. He's prepared a city.

00:49:08

Now that city is the coming Kingdom of God.

00:49:11

In the Bible, there's two Promised Land moments.

00:49:13

There's the Old Testament Promised Land moment

00:49:16

where the people of God, the nation of Israel,

00:49:18

literally walk into a Promised Land on the earth.

00:49:22

And then there's a second Promised Land moment,

00:49:24

the coming of the Kingdom of God,

00:49:26

the someday thing that has yet to happen.

00:49:29

It's the city that God is preparing.

00:49:32

Now, there's a popular notion that I hear,

00:49:34

and I even hear many Christians utter this notion,

00:49:37

the idea that, you know,

00:49:38

the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

00:49:41

Things are bad and they're getting worse.

00:49:43

And for some reason, the older you get,

00:49:45

the more you seem to say this.

00:49:46

Everything's bad, and the next generation, they're bad.

00:49:49

You know, they're awful.

00:49:51

I remember as a millennial, people would look at us

00:49:53

like you're the worst. I can't believe you guys.

00:49:55

And I'm like, I'll never have that attitude.

00:49:57

Then Gen Z came along and I was like,

00:49:58

those guys kind of suck, you know?

00:50:02

And so for some reason, we just have this idea that like

00:50:04

the next generation is somehow worse,

00:50:06

that things are getting worse.

00:50:08

Well, friends, if you believe in Jesus,

00:50:10

that's the most anti-Jesus belief you can hold.

00:50:13

They're not getting worse.

00:50:14

Jesus says He's bringing His Kingdom here to earth.

00:50:17

The Lord's Prayer, pray that Father, let Your will be done,

00:50:20

that Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

00:50:25

And the reason for that is

00:50:27

because this is the arc of the story

00:50:28

of what God is creating.

00:50:30

There is a city coming for us and it's actually coming to us.

00:50:36

Revelation 21:2-3 describes the arrival of the city.

00:50:42

The author of it, John, says this:

00:50:43

I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem,

00:50:46

coming down out of heaven from God,

00:50:49

prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

00:50:53

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

00:50:55

"Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people,

00:50:59

He will dwell with them.

00:51:03

They will be His people,

00:51:04

and God Himself will be with them and be their God.

00:51:09

See, the first time the people of God enter the Promised Land,

00:51:13

they left here and went there.

00:51:18

The second time the people of God

00:51:19

will enter the Promised land,

00:51:21

it leaves there and comes here.

00:51:25

It's wild. You got to wrap your mind around it

00:51:28

because it changes everything.

00:51:30

You know, when you when you rent a Vrbo,

00:51:32

they make you sign an agreement not to trash the house. Right?

00:51:36

Security deposit. Why do they do that?

00:51:39

Because without it,

00:51:40

you and I would treat it like it's not ours

00:51:42

because it's not ours. Right?

00:51:45

And they know this because

00:51:46

when you when you believe you're going to,

00:51:47

you're only in a place for a temporary short amount of time

00:51:50

and you're not the owner of it, you're not the steward of it,

00:51:53

you tend to treat it poorly.

00:51:55

But when you believe it's your house,

00:51:58

when you believe it's your job to prepare to inherit the earth,

00:52:04

what the Bible says we will do, by the way,

00:52:06

you treat things very, very differently.

00:52:08

Friends, this earth is our house.

00:52:11

This earth is where God's going to come

00:52:13

and crash His Kingdom in one day.

00:52:15

And what we get to do is to have a faith like Joseph that says,

00:52:18

I believe based on the evidence that I've seen,

00:52:20

that this is the trajectory of what God's doing,

00:52:23

and therefore I will work and I will spend my life

00:52:25

working to see this Kingdom come, even if, by the way,

00:52:28

I don't see it in the here and now and in this life,

00:52:31

even if, like all the heroes of the faith,

00:52:33

I just greet it from afar at the very end of my life.

00:52:37

One of the greatest living theologians, N.T. Wright,

00:52:40

he described this reality this way. He said:

00:52:43

Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project

00:52:48

not to snatch people away from the earth to heaven,

00:52:51

but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.

00:52:54

What we do in the present by painting, preaching,

00:52:58

singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals,

00:53:03

digging wells, campaigning for justice,

00:53:05

writing poems, caring for the needy,

00:53:08

loving your neighbor as yourself will last into God's future.

00:53:13

These activities are not simply ways of making the present life

00:53:16

a little less beastly, a little more bearable,

00:53:18

until the day we leave it all behind altogether

00:53:21

(as the hymn so mistakenly puts it)

00:53:25

They are part of what we may call building for God's Kingdom.

00:53:31

See, the job of every faith filled person

00:53:33

is to build for the coming of God's Kingdom,

00:53:37

even if it happens long after we die.

00:53:41

This is then the Crossroads vision for years.

00:53:43

That's why we go do things like serve people,

00:53:46

fought in faraway places, that's why we tackle problems

00:53:48

that many people are unwilling to tackle

00:53:50

because they seem so big and seem impossible.

00:53:52

In fact, many of the organizations

00:53:54

that we partner with have this vision.

00:53:56

When we encounter somebody with a vision

00:53:58

that's so big it seems impossible,

00:54:00

it's so big it might take longer than a lifetime.

00:54:03

That's when we're like, hey, we should talk.

00:54:05

That's when we say, hey, maybe we should work together.

00:54:08

The work we've been doing as an example,

00:54:09

on the other side of the world in India and Nepal

00:54:12

for going on two decades to end the sex slave industry

00:54:16

over there, to end the rape for profit industry.

00:54:18

That's what we're aiming for.

00:54:19

Not to make a dent, not to help a little bit.

00:54:23

We're trying to see it ended.

00:54:26

And what we've said as a church is we will keep working

00:54:28

towards it until that happens. [applause]

00:54:30

Now, let's be honest, will you and I see the end of that?

00:54:40

I mean, maybe, you know, God can do whatever He wants to.

00:54:45

Certainly God says in His word over and over again,

00:54:48

I'm able to do immeasurably more than you can ask,

00:54:50

think, or imagine. I believe that.

00:54:52

I'm praying for that. That'd be awesome.

00:54:54

And yeah, we might not see it.

00:54:58

Does that mean it's not worth working towards?

00:55:01

No, no, not at all. Not at all.

00:55:04

You can either go with the tide of God,

00:55:08

the Kingdom of heaven coming here,

00:55:09

or you can work against it.

00:55:10

Personally, me, I'd rather work with it.

00:55:12

This is all of our partners,

00:55:13

but not just not just India and Nepal.

00:55:15

This is this is the CityLink Center

00:55:16

that we started in Cincinnati

00:55:18

that I hope goes to more cities. We're working on that.

00:55:21

It's this idea of what would it look like

00:55:24

to see every family in generational poverty

00:55:28

raised out of it?

00:55:30

We've been working on this for going on two decades.

00:55:32

Has that happened yet? No.

00:55:34

Have we made progress? Yes.

00:55:35

Is it likely to finish by the time you and I die?

00:55:37

Probably not.

00:55:38

Doesn't mean it's not worth working for.

00:55:41

Go Puerto Rico,

00:55:42

we partnered with an organization called Hunger,

00:55:44

an amazing organization. They've been working hard.

00:55:47

They've got incredible leadership,

00:55:48

and they've tripled their work in the last year or two.

00:55:51

They're now restoring 6-7 houses per year

00:55:55

of people in poverty who have no hope and no help.

00:55:59

But their goal is to see all of it happen

00:56:01

across all of Puerto Rico, 6-7 houses per year.

00:56:05

Are they likely to finish that by the time that they die? No.

00:56:08

Doesn't mean it's not worth working for

00:56:10

because you can work with the tide of God,

00:56:12

or you can work against the tide of God.

00:56:14

We want to work with the tide of God.

00:56:17

Now, this year actually is the is the 20th anniversary

00:56:19

of the first ever Go Trip that we ever did

00:56:22

to Mamelodi, South Africa. 2006.

00:56:28

We took 300 regular people who fundraised their own money

00:56:32

to go over to help open the Aids hospice that we paid for

00:56:35

out of our pockets from people who trusted God with our income

00:56:39

and go over there and open up that Aids hospice.

00:56:41

We planted gardens and we built houses

00:56:43

and we built into the kids over there.

00:56:46

It was an amazing experience. I was actually on that trip.

00:56:49

This is my shirt from that trip, by the way.

00:56:51

Still fits 20 years later. How about that? '06 Mamelodi.

00:56:56

And I'll tell you, man, it was it was an amazing experience

00:56:59

to get to go over there.

00:57:00

That's me and Sarah on the trip, by the way, 20 years ago.

00:57:04

I don't have that shirt anymore.

00:57:06

That one, that one disappeared.

00:57:09

That was an amazing, amazing thing to 20 years later

00:57:12

get to go to Go Puerto Rico with my daughter.

00:57:14

And I'd love to tell you a little bit about that trip,

00:57:16

but I figured rather than hear from me,

00:57:18

you might rather hear from her.

00:57:20

So please welcome Gracie to the stage.

00:57:31

Gracie, by the way, she failed to ask me

00:57:32

what time church starts when she volunteered to do this,

00:57:35

and so it was a little earlier than she thought it might be.

00:57:37

So glad that you're here. Okay.

00:57:39

Tell us about what we did and who we did it for.

00:57:43

- Okay. So our group had like, 25 people in it,

00:57:47

and we split up to do two different houses.

00:57:50

I was working for someone named Maria,

00:57:54

and she was an older woman in her 80s

00:57:56

who didn't have any family or friends.

00:58:00

And so her kitchen was just destroyed.

00:58:05

And then like all of her paint was peeling

00:58:07

and there was cockroaches and it's just not safe to live in.

00:58:11

- Yeah. That's right.

00:58:12

And, um, what did we finish for her in the week?

00:58:17

Did we finish her kitchen?

00:58:18

- No, we did not finish her kitchen.

00:58:20

- Okay. Do you think it was worth doing anyway?

00:58:22

- Yes. - Well, why?

00:58:24

- Because, like, you have to start somewhere,

00:58:26

and then I know there is going to be more people coming

00:58:29

and then they're going to finish it.

00:58:31

- Okay. Part of the cool part.

00:58:33

By the way, this house, just so you all understand,

00:58:36

Gracie's being very kind.

00:58:37

The living conditions would shock you.

00:58:40

Um, I've been all over the world,

00:58:43

and I've seen poverty in all kinds of different forms.

00:58:46

This was the worst living conditions I've ever seen.

00:58:49

No running water. No one to help her.

00:58:52

Uh, old food on the floor. She had a dog.

00:58:55

It would do its business all around the house.

00:58:58

Um, it was -- it was really hard.

00:59:00

You see us wearing masks in that video.

00:59:02

That's because the smell of the house was so overpowering.

00:59:05

We had to wear them so that we could just stay inside

00:59:07

and actually do the do the work.

00:59:09

We saw lots of cockroaches, spiders.

00:59:11

How big were the spiders?

00:59:13

- Like the size of my hand.

00:59:14

- Okay. And did you like that? - No.

00:59:15

- No. Okay.

00:59:17

You did the work anyway? - Yeah.

00:59:19

- Okay. One of the other cool parts

00:59:21

is that we got to stay in the neighborhood.

00:59:24

The house that we stayed in

00:59:25

was about five doors down from Maria.

00:59:27

And so we got to know and see

00:59:28

the neighborhood itself really, really well.

00:59:30

How many Marias do you think there are in Puerto Rico?

00:59:34

- Probably thousands. - Thousands.

00:59:37

And so we kind of helped one. Yeah.

00:59:42

Do you think it's worth it though to help Maria?

00:59:45

- Yeah. - Okay. Why?

00:59:46

- Because like you have to start somewhere

00:59:49

and then, like, those thousands could turn into hundreds.

00:59:51

Hundreds could turn into tens.

00:59:53

And then soon there's, like, no Maria's left.

00:59:55

- It's amazing. Right? [applause]

01:00:02

Now, I know that as adults, we can listen to Gracie,

01:00:06

a child, talking about this,

01:00:07

and we're like, "Oh, that's so sweet.

01:00:11

You're so naive.

01:00:15

You think you can make a difference? That's cute." Right?

01:00:19

I get it. Do you know that the God you serve

01:00:25

says that you can't enter His Kingdom

01:00:27

unless you have the faith of a child.

01:00:31

Unless you take the same attitude and you say,

01:00:33

hey, I know it seems impossible,

01:00:37

but I serve a God who does the impossible.

01:00:39

Unless you take the attitude of

01:00:40

I know it might not happen in my lifetime,

01:00:42

but it doesn't mean it can't happen.

01:00:45

God says, you cannot enter My Kingdom.

01:00:47

This is what faith looks like, to say it's worth it

01:00:50

to work towards it anyway.

01:00:52

Okay, now, so tell us about the trip.

01:00:54

How did the trip change you?

01:00:56

- Well, like before, I was like,

01:00:58

"Oh yeah, I'm going to go serve. It'll be fun."

01:01:00

And then like, after I was like, "I want to serve people."

01:01:05

Yeah. It kind of became like a mission, right?

01:01:07

Yeah.

01:01:08

- Incredible. Okay. Last question for you.

01:01:12

Um, there are probably some other families in here

01:01:15

who maybe they didn't even know that we do family Go Trips,

01:01:18

maybe some other people who are thinking about

01:01:20

going on a Go Trip, maybe as a family,

01:01:21

or maybe not even as a family. What would you say to them?

01:01:26

- I would say you should definitely go. It's so great.

01:01:29

And you get to spend time with your family

01:01:30

and you get to help people.

01:01:32

- Okay, awesome. Thank you. - Bye.

01:01:42

- Now, you should know I didn't tell her to say any of that.

01:01:46

We didn't practice.

01:01:47

I was like, "Hey,

01:01:49

do you want to be on stage with me this weekend?"

01:01:51

She was like, sure.

01:01:53

She was like, "What would you want me to do?"

01:01:55

So I'm going to ask you some questions.

01:01:56

She goes, "What are they?"

01:01:58

"We'll talk about it when we're up there."

01:02:01

By the way, if you do want to sign up as a family,

01:02:03

if you do, or maybe, maybe just as on your own,

01:02:06

Go Trip sign ups are open this weekend.

01:02:09

They weren't supposed to be open, but I said,

01:02:11

"Hey, can we open them up

01:02:12

in case some people want to take a step?"

01:02:14

Because again, faith is not what I think about up in my head,

01:02:17

it's about what I actually do.

01:02:19

So I wanted to make sure that you had the opportunity

01:02:21

to sign up for a trip.

01:02:22

You can go to Crossroads.net and look at all the different trips

01:02:25

to all the different parts of the world.

01:02:27

Love, love, love you to take advantage of that

01:02:29

and to go do it.

01:02:30

Love for you to do that. The time is now.

01:02:33

This time now for today is also the time

01:02:35

for the World Cup final, by the way.

01:02:38

We haven't talked about that yet. Probably should.

01:02:41

World Cup final today. Who's rooting for Spain? [cheers]

01:02:45

Okay, Yamal, amazing player.

01:02:48

Who's rooting for Argentina? [cheers]

01:02:52

Uh, I'm rooting for Argentina for one reason: Messi.

01:02:57

It's because messy is a short king like myself

01:03:00

and we got to stick together,

01:03:02

that's why I want to see him win.

01:03:04

We'll see. Now, when you watch the game today,

01:03:07

you're going to see a lot of people wearing jerseys

01:03:11

all over the stadium, in fact.

01:03:13

People in the stands and people on the on the field.

01:03:15

Everyone will be wearing a jersey.

01:03:18

But at the end of the game, there'll be two kinds of people,

01:03:21

people whose jersey is still clean

01:03:24

and people whose jersey is dirty.

01:03:26

People who stayed in the stands and watched and cheered,

01:03:29

and people who actually got in the game and made a difference.

01:03:34

Friends, do you know that if you believe in Jesus,

01:03:37

you have a jersey? Do you know this?

01:03:39

This is what Galatians 3:26 says:

01:03:42

So in Christ Jesus you were all children of God through faith,

01:03:45

for all of you who were baptized into Christ

01:03:50

have clothed yourself with Christ.

01:03:54

You're wearing a jersey.

01:03:57

When we send people on Go Trips for the last 20 years,

01:03:59

you get a trip shirt. It's your jersey.

01:04:04

And the goal is for it to not come back clean.

01:04:08

The goal is to get it dirty, to have paint

01:04:10

and stains and sweat all over it,

01:04:12

because you worked and because you mattered.

01:04:15

Gracie was actually mad at Sarah

01:04:17

because Sarah washed her Go Trip shirt as soon as we got back.

01:04:20

And she was like, now it's going to be clean

01:04:22

and she was so bummed.

01:04:23

She was excited when it came out and it had paint on it still.

01:04:26

She was like, "Good. That's what it's supposed.

01:04:28

It's supposed to be dirty." By the way, you should --

01:04:30

You should thank Sarah for washing that shirt.

01:04:32

It smelled like death ate egg salad and farted.

01:04:34

It was terrible.

01:04:36

You could have smelled it through the screen, I promise.

01:04:39

It was really bad.

01:04:41

But she gets it, man.

01:04:42

Your jersey is not supposed to stay clean.

01:04:46

The goal of life is not to go through it

01:04:48

and live an ordinary story.

01:04:49

The goal of life is to do the things

01:04:52

that exercise extraordinary faith by doing things

01:04:56

that other people aren't willing to do,

01:04:58

by living a life that other people find crazy.

01:05:01

That's the whole point of it, to get your jersey dirty.

01:05:04

And when you do, by the way, that's what will grow you.

01:05:07

That's what will give you the confidence

01:05:09

because you'll go out and you'll see what God did

01:05:11

and give you the confidence to come back

01:05:13

and to keep on doing it.

01:05:14

You watch my daughter right there, she's come back changed.

01:05:17

Why? Because she went out and she grew.

01:05:20

Her faith is now stronger.

01:05:23

Your faith will not grow from a seat. It won't.

01:05:28

You can come to church. You can watch church all you want.

01:05:30

Hope you do. It's important.

01:05:32

Please keep coming. Please keep watching.

01:05:33

Please keep bringing friends with you.

01:05:35

It's where you can get inspired to go have faith,

01:05:39

to go do stuff.

01:05:41

And my hope and my prayer for you is that you have

01:05:43

the courage to follow in the path of Joseph,

01:05:45

that you have the confidence to step out and say,

01:05:47

"I believe that God is bringing His Kingdom,

01:05:50

and I'm determined to be part of that story.

01:05:53

I'm determined to get my jersey dirty and to get in the fight."

01:05:57

Told you my hope and my prayer is that

01:05:59

you'll be bothered to action today.

01:06:01

I don't know what that action is.

01:06:02

For all of us it's something different.

01:06:04

I mean, that's the amazing part about God,

01:06:06

there's not a one size fits all call.

01:06:08

You have a unique call in your life.

01:06:10

You have a place that God is inviting you to step out into.

01:06:14

I don't know what it is, but God does.

01:06:16

And God's not stingy with sharing with you.

01:06:19

If you ask what it is, He'll tell you. He'll tell you.

01:06:23

So before you run out, I want you to close your eyes.

01:06:26

Close your eyes, I want you to ask God

01:06:32

if there's any place of faith He wants you to step into.

01:06:37

Is there a place He wants you to go?

01:06:40

Maybe it is going on a Go Trip.

01:06:43

If it is, why don't you commit to God right now

01:06:46

that before the day is out, you'll go to the website

01:06:49

and you'll at least look at the trips. Commit that.

01:06:54

Maybe for you it's stepping into a place of serving.

01:06:58

Maybe there's somebody, a Maria in your own neighborhood

01:07:00

who's come to your mind as you were telling that story,

01:07:02

somebody who has no help. Commit to step in and help.

01:07:07

Maybe for you it's something from the Run Journey

01:07:10

that we did a few months ago.

01:07:11

Maybe there's something in that journey

01:07:13

that God prompted you with, a race He had for you,

01:07:17

and you were inspired in the moment,

01:07:18

but life has come in and you haven't taken the step yet.

01:07:22

Well, friends, I just want to read this verse over you.

01:07:24

It says there's a cloud of witnesses cheering you on.

01:07:27

That includes Joseph, who we just talked about today,

01:07:29

and everyone in the Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith.

01:07:31

Hebrews 12 says: Therefore, since we are surrounded

01:07:34

by so great a cloud of witnesses,

01:07:36

let us also lay aside every weight, every reason not to act,

01:07:41

every excuse that we have in sin which clings so closely,

01:07:44

and let us run with endurance the race that set before us,

01:07:49

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

01:07:55

God, I'm thankful that You invite us into a life of impact.

01:08:00

You could have just invited us to be fans

01:08:02

who cheer other people on, but You invited us into the game.

01:08:05

Give us the courage to step in, God.

01:08:07

I pray for more jerseys that get dirty.

01:08:10

I pray for more families who are willing to get sent.

01:08:13

I pray for more people who are willing to step into the gap

01:08:17

and to go to the uncomfortable place, and to push

01:08:19

and to work and to sweat and to see Your Kingdom come.

01:08:23

God, that's why we're here.

01:08:24

We believe in Your promise. Amen.

01:08:29

- Amen. - Amen. Amen.

01:08:30

- Man, I hope you heard a little bit today

01:08:33

of how God wants to enlist you, how God wants to invite you

01:08:37

into something that has such huge meaning,

01:08:39

such huge potential for impact and purpose,

01:08:42

not just for somebody else,

01:08:44

although absolutely for somebody else, but also for you,

01:08:47

for your own heart, for your own character, for your own growth.

01:08:50

He had that line right at the end, it was

01:08:54

I hope that God bothers you to action.

01:08:56

- Yeah. Yeah. - Gosh, that is so good.

01:08:58

Like, I'm going to be thinking about that

01:09:00

for the next two weeks.

01:09:01

- Absolutely. - What does it look like?

01:09:03

What are the places where God is bothering me to action?

01:09:06

I know what a few of them are.

01:09:07

- It's like a holy unrest there, right?

01:09:09

Yeah. Yeah. I love that, man. I love it.

01:09:11

- And I wonder what it is for you.

01:09:13

I wonder what thing God wants you to take a step towards.

01:09:16

Kyle talked about running a race.

01:09:17

Every race is a step after a step after a step.

01:09:21

You don't have to know the whole thing.

01:09:22

You don't even have to have the endurance for the full race yet.

01:09:25

But you do need to figure out

01:09:27

what is your next step towards God.

01:09:29

And I would love for Crossroads to be a community that

01:09:32

you can grow alongside of, not just a thing you can watch.

01:09:35

- Yeah. So that you don't have to take that step alone.

01:09:37

We would love for you to get involved here

01:09:39

whatever way works best for you.

01:09:41

One of the ways that we have designed for you

01:09:43

is for you to reach out to us via email.

01:09:45

You can email us at Anywhere@crossroads.net,

01:09:48

or you can chat with us on our website.

01:09:49

We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to pray with you.

01:09:52

We'd love to chat with you and discuss

01:09:54

what does that next step look like

01:09:55

and possibly point you in some directions, man.

01:09:58

- Yeah, yeah, we'd love to have a one on one conversation

01:10:01

or email thread or whatever to help you figure out

01:10:04

what that next step is for you to grow

01:10:06

and get the most out of the adventure

01:10:08

that God's calling you to and to get your jersey dirty.

01:10:11

So thanks so much for watching.

01:10:13

We'll see you next week on Crossroads.

First, Go. Then Grow | How God Uses Your Movement to Bring Heaven to Earth

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